Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights | Page 5

little for the style of the story-stuff contained in this Breslau text, which has been edited with phenomenal incuriousness. Many parts are hopelessly corrupted, whilst at present we have no means of amending the commissions and of supplying the omissions by comparison with other manuscripts. The Arabic is not only faulty, but dry and jejune, comparing badly with that of the "Thousand Nights and a Night," as it appears in the Macnaghten and the abridged Bulak Texts. Sundry of the tales are futile; the majority has little to recommend it, and not a few require a diviner rather than a translator. Yet they are valuable to students as showing the different sources and the heterogeneous materials from and of which the great Saga-book has been compounded. Some are, moreover, striking and novel, especially parts of the series entitled King Shah Bakht and his Wazir Al- Rahwan (pp. 191-355). Interesting also is the Tale of the "Ten Wazirs" (pp. 55-155), marking the transition of the Persian Bakhtiyár-Námeh into Arabic. In this text also and in this only is found Galland's popular tale "Abou-Hassan; or, the Sleeper Awakened," which I have entitled "The Sleeper and the Waker."
In the ten volumes of "The Nights" proper, I mostly avoided parallels of folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting and valuable to scholars, would have over-swollen the bulk of a work especially devoted to Anthropology. In the "Supplementals," however, it is otherwise; and, as Mr. W.A. Clouston, the "Storiologist," has obligingly agreed to collaborate with me, I shall pay marked attention to this subject, which will thus form another raison d'ête for the additional volumes.
Richard F. Burton
Junior Travellers' Club, December 1, 1886

Supplemental Nights
To The Book Of The
Thousand Nights And A Night

The Sleeper and the Waker.[FN#1]

It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there was once at Baghdad, in the Caliphate of Harun al-Rashid, a man and a merchant, who had a son Abú al-Hasan-al-Khalí'a by name.[FN#2] The merchant died leaving great store of wealth to his heir who divided it into two equal parts, whereof he laid up one and spent of the other half; and he fell to companying with Persians[FN#3] and with the sons of the merchants and he gave himself up to good drinking and good eating, till all the wealth[FN#4] he had with him was wasted and wantoned; whereupon he betook himself to his friends and comrades and cup-companions and expounded to them his case, discovering to them the failure of that which was in his hand of wealth. But not one of them took heed of him or even deigned answer him. So he returned to his mother (and indeed his spirit was broken) and related to her that which had happened to him and what had befallen him from his friends, how they had neither shared with him nor required him with speech. Quoth she, "O Abu al-Hasan, on this wise are the sons[FN#5] of this time: an thou have aught, they draw thee near to them,[FN#6] and if thou have naught, they put thee away from them." And she went on to condole with him, what while he bewailed himself and his tears flowed and he repeated these lines:--
"An wane my wealth, no mane will succour me, * When my wealth waxeth all men friendly show: How many a friend, for wealth showed friendliness * Who, when my wealth departed, turned to foe!"
Then he sprang up and going to the place wherein was the other half of his good, took it and lived with it well; and he sware that he would never again consort with a single one of those he had known, but would company only with the stranger nor entertain even him but one night and that, when it morrowed, he would never know him more. Accordingly he fell to sitting every eventide on the bridge over Tigris and looking at each one who passed by him; and if he saw him to be a stranger, he made friends with him and caroused with him all night till morning. Then he dismissed him and would never more salute him with the Salam nor ever more drew near unto him neither invited him again. Thus he continued to do for the space of a full year, till, one day, while he sat on the bridge, as was his wont, expecting who should come to him so he might take him and pass the night with him, behold, up came the Caliph and Masrur, the Sworder of his vengeance[FN#7] disguised in merchants dress, according to their custom. So Abu al-Hasan looked at them and rising, because he knew them not, asked them, "What say ye? Will ye go with me to my dwelling-place, so ye may eat what is ready and drink what is at hand, to wit,