Thousand and One Nights. Arabian tales
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Scheherazade (Arabic tale)
It actually happened, but it happened and passed a long time ago. Legends say that in the far reaches of the eastern lands, where magic in people’s lives happened as simply as the change of day and night, lived Shahriyar, a great ruler, lord of troops, servants and other people. And his younger brother, Sultan Shahzaman, was in distant Samarkand. And each of them was a fair and wise judge of his subjects.
Twenty years of their separation passed, and Shahriyar called his Chief Vizier.
“My heart is filled with deep sadness,” he said, “for I have not seen my beloved brother for so long.” Load the camels with the richest gifts, go to him and beg him to visit me in my domain.
“I listen and obey, my lord,” the Chief Vizier bowed.
And then a caravan of camels, loaded with expensive clothes, gold and precious stones. And ahead moved a large detachment of courtiers, warriors and servants. Their path lay in distant Samarkand.
Having received his brother's message, Shahzaman was so happy that he feasted with the arriving guests for three days. It took him three more days to get ready to set off. And at the appointed hour, dressed in the best clothes, Shahzaman rode out, accompanied by horsemen and servants. But as soon as the sun set behind the distant dunes, he remembered that he had forgotten at home a special gift that he had stored for his brother. He quickly turned his horse around and galloped back to Samarkand.
The frisky horse flew up to the palace, and Shahzaman, unexpected by no one, ran into his chambers. And here he saw his wife in the arms of a slave. Blinded by rage, Shahzaman pulled out a sharp sword and killed them both.
When he returned, he said nothing to his companions and continued the journey in silence, hiding his bitterness deep in his heart. But with every step he became paler and more silent, and a yellowness shone on his face. Therefore, more than once the Vizier had to stop the caravan and settle down to rest.
Shahriyar joyfully greeted his younger brother, and his face shone with tenderness, and his eyes shone with love. But the dejected appearance and extinguished gaze of the dear guest worried Shahriyar. At the banquet table, the young sultan did not even touch the exquisite dishes and barely tasted the sweet sherbet. No matter how much his elder brother asked him, Shahzaman never revealed to him terrible reason of your sadness.
“Tomorrow we’ll have a big hunt,” Shahriyar thought up. – A day spent in fun will revive your body, strengthen your spirit and restore your appetite.
But Shahzaman said that he would rather stay at home, because he did not feel strong enough for such entertainment.
The next day, the cavalcade of hunters left the city, and Shahzaman remained in the palace. He sat at the window overlooking the garden, where whimsical fountains shot twisted streams of water into the sky, and goldfish swam silently in transparent ponds, softly flapping their fins like birds' wings. Among the trees, weighed down with ripe fruits, birds fluttered, in their bright plumage similar to overseas fish in a pond. But nothing eased his sadness.
And suddenly the garden was filled with cheerful voices and loud laughter. Shahriyar's wife came out of the palace doors, surrounded by slaves and maids. She sat down on the edge of the fountain, and the handsome young slave began to hug her, play and laugh. And the slaves and slaves danced around them to the music. And so they had fun until twilight swallowed up the garden, and then disappeared into the palace chambers.
Shahzaman, hidden by the window bars, watched them until the last minute.
- Oh, fickle fate! - he whispered. – Yesterday I was the most unhappy in the world. And today I see that even such a great ruler as my brother can be cunningly deceived. – These thoughts brought him peace. “I saw and understood,” he explained to himself, “that even the most powerful rulers in the world cannot trust women.” This means that my trouble is not so great.
And his sadness dissipated, and the color returned to his cheeks. And when the elder brother returned from the hunt, Shahzaman sat down at the table with him and enjoyed a hearty dinner. Seeing such a change in him, Shahriyar was delighted and said:
– You are healthy again and have regained your former strength. So let us thank Allah for this blessing. Tell me now, my beloved brother, what troubled you and what revived you?
