The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 1 | Page 4

de larmes escripre, Pour ce que rire est le propre
des hommes." - Rabelais.
"The pleasure we derive from perusing the Thousand and One Stories
makes us regret that we possess only a comparatively small part of
these truly enchanting fictions." - Crichton's "History of Arabia."

Contents of the First Volume
Introduction Story Of King Shahryar and His Brother a. Tale of the
Bull and the Ass 1. Tale of the Trader and the Jinni a. The First
Shaykh's Story b. The Second Shaykh's Story c. The Third Shaykh's
Story 2. The Fisherman and the Jinni a. Tale of the Wazir and the Sage
Duban ab. Story of King Sindibad and His Falcon ac. Tale of the
Husband and the Parrot ad. Tale of the Prince and the Ogress b. Tale of
the Ensorcelled Prince 3. The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad a.
The First Kalandar's Tale b. The Second Kalandar's Tale ba. Tale of the
Envier and the Envied c. The Third Kalandar's Tale d. The Eldest
Lady's Tale e. Tale of the Portress Conclusion of the Story of the Porter
and the Three Ladies 4. Tale of the Three Apples 5. Tale of Nur Al-din
Ali and his Son 6. The Hunchback's Tale a. The Nazarene Broker's
Story b. The Reeve's Tale c. Tale of the Jewish Doctor d. Tale of the
Tailor e. The Barber's Tale of Himself ea. The Barber's Tale of his First
Brother eb. The Barber's Tale of his Second Brother ec. The Barber's
Tale of his Third Brother ed. The Barber's Tale of his Fourth Brother ee.
The Barber's Tale of his Fifth Brother ef. The Barber's Tale of his Sixth
Brother The End of the Tailor's Tale

The Translator's Foreword.
This work, labourious as it may appear, has been to me a labour of love,
an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of

official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western
Africa, and to the dull and dreary half clearings of South America, it
proved itself a charm, a talisman against ennui and despondency.
Impossible even to open the pages without a vision starting into view;
with out drawing a picture from the pinacothek of the brain; without
reviving a host of memories and reminiscences which are not the
common property of travellers, however widely they may have
travelled. From my dull and commonplace and "respectable"
surroundings, the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my pre-direction,
Arabia, a region so familiar to my mind that even at first sight, it
seemed a reminiscence of some by gone metem-psychic life in the
distant Past. Again I stood under the diaphanous skies, in air glorious as
aether, whose every breath raises men's spirits like sparkling wine.
Once more I saw the evening star hanging like a solitaire from the pure
front of the western firmament; and the after glow transfiguring and
transforming, as by magic, the homely and rugged features of the scene
into a fairy land lit with a light which never shines on other soils or
seas. Then would appear the woollen tents, low and black, of the true
Badawin, mere dots in the boundless waste of lion tawny clays and
gazelle brown gravels, and the camp fire dotting like a glow worm the
village centre. Presently, sweetened by distance, would be heard the
wild weird song of lads and lasses, driving or rather pelting, through
the gloaming their sheep and goats; and the measured chant of the
spearsmen gravely stalking behind their charge, the camels; mingled
with bleating of the flocks and the bellowing of the humpy herds; while
the reremouse flitted overhead with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the
jackal resounded through deepening glooms, and--most musical of
music--the palm trees answered the whispers of the night breeze with
the softest tones of falling water.
And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and "white beards" of the tribe
gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts like hillocks on
the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp fire, whilst I reward their
hospitality and secure its continuance by reading or reciting a few
pages of their favourite tales. The women and children stand
motionless as silhouettes outside the ring; and all are breathless with
attention; they seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well

as with ears. The most fantastic flights of fancy, the wildest
improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear to them
utterly natural, mere matters of every day occurrence. They enter
thoroughly into each phase of feeling touched upon by the author: they
take a personal pride in the chivalrous nature and knightly prowess of
Taj al-Mulúk; they are touched with tenderness by the self sacrificing
love of Azízah;