Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp | Page 6

least) is
written in a much purer and more scholarly style than Aladdin, but its
pre-existence in El Ferej bad esh Shiddeh (even if we treat as
apocryphal Petis de la Croix's account of the Hezar o Yek Roz) is
sufficient, in the absence of contrary evidence, to justify us in refusing
to consider it as belonging to the Thousand Nights and One Night
proper. As shown by Galland's own experience, complete copies of the

genuine work were rarely to be met with, collections of "silly stories"
(as the Oriental savant, who inclines to regard nothing in the way of
literature save theology, grammar and poetry, would style them), being
generally considered by the Arab bibliographer undeserving of record
or preservation, and the fragmentary copies which existed were mostly
in the hands of professional story-tellers, who were extremely
unwilling to part with them, looking upon them as their stock in trade,
and were in the habit of incorporating with the genuine text all kinds of
stories and anecdotes from other sources, to fill the place of the missing
portions of the original work. This process of addition and
incorporation, which has been in progress ever since the first collection
of the Nights into one distinct work and is doubtless still going on in
Oriental countries, (especially such as are least in contact with
European influence,) may account for the heterogeneous character of
the various modern MSS. of the Nights and for the immense difference
which exists between the several texts, as well in actual contents as in
the details and diction of such stories as are common to all. The Tunis
MS. of the 1001 Nights (which is preserved in the Breslau University
Library and which formed the principal foundation of Habicht's Edition
of the Arabic text) affords a striking example of this process, which we
are here enabled to see in mid-operation, the greater part of the tales of
which it consists having not yet been adapted to the framework of the
Nights. It is dated A.H. 1144 (A.D. 1732) and of the ten volumes of
which it consists, i, ii (Nights I--CCL) and x (Nights
DCCCLXXXV-MI) are alone divided into Nights, the division of the
remaining seven volumes (i.e. iii--ix, containing, inter alia, the Story of
the Sleeper Awakened) being the work of the German editor. It is my
belief, therefore, that the three "interpolated" tales identified as forming
part of the Baghdad MS. of 1703 are comparatively modern stories
added to the genuine text by Rawis (story-tellers) or professional
writers employed by them, and I see no reason to doubt that we shall
yet discover the Arabic text of the remaining eight, either in Hanna's
version (as written down for Galland) or in some as yet unexamined
MS. of the Nights or other work of like character.

V.

M. Zotenberg has, with great judgment, taken as his standard for
publication the text of Aladdin given by the Sebbagh MS., inasmuch as
the Shawish MS. (besides being, as appears from the extracts given.
[FN#20] far inferior both in style and general correctness,) is shown by
the editor to be full of modern European phrases and turns of speech
and to present so many suspicious peculiarities that it would be difficult,
having regard, moreover, to the doubtful character and reputation of the
Syrian monkish adventurer who styled himself Dom Denis Chavis, to
resist the conviction that his MS. was a forgery, i.e. professedly a copy
of a genuine Arabic text, but in reality only a translation or paraphrase
in that language of Galland's version,--were it not that the Baghdad MS.
(dated before the commencement, in 1704, of Galland's publication and
transcribed by a man--Mikhail Sebbagh--whose reputation, as a
collaborator of Silvestre de Sacy and other distinguished Orientalists, is
a sufficient voucher for the authenticity of the copy in the Bibliotheque
Nationale,) contains a text essentially identical with that of Shawish.
Moreover, it is evident, from a comparison with Galland's rendering
and making allowance for the latter's system of translation, that the
Arabic version of Aladdin given him by Hanna must either have been
derived from the Baghdad text or from some other practically identical
source, and it is therefore probable that Shawish, having apparently
been employed to make up the missing portion of Galland's Arabic text
and not having the Hanna MS. at his command, had (with the execrable
taste and want of literary morality which distinguished Cazotte's
monkish coadjutor) endeavoured to bring his available text up to what
he considered the requisite standard by modernizing and Gallicizing its
wording and (in particular) introducing numerous European phrases
and turns of speech in imitation of the French translator. The whole
question is, of course, as yet a matter of more or less probable
hypothesis, and so it must remain until further