Shahzaman was silent for a long time and finally decided to tell about everything that happened in Samarkand. Shahriyar was inflamed with anger and said that he would punish his wife and slave in the same way.
“Now I understand your grief,” he said. - But tell me, how did you manage to recover so quickly? Point me to such a miraculous medicine. And Shahzaman told his brother without hiding everything that he saw while sitting at the window. He told about how Shahriyar’s wife, surrounded by merry servants and slaves, played in the garden with a young slave.
“And then,” continued Shahzaman, “I realized that your wife is no better than mine.” The shame left me, but strength and health returned.
Maddened with anger, Shahriyar grabbed his sword and vowed to punish his traitorous wife with cruel death. But first, he said, he needed to see for himself. The next day they announced that they were going hunting and would return in the evening.
The next morning, accompanied by the barking of dogs and the neighing of horses, they left through the main gate and immediately returned unnoticed, entering the palace through a secret door. And so, sitting at the top window, Shahriyar saw his wife appear in the garden and, surrounded by slaves, began to play and have fun with the slave. Shahriyar's rage was so great that he immediately called the Chief Vizier, ordered to seize his unfaithful wife and immediately execute her. And then he turned to his brother with these words:
– May the pain and suffering caused by the infidelity of our wives never visit us again.
From now on, I will only marry for one day and one night. But as soon as dawn comes, I will order the young wife to be executed. This is the only way she can't betray me.
Soon Shahzaman returned to his country. And Shahriyar really began to do as he swore. He ordered the Chief Vizier to bring a bride who would become his wife for one day and one night. They found the most beautiful young girl, brought her to the palace and had a noisy wedding. And the next morning, by order of Shahriyar, her head was cut off.
Thousand and One Nights
The story of King Shahryar
AND Once upon a time there was an evil and cruel king Shahriyar. Every day he took a new wife, and the next morning he killed her. Fathers and mothers hid their daughters from King Shahriyar and ran away with them to other lands.
Soon there was only one girl left in the whole city - the daughter of the vizier, the king's chief adviser, Shahrazad.
The vizier left the royal palace sadly and returned to his home, crying bitterly. Shahrazad saw that he was upset about something and asked:
Oh, father, what is your grief? Maybe I can help you?
For a long time the vizier did not want to reveal to Shahrazade the reason for his grief, but finally he told her everything. After listening to her father, Shahrazad thought and said:
Do not be sad! Take me to Shahryar tomorrow morning and don’t worry - I will remain alive and unharmed. And if what I have planned succeeds, I will save not only myself, but also all the girls whom King Shahriyar has not yet managed to kill.
No matter how much the vizier begged Shahrazad, she stood her ground, and he had to agree.
And Shahrazada had a little sister - Dunyazade. Shahrazad went to her and said:
When they bring me to the king, I will ask him for permission to send for you so that we can be together for the last time. And you, when you come and see that the king is bored, say: “Oh sister, tell us a fairy tale so that the king will be more cheerful.” And I'll tell you a story. This will be our salvation.
And Shahrazad was a smart and educated girl. She read many ancient books, legends and stories. And there was not a person in the whole world who knew more fairy tales, than Shahrazad, daughter of the vizier of King Shahriyar.
The next day, the vizier took Shahrazad to the palace and said goodbye to her, shedding tears. He never hoped to see her alive again.
Shahrazad was brought to the king, and they had dinner together, and then Shahrazad suddenly began to cry bitterly.
What happened to you? - the king asked her.
O king, said Shahrazad, I have a little sister. I want to look at her one more time before I die. Let me send for her, and let her sit with us.
“Do as you please,” the king said and ordered Dunyazada to be brought.
Dunyazada came and sat on the pillow next to her sister. She already knew what Shahrazad was planning, but she was still very scared.
And King Shahriyar could not sleep at night. When midnight came, Dunyazade noticed that the king could not sleep, and said to Shahrazad:
Oh sister, tell us a story. Maybe our king will feel more cheerful and the night will seem less long to him.
Willingly if the king orders me,” said Shahrazad. The king said:
Tell me, and make sure the tale is interesting. And Shahrazad began to tell. The king listened so deeply that he did not notice how it was getting light. And Shahrazad had just reached the most interesting place. Seeing that the sun was rising, she fell silent, and Dunyazada asked her:
The king really wanted to hear the continuation of the tale, and he thought: “Let him finish it in the evening, and tomorrow I will execute her.”
In the morning the vizier came to the king, neither alive nor dead from fear. Shahrazad met him, cheerful and pleased, and said:
You see, father, our king spared me. I began to tell him a fairy tale, and the king liked it so much that he allowed me to finish telling it that evening.
The delighted vizier entered the king, and they began to deal with the affairs of the state. But the king was distracted - he could not wait until evening to finish listening to the tale.
As soon as it got dark, he called Shahrazad and told her to continue the story. At midnight she finished the story.
The king sighed and said:
It's a shame it's already over. After all, there is still a long time until morning.
O king,” said Shahrazad, “where is this fairy tale compared to the one that I would tell you if you would allow me!”
Tell me quickly! - the king exclaimed, and Shahrazad began a new fairy tale.
And when morning came, she stopped again at the very interesting place.
The king no longer thought of executing Shahrazad. He couldn't wait to hear the story to the end.
This happened on the second and third night. For a thousand nights, almost three years, Shahrazad told King Shahryar her wonderful tales. And when the thousand and first night came and she finished last story, the king said to her:
O Shahrazad, I am used to you and will not execute you, even if you don’t know a single fairy tale anymore. I don’t need new wives, not a single girl in the world can compare with you.
This is how the Arabian legend tells about where the wonderful tales of the Arabian Nights came from.
Aladdin and the magic lamp
IN One Persian city lived a poor tailor Hassan. He had a wife and a son named Aladdin. When Aladdin was ten years old, his father said:
Let my son be a tailor like me,” and began to teach Aladdin his craft.
But Aladdin did not want to learn anything. As soon as his father left the shop, Aladdin ran outside to play with the boys. From morning to evening they ran around the city, chasing sparrows or climbing into other people's gardens and filling their bellies with grapes and peaches.
The tailor tried to persuade his son and punished him, but to no avail. Soon Hassan fell ill with grief and died. Then his wife sold everything that was left after him and began to spin cotton and sell yarn to feed herself and her son.
So much time passed. Aladdin turned fifteen years old. And then one day, when he was playing on the street with the boys, a man in a red silk robe and a large white turban approached them. He looked at Aladdin and said to himself: “This is the boy I am looking for. Finally I found it!
This man was a Maghreb - a resident of the Maghreb. He called one of the boys and asked him who Aladdin was and where he lived. And then he came up to Aladdin and said:
Are you not the son of Hassan, the tailor?
“I am,” Aladdin answered. - But my father died a long time ago. Hearing this, the Maghreb man hugged Aladdin and began to cry loudly.
Know, Aladdin, I am your uncle,” he said. “I have been in foreign lands for a long time and have not seen my brother for a long time.” Now I came to your city to see Hassan, and he died! I recognized you immediately because you look like your father.
Then the Maghrebian gave Aladdin two gold pieces and said:
Give this money to your mother. Tell her that your uncle has returned and will come to you for dinner tomorrow. Let her cook good dinner.
Aladdin ran to his mother and told her everything.
Are you laughing at me?! - his mother told him. - After all, your father didn’t have a brother. Where did you suddenly get an uncle?
How can you say that I don’t have an uncle! - Aladdin shouted. - He gave me these two gold pieces. Tomorrow he will come to dinner with us!
The next day Aladdin's mother prepared a good dinner. Aladdin was sitting at home in the morning, waiting for his uncle. In the evening there was a knock on the gate. Aladdin rushed to open it. A Maghrebi man entered, followed by a servant who carried a large dish with all sorts of sweets on his head. Entering the house, the Maghreb man greeted Aladdin’s mother and said:
Please show me the place where my brother sat at dinner.
“Right here,” said Aladdin’s mother.
The Maghribian began to cry loudly. But he soon calmed down and said:
Don't be surprised that you've never seen me. I left here forty years ago. I have been to India, the Arab lands and Egypt. I've been traveling for thirty years. Finally, I wanted to return to my homeland, and I said to myself: “You have a brother. He may be poor, and you still haven’t helped him in any way! Go to your brother and see how he lives.” I drove for many days and nights and finally found you. And now I see that although my brother died, he left behind a son who will earn money by craft, like his father.
One Thousand and One Nights (fairy tale)
Queen Scheherazade tells tales to King Shahryar
Fairy tales Thousand and One Nights(Persian: هزار و يك شب Hazar-o Yak shab, Arabic الف ليلة وليلة alf laila wa-laila) - a monument of medieval Arabic literature, a collection of stories united by the story of King Shahriyar and his wife named Shahrazade (Scheherazade, Scheherazade).
History of creation
The question of the origin and development of “1001 Nights” has not been fully clarified to this day. Attempts to look for the ancestral home of this collection in India, made by its first researchers, have not yet received sufficient justification. The prototype of the “Nights” on Arab soil was probably made in the 10th century. translation of the Persian collection “Khezar-Efsane” (A Thousand Tales). This translation, called “A Thousand Nights” or “A Thousand and One Nights,” was, as Arab writers of that time testify, very popular in the capital of the Eastern Caliphate, Baghdad. We cannot judge his character, since only the story that frames him, which coincides with the frame of “1001 Nights,” has reached us. In this convenient frame they were inserted into different time various stories, sometimes entire cycles of stories, in turn framed, for example. “The Tale of the Hunchback”, “The Porter and the Three Girls”, etc. Individual tales in the collection, before their inclusion in the written text, often existed independently, sometimes in a more common form. It can be assumed with good reason that the first editors of the text of fairy tales were professional storytellers who borrowed their material directly from oral sources; Under the dictation of storytellers, fairy tales were written down by booksellers seeking to satisfy the demand for manuscripts of “1001 Nights.”
Hammer-Purgstall hypothesis
When researching the question of the origin and composition of the collection, European scientists diverged in two directions. J. von Hammer-Purgstall argued for their Indian and Persian origin, citing the words of Mas'udi and the bibliographer Nadim (before 987) that the Old Persian collection "Hezar-efsane" ("A Thousand Tales") is of Achaemenid origin. , either Arzakid or Sasanian, was translated by the best Arab writers under the Abbasids into Arabic and known under the name “1001 Nights”. According to Hammer's theory, translation pers. “Khezar-efsane”, constantly rewritten, grew and, even under the Abbasids, accepted into its convenient frame new layers and new additions, mostly from other similar Indian-Persian collections (including, for example, “The Book of Sindbad”) or even from Greek works; when the center of Arab literary prosperity moved to the 12th -13th centuries. from Asia to Egypt, 1001 nights was intensively copied there and, under the pen of new scribes, again received new layers: a group of stories about the glorious past times of the caliphate with central figure Caliph Harun Al-Rashid (-), and a little later - his local stories from the period of the Egyptian dynasty of the second Mamelukes (the so-called Circassian or Borjit). When the conquest of Egypt by the Ottomans undermined Arab intellectual life and literature, “1001 Nights,” according to Hammer, ceased to grow and was preserved in the form in which the Ottoman conquest found it.
De Sacy's conjecture
A radically opposite view was expressed by Sylvester de Sacy. He argued that the whole spirit and worldview of “1001 Nights” is thoroughly Muslim, the morals are Arab and, moreover, quite late, no longer of the Abbasid period, the usual scene of action is Arab places (Baghdad, Mosul, Damascus, Cairo), the language is not classical Arabic , but rather common folk, with the manifestation, apparently, of Syrian dialectical features, that is, close to the era of literary decline. From here de Sacy concluded that “1001 Nights” is a completely Arabic work, composed not gradually, but all at once, by one author, in Syria, about half a century; death probably interrupted the work of the Syrian compiler, and therefore “1001 Nights” was completed by his successors, who added different ends to the collection from other fairy-tale material that circulated among the Arabs - for example, from the Travels of Sinbad, Sinbad’s book about female cunning etc. From Pers. “Khezar-efsane,” according to de Sacy, the Syrian compiler of the Arabic “1001 Nights” took nothing except the title and frame, that is, the manner of putting tales into the mouth of Scheherazade; If, however, some locality with a purely Arab environment and customs is sometimes called Persia, India or China in “1001 Nights,” then this is done only for greater importance and as a result only gives rise to funny anachronisms.
Lane conjecture
Subsequent scientists tried to reconcile both views; The authority of Edward Lane (E. W. Lane) turned out to be especially important in this regard, famous expert ethnography of Egypt. In considerations about the late time of the composition of “1001 Nights” on late Arab soil by an individual, sole writer, Lane went even further than de Sacy: from the mention of the Adiliye mosque, built in 1501, sometimes about coffee, once about tobacco, also about firearms weapons Lane concluded that “1001 Nights” began at the end of the century. and completed in the 1st quarter of the 16th century; the last, final fragments could have been added to the collection even under the Ottomans, in the 16th and 17th centuries. The language and style of “1001 Nights,” according to Lane, is the ordinary style of a literate, but not very learned Egyptian of the 16th century; the living conditions described in “1001 Nights” are specifically Egyptian; The topography of the cities, even if they were called by Persian, Mesopotamian and Syrian names, is the detailed topography of Cairo of the late Mameluke era. In the literary treatment of “1001 Nights,” Lane saw such remarkable homogeneity and consistency of late Egyptian coloring that he did not allow centuries-old gradualism of addition and recognized only one, maximum, two compilers (the second could finish the collection), who - or which - for a short time, between the 16th century, in Cairo, at the Mameluke court, and compiled “1001 Nights”. The compiler, according to Lane, had at his disposal an Arabic translation of “Hezar-efsane”, preserved from the century. before in its ancient form, and took from there the title, frame and, perhaps, even some fairy tales; He also used other collections of Persian origin (cf. the story of the flying horse) and Indian (“Jilad and Shimas”), Arab warlike novels from the times of the Crusaders (King Omar-Noman), instructive ones (The Wise Maiden of Tawaddoda), pseudo-historical Tales of Harun Al-Rashid, special historical Arabic works (especially those where there is a rich anecdotal element), semi-scientific Arabic geographies and cosmographies (The Travels of Sinbad and the cosmography of Qazvinius), oral humorous folk tales, etc. All these heterogeneous and multi-temporal materials are Egyptian compiler -XVI century compiled and carefully processed; scribes of the 17th - 18th centuries. Only a few changes were made to its editions.
Lane's view was considered generally accepted in the scientific world until the 80s of the 19th century. True, even then the articles of de Goeje (M. J. de Goeje) consolidated, with weak amendments on the issue of criteria, the old Lane view of the compilation of “1001 Nights” in the Mameluke era (after the year, according to de Goeje) by the sole compiler, and new english the translator (for the first time not afraid of the reproach of obscenity) J. Payne did not deviate from Lane’s theory; but at the same time, with new translations of “1001 Nights”, new research began. Even in H. Torrens (H. Torrens, “Athenaeum”, 1839, 622) a quotation was given from a historian of the 13th century. Ibn Said (1208-1286), where about some embellished folk stories(in Egypt) it is said that they resemble 1001 nights. Now the same words were brought to the attention of Said by the unsigned author of criticism of the new translations of Payne and Burton (R. F. Burton).
According to the author's thorough remark, many cultural-historical allusions and other data, on the basis of which Lane (and after him Payne) attributed the composition of “1001 Nights” to the 16th century, are explained as the usual interpolation of the latest scribes, and morals in the East are not so fast change so that by their description one can unmistakably distinguish any century from one or two previous ones: “1001 Nights” could therefore have been compiled back in the 13th century, and it is not for nothing that the barber in “The Tale of the Hunchback” draws a horoscope for 1255; however, within two next centuries scribes could add new additions to the finished “1001 Nights”. A. Müller rightly noted that if, according to the instructions of Ibn Said, “1001 Nights” existed in Egypt in the 13th century, and by the century, according to the rather transparent instructions of Abul-Mahâsyn, it had already received its newest additions, then for durable, correct In order to judge it, it is necessary first of all to highlight these later developments and thus restore the form that “1001 Nights” had in the 13th century. To do this, you need to compare all the lists of “1001 Nights” and discard their unequal parts as layers of the 14th century. Such work was carried out in detail by H. Zotenberg and Rich. Burton in the afterword to his translation, 1886-1888; Chauvin (V. Chauvin) now has a brief and informative overview of the manuscripts in “Bibliographie arabe”, 1900, vol. IV; Müller himself also made a feasible comparison in his article.
It turned out that in different lists The first part of the collection is mostly the same, but it is perhaps impossible to find Egyptian themes in it at all; stories about the Baghdad Abbasids (especially about Harun) predominate, and there are also a small number of Indian-Persian tales; from this the conclusion followed that a large ready-made collection of fairy tales, compiled in Baghdad, probably in the 10th century, came to Egypt. and centered in content around the idealized personality of Caliph Harun Al-Rashid; These tales were squeezed into the frame of an incomplete Arabic translation of “Hezar-efsane”, which was made in the 9th century. and even under Mas’udiya it was known under the name “1001 nights”; It was created, therefore, as Hammer thought - not by one author at once, but by many, gradually, over the centuries, but its main component element is national Arabic; Persian is not enough. The Arab A. Salhaniy took almost the same point of view; In addition, based on the words of Nadim that the Arab Jakhshiyari (a Baghdadi, probably from the 10th century) also undertook the compilation of the collection “1000 Nights”, which included selected tales from Persian, Greek, Arabic, etc., Salhaniy expresses the conviction that the work of Jahshiyari and there is the first Arabic edition of “1001 Nights”, which then, constantly rewritten, especially in Egypt, significantly increased in volume. In the same 1888, Nöldeke pointed out that even historical and psychological grounds force one to see Egyptian origin in some tales of “1001 Nights”, and Baghdad in others.
Estrup's hypothesis
As the fruit of a thorough acquaintance with the methods and research of his predecessors, a detailed dissertation by I. Estrup appeared. Probably, the newest author of history, the Arab, also used Estrup's book. literary - K. Brockelmann; in any case, those offered by him short messages about “1001 Nights” closely coincide with the provisions developed by Estrup. Their contents are as follows:
- “1001 Nights” received its current form in Egypt, most of all during the first period of Mameluke rule (from the 13th century).
- Whether the entire “Hezar-efsane” was included in the Arabic “1001 Nights” or only selected tales of it is a secondary question. We can say with complete confidence that the frame of the collection (Shehryar and Shehrezada), The Fisherman and the Spirit, Hasan of Basria, Prince Badr and Princess Jauhar of Samandal, Ardeshir and Hayat-an-nofusa, Kamar-az-zaman and Bodura. These tales, in their poetry and psychology, are the decoration of the entire “1001 Nights”; in them the real world is intricately intertwined with the fantastic, but their distinguishing feature is that supernatural beings, spirits and demons are not a blind, spontaneous force, but consciously harbor friendship or enmity towards famous people.
- The second element of 1001 Nights is the one that was layered in Baghdad. In contrast to Persian fairy tales, Baghdad ones, in the Semitic spirit, are distinguished not so much by the general entertainingness of the plot and the artistic consistency in its development, but by the talent and wit of individual parts of the story or even individual phrases and expressions. In terms of content, these are, firstly, urban short stories with an interesting love plot, for the resolution of which the beneficent caliph often appears on stage as a deus ex machina; secondly, stories that explain the emergence of some characteristic poetic couplet and are more appropriate in historical, literary, stylistic anthologies. It is possible that the Baghdad editions of the “1001” nights also included, although not in full form, The Travels of Sinbad; but Brockelmann believes that this novel, missing from many manuscripts, was included in 1001 Nights later,
Faced with the infidelity of his first wife, Shahriyar takes a new wife every day and executes her at dawn the next day. However, this terrible order is disrupted when he marries Shahrazad, the wise daughter of his vizier. Every night she talks fascinating story and interrupts the story “at the most interesting place” - and the king is unable to refuse to hear the end of the story. Scheherazade's tales can be divided into three main groups, which can roughly be called heroic, adventurous and picaresque tales.
Heroic tales
To the group heroic tales include fantastic stories that probably form the ancient core of “1001 Nights” and some of their features go back to its Persian prototype “Khezar-Efsane”, as well as long chivalric novels epic in nature. The style of these stories is solemn and somewhat gloomy; main actors Kings and their nobles usually appear in them. In some tales of this group, such as the story of the wise maiden Takaddul, a didactic tendency is clearly visible. In literary terms, heroic stories are treated more carefully than others; turns of popular speech are expelled from them, poetic inserts - for the most part quotations from classical Arab poets - on the contrary, are abundant. “Court” tales include, for example: “Qamar-az-Zaman and Budur”, “Vedr-Basim and Dzhanhar”, “The Tale of King Omar ibn-an-Numan”, “Ajib and Tarib” and some others.
Adventure tales
We find different moods in “adventurous” short stories, which probably arose in the trade and craft environment. Kings and sultans appear in them not as beings of a higher order, but as the most ordinary people; the favorite type of ruler is the famous Harun al-Rashid, who reigned from 786 to 809, that is, much earlier than the tales of Shahrazad took their final form. Mentions of Caliph Harun and his capital Baghdad cannot therefore serve as a basis for dating the Nights. The real Harun ar-Rashid was very little like the kind, generous sovereign from “1001 Nights,” and the fairy tales in which he participates, judging by their language, style and everyday details found in them, could only have developed in Egypt. In terms of content, most of the “adventurous” tales are typical urban fables. This is most often love stories, whose heroes are rich merchants, almost always doomed to be passive executors of the cunning plans of their lovers. The latter usually play a leading role in fairy tales of this type - a feature that sharply distinguishes “adventurous” stories from “heroic” ones. Typical tales for this group are: “The Tale of Abu-l-Hasan from Oman”, “Abu-l-Hasan the Khorasan”, “Nima and Nubi”, “The Loving and the Beloved”, “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp”.
Piscine tales
“Pilicious” tales naturalistically depict the life of the urban poor and déclassé elements. Their heroes are usually clever swindlers and rogues - both men and women, for example. immortals in Arabic fairy-tale literature Ali-Zeybak and Delilah-Khitritsa. There is no trace of respect for the upper classes in these tales; on the contrary, “roguish” tales are full of mocking attacks against government officials and clergy - it’s not for nothing that Christian priests and gray-bearded mullahs to this day look very disapprovingly at anyone who holds a volume of “1001 Nights” in their hands. The language of the “rogue” stories is close to colloquial; There are almost no poetic passages that are incomprehensible to inexperienced readers in literature. The heroes of picaresque fairy tales are distinguished by courage and enterprise and present a striking contrast with the pampered harem life and idleness of the heroes of “adventurous” fairy tales. In addition to the stories about Ali-Zeybak and Dalil, picaresque tales include the magnificent story about Matufa the shoemaker, the tale about the fisherman caliph and the fisherman Khalifa, which stands on the border between stories of the “adventurous” and “punctual” type, and some other stories.
Editions of the text
Incomplete Calcutta by V. McNaughten (1839-1842), Bulak (1835; often reprinted), Breslau by M. Habicht and G. Fleischer (1825-1843), Beirut cleared of obscenities (1880-1882), even more cleared Beirut-Jesuit , very elegant and cheap (1888-1890). The texts were published from manuscripts that differ significantly from one another, and not all handwritten material has yet been published. For an overview of the contents of the manuscripts (the oldest is Gallan's, no later than half of the 14th century), see Zotenberg, Burton, and briefly, Chauvin (“Bibliogr. arabe”).
Translations
Cover of the book 1001 Nights edited by Burton
Oldest French incomplete - A. Gallan (1704-1717), which in turn was translated into all languages; it is not literal and has been altered according to the tastes of the court of Louis XIV: scientific reprint. - Loazler de'Longchamp 1838 and Bourdin 1838-1840. It was continued by Cazotte and Chavis (1784-1793) in the same spirit. Since 1899, a literal translation (from the Bulak text) and regardless of European decency has been published by J. Mardru.
German translations were made first according to Gallan and Cazotte; general code with some additions in Arabic. the original was given by Habicht, Hagen and Schall (1824-1825; 6th ed., 1881) and, apparently, by König (1869); from Arabic - G. Weil (1837-1842; 3rd corrected ed. 1866-1867; 5th ed. 1889) and, more fully, from all kinds of texts, M. Henning (in the cheap Reklamovskaya “Library of Classics”, 1895- 1900); indecency in it. translation deleted.
English translations were made first according to Gallan and Casotte and received additions according to Arabic. orig.; the best of these translations. - Jonat. Scott (1811), but the last (6th) volume, translated. from Arabic, not repeated in subsequent editions. Two thirds of 1001 nights, excluding places that are uninteresting or dirty from Arabic. (according to Bulak ed.) translated by V. Lane (1839-1841; a revised edition was published in 1859, reprint 1883). Full English transl., which caused many accusations of immorality: J. Payne (1882-1889), and made according to many editions, with all kinds of explanations (historical, folklore, ethnographic, etc.) - Rich. Burton.
On Russian language back in the 19th century. translations from French appeared. . The most scientific lane - J. Doppelmayer. English translation Lena, “shortened due to stricter censorship conditions,” translated into Russian. language L. Shelgunova in app. to “Zhivop. review." (1894): with the 1st volume there is an article by V. Chuiko, compiled according to de Guey. The first Russian translation from Arabic was made by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Salye (-) in -.
For other translations, see the above-mentioned works by A. Krymsky (“Anniversary collection of Vs. Miller”) and V. Chauvin (vol. IV). The success of Gallan's adaptation prompted Petit de la Croix to publish Les 1001 jours. In both popular and even folklore publications, “1001 days” merges with “1001 nights”. According to Petit de la Croix, his "Les 1001 jours" is a translation of the Persian. the collection “Hezar-yak ruz”, written based on the plots of Indian comedies by the Ispagan dervish Mokhlis around 1675; but we can say with complete confidence what the Persian is. the collection never existed and that “Les 1001 jours” was compiled by Petit de la Croix himself, it is unknown from what sources. For example, one of his most lively, humorous tales, “The Fathers of Abu Kasym,” is found in Arabic in the collection “Famarat al-Avrak” by ibn-Khizhzhe.
Other meanings
- 1001 nights (film) based on the tales of Scheherazade.
- 1001 Nights (album) - music album by Arab-American guitarists Shahin and Sepehra