Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp

Alaeddin and the Enchanted
Lamp

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Title: Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp
Author: John Payne
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ALAEDDIN and the ENCHANTED LAMP;
Zein Ul Asnam and the King of the Jinn: Two Stories Done into
English from the Recently Discovered Arabic Text
by John Payne
London 1901

To Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, K.C.M.G., H.B.M. CONSUL,
TRIESTE.
My Dear Burton,
I give myself the pleasure of placing your name in the forefront of
another and final volume of my translation of the Thousand and One
Nights, which, if it have brought me no other good, has at least been
the means of procuring me your friendship.
Believe me,
Yours always,
John Payne.

Twelve years this day,--a day of winter, dreary With drifting snows,
when all the world seemed dead To Spring and hope,--it is since, worn
and weary Of doubt within and strife without, I fled
From the mean workday miseries of existence, From spites that slander
and from hates that lie, Into the dreamland of the Orient distance Under
the splendours of the Syrian sky,
And in the enchanted realms of Eastern story, Far from the lovelessness
of modern times,
Garnered the rainbow-remnants of old glory That linger yet in those

ancestral climes;
And now, the tong task done, the journey over, From that far home of
immemorial calms, Where, as a mirage, on the sky-marge hover The
desert and its oases of palms,
Lingering, I turn me back, with eyes reverted To this stepmother world
of daily life, As one by some long pleasant dream deserted, That wakes
anew to dull unlovely strife:
Yet, if non' other weal the quest have wrought me. The long beloved
labour now at end, This gift of gifts the untravelled East hath brought
me, The knowledge of a new and valued friend.
5th Feb. 1889.

INTRODUCTION.
I.
The readers of my translation of the Book of the Thousand Nights and
One Night will remember that, in the terminal essay (1884) on the
history and character of the collection, I expressed my conviction that
the eleven (so-called) "interpolated" tales, [FN#1] though, in my
judgment, genuine Oriental stories, had (with the exception of the
Sleeper Awakened and Aladdin) no connection with the original work,
but had been procured by Galland from various (as yet) unidentified
sources, for the purpose of supplying the deficiencies of the imperfect
MS. of the Nights from which he made his version. [FN#2] My opinion
as to these talcs has now been completely confirmed by the recent
discovery (by M. Zotenberg, Keeper of Oriental MSS. in the
Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris) of two Arabic MSS. of the Nights,
both containing three of the missing stories, i.e. (1) Zeyn Alasnam, (3)
The Sleeper Awakened and (4) Aladdin, and by the publication (also by
M. Zotenberg) of certain extracts from Galland's diary, giving
particulars of the circumstances under which the "interpolated" tales
were incorporated with his translation of the Arabian Nights. The
Arabic text of the Story of Aladdin, as given by the completer and more
authentic of the newly-discovered MSS., has recently been made by M.
Zotenberg the subject of a special publication, [FN#3] in the preface to
which (an exhaustive bibliographical essay upon the various Texts of
the Thousand and One Nights, considered in relation to Galland's
translation) he gives, in addition to the extracts in question from

Galland's Diary, a detailed description of the two MSS. aforesaid, the
more interesting particulars of which I now proceed to abstract for the
benefit of my readers.

II.

The first MS.