Part 34 (2/2)

surchargedthat I took thee from thy parents by fraud and I bore thee as a present to the King of the Jinn

Indeed I had well nigh determined to forfeit all my profit of the Ninth Statue and to bear thee away to Bassorah as my own bride, whenlest I bring about my death” [567]

Scarce had the prince Nor had Zayn al Asnam

made an end of his speech ended his words ere they when they heard a noise heard the roar of thunderings of thunder rending the that would rend aat earth, whereat the Queen hold upon the queen, the Mother was seized with ht Yea and sore tre; But presently appeared but, after a little, the the King of the Jinn, King of the Jinn who said to her, ”O my appeared and said to her, lady, fear not! Tis I, the ”O Lady, fear not, it is protector of thy son, whom I who am thy son's I fondly affect for the protector and I love hi love his sire I also am he who for the love his father manifested myself to him bore me

Nay, I am he in his sleep, and my object who appeared to him in therein was to make trial his sleep and in this I of his valiance and to learn purposed to try his an he could do violence to fortitude, whether or not his passions for the sake he ht avail to subdue of his promise, or whether himself for loyalty's the beauty of this lady sake” would so tempt and allure

hiard”

Here, again, Payne is concise and literal, Burton diffuse and gratuitously paraphrastic as appears above and everywhere, and the other rehts proper also apply, except, of course, that in this instance Burton had not Payne's version to refer to, with the consequence that in these two tales (”Alaeddin”

and ”Zayn Al Asnam”) there are over five hundred places in which the two translators differ as to the rendering, although they worked from the same MS copy, that of M Houdas, lent by him to Burton and afterwards to Payne Arabists tell us that in practically every instance Payne is right, Burton wrong The truth is that, while in colloquial Arabic Burton was perfect, in literary Arabic he was far to seek, [568] whereas Mr Payne had studied the subject carefully and deeply for years

But Burton's weakness here is not surprising A Frenchlish, and yet find so into French a play of Shakespeare or an essay of Macaulay Burton s He attehts, as in the Nights proper, his great feature is the annotating Again we have a ithin a work, and the value of these notes is recognised on all sides Yet they are even less necessary for elucidating the text than those in the Nights proper Take for example the tremendous note in Vol i on the word ”eunuchs” As everybody knohat a eunuch is, the text is perfectly clear Yet what a ed that the bulk of Burton's notes, both to the Nights proper and the Supplehts, are out of place in a work of this kind--all we can say is ”There they are” We must remember, too, that he had absolutely no othertheraphy:

77 The Scented Garden ”My new Version,” translated 1888-1890

158 Nafzawi

As we learn froan his ”new version” of The Scented Garden, or as it is sometimes called, The Perfumed Garden, in real earnest early in that month, and Lady Burton tells us that it ”occupied him seriously only six actual months,”

[569] that is, the last six ive its full title, ”The Scented Garden for the Soul's Recreation” was the work of a learned Arab Shaykh and physician named Nafzaas born at Nafzawa, a white, [570]

palleamed by the shore of the Sebkha--that is, salt marsh--Shot al Jarid; and spent most of his life in Tunis The date of his birth is unrecorded, but The Scented Garden seems to have been written in 1431 [571] Nafzawi, like Vatsyayana, fro been an intensely religious man, but his book abounds in erotic tales seasoned to such an extent as would have put to the blush even the not very sensitive ”Tincker of Turvey” [572] It abounds in , [573] is avowedly an aphrodisiac, and was intended, if one may borrow an expression from Juvenal, ”to revive the fire in nuptial cinders” [574] Moslerised coffee, and for the same reason Nafzawi, indeed, is the very antithesis of the English Sir Thoio Medici, [575] coht procreate like trees” Holding that no natural action of athan another, Nafzawi could never think of a ”Glory be to God,” or some such phrase But ”Moslems,” says Burton, ”who do their best to countermine the ascetic idea inherent in Christianity, [576] are not ashamed of the sensual appetite, but rather the reverse” [577] Nafzawi, indeed, praises Allah for amorous pleasures just as other writers have exhausted the vocabulary in gratitude for a loaded fruit tree or an iridescent sunset His mind runs on the houris promised to the faithful after death, and he says that these pleasures are ”part of the delights of paradise awarded by Allah as a foretaste of what is waiting for us, nahts a thousand tiht of the Benevolent is to be placed” We who anticipate walls of jasper and streets of gold ought not, perhaps, to be too severe on the Tunisian It ift of huin of The Scented Garden

The origin of the book was as follows: A s with ”The Mysteries of Generation,” and written by Nafzawi, had come into the hands of the Vizier of the Sultan of Tunis Thereupon the Vizier sent for the author and received hi Nafzawi blush, he said, ”You need not be asha you have said is true; no one need be shocked at your words

Moreover, you are not the first who has treated of this matter; and I swear by Allah that it is necessary to know this book It is only the shameless boor and the enemy of all science ill not read it, or ill s which you will have to treat about yet” And he mentioned other subjects, chiefly of a medical character

”Oh, my master,” replied Nafzawi, ”all you have said here is not difficult to do, if it is the pleasure of Allah on high”

”I forthwith,” comments Nafzaent to ith the co the assistance of Allah (May He pour His blessing on the prophet) [580] and may happiness and pity be with him”