Part 35 (1/2)

The most complete text of The Scented Garden is that now preserved in the library at Algiers, and there are also en In 1850 a manuscript which seems to have corresponded practically with The Torch of the World was translated into French by a Staff Officer of the French Areria, and an edition of thirty-five copies was printed by an autographic process in Algiers in the year 1876 [581] In 1886 an edition of 220 copies was issued by the French publisher Isidore Liseux, and the sa the imprint of the Kama Shastra Society This is the book that Burton calls ”my old version,” [582]

which, of course, proves that he had soe English even the Kama Shastra Society's version; unless, perchance, he had been prepared by reading Burton's Arabian Nights or the Fiftieth Chapter of Gibbon's Decline and Fall with the Latin Notes, though even these give but a feeble idea of the fleshi+ness of The Scented Garden Indeed, as A to the Arabs, says: ”Incredible est quo ardore apud eos in venerem uterque solvitur sexus”

160 Contents of The Scented Garden

Nafzawi divided his book into twenty one-chapters ”in order tofor the taleb (student)” It consists of descriptions of ”Praiseworthy Men” and ”Praiseworthy Women” from a Nafzawin point of view, interpretations of dreams, medical recipes for impotence, &c, lists of aphrodisiacs, and stories confirer tales are those of Moseilham” [586]--all furiously Fescinnine

The story of Moseilema, Lord of Yamama, is familiar in one forton Irving epitomises it in his inexpressibly beautiful ”Successors” of Mahomet [587] and Gibbon [588] tells it more fully, partly in his text and partly in his Latin footnotes Moseilema was, no doubt, for some years quite as influential a prophet as his rival Mohaood a man, [589] but Nafzawi--staunch Mohau perverted sundry chapters in the Koran by his lies and impostures, and declares that he did worse than fail when he attempted to imitate Mohammed's miracles ”Now Moseilema (whom may Allah curse!), when he put his luckless hand on the head of some one who had not much hair, the man was at once quite bald and when he laid his hand upon the head of an infant, saying, 'Live a hundred years,' the infant died within an hour” As a matter of fact, however, Moseileures in Arabic history [590] Sedja, Queen and Prophetess, went to see him in much the same spirit that the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon Moseilema, who outlived Mohammed about a year, was defeated and slain near his capital Yamama, by the Mohammedan hero Khalid, and Sedjah subsequently embraced Islamism

In the tale entitled ”Djoaidi and Fadehat el Djemal” [591] appears that hoary poet, philosopher and reprobate, Abu Nowas [592] of The Arabian Nights Like the Nights, The Scented Garden has a cycle of tales illustrative of the cunning and malice of women But all the women in those days and countries were not bad, just as all were not plain

Plumpness seems to have been the principal attraction of sex, and the Kaoes so far as to assure us that a woman who had a double chin, [593] was irresistible If so, there were probably no words in the language good enough to describe a wo, however, to the author of the recent Paris translation [594]

this particular rendering is a mistake He considers that the idea Nafzaished to convey was the tower-like form of the neck, [595] but in any circumstances the denizens of The Scented Garden placed plumpness in the forefront of the virtues; which proves, of course, the negroid origin of at any rate some of the stories, [596] for a true Arab values slenderness Over and over again in the Nights we are told of soht and tall with a shape like the letter Alif or a and The perfect wo to Mafzawi, perfumes herself with scents, uses ithmid [597] (antimony) for her toilet, and cleans her teeth with bark of the walnut tree There are chapters on sterility, long lists of the kind to be found in Rabelais, and soleainst excess, chiefly on account of its resulting in weakness of sight, with other ”observations useful for men and women”

While chapters i to xx concern almost entirely the relations between the opposite sexes, Chapter xxi [598] which constitutes ely of those unspeakable vices which as St Paul and St Jude show, and the pages of Petronius and other ancient authors prove, were so coan world, and which, as Burton and other travellers inform us, are still practised in the East

”The style and language in which the Perfumed Garden is written are,”

says the writer of the Foreword to the Paris edition of 1904, ”of the si occasionally to a very high degree of eloquence, resehts and a Night; but, while the latter abounds in Egyptian colloquialis to the recurrence of North African idioenerally known” In short, the literary h Nafzarote his extended Scented Garden for scholars only, he seeone in fear lest it norant and do harm So he ended it with:

”O you who read this, and think of the author And do not exeood opinion of hiive us and him'” [599]

161 Sir Richard Burton's Translation

It was in the autumn of 1888, as we have seen, that Sir Richard Burton, who considered the book to take, froh rank, conceived the idea ofa new translation, to be furnished with annotations of a most elaborate nature He called it at first, with his fondness for rhyht, and finally decided upon The Scented Garden--Man's Heart to Gladden Sir Richard's Translation was froiers manuscript, a copy of which was hty pounds, by M O Houdas, Professor at the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes This was of the first twenty chapters Whether a copy of the 21st Chapter ever reached Sir Richard we have not been able to ascertain On 31st March 1890, he wrote in his Journal: ”Began, or rather resumed, Scented Garden,” [600] and thenceforward he worked at it sedulously Now and again the Berber or Kabyle words hich the ave him trouble, and fronan, ”the erudite coue of Arabic books and MSS in the Bibliotheque Nationale d'Alger” and other Algerian correspondents Lady Burton describes her husband's work as ”a translation froinal” with ”copious notes and explanations” of Burton's own--the result, indeed, of a lifetime of research ”The first two chapters were a raw translation of the works of Numa Numantius [601]

without any annotations at all, or comments of any kind on Richard's part, and twenty chapters, translations of Shaykh el Nafzawi from Arabic In fact, it was all translation, except the annotations on the Arabic work” [602] Thus Burton really translated only Chapters i to xx, or one-half of the work But it is evident from his remarks on the last day of his life that he considered the work finished with the exception of the pues that he was never able to obtain a copy of the 21st Chapter Lady Burton's statement and this assumption are corroborated by a conversation which the writer had with Mr John Payne in the autuain that in his eyes the unpardonable defect of the Arabic text of The Scented Garden was that it altogether omitted the subject upon which he had for some years bestowed special study” If Burton had been acquainted with the Arabic text of the 21st Chapter he, of course, would not have made that complaint; still, as his letters show, he are that such aco the contents of The Scented Garden, Burton continued, ”Consequently, I have appliedallon my special study, and I have been so successful that I have thus trebled the original hts, the annotations were to have no particular connection with the text Quite two-thirds of these notes consisted of ain against the whole scheiven the world quite enough of this kind of inforhts But the latter could not see with his friend

He insisted on the enorical and historical importance of these notes--and that the world would be the loser were he to withold them; in fact, his whole mind was absorbed in the subject

Chapter xxxV 15th October 1888 to 21st July 1890 Working at the ”Catullus” and ”The Scented Garden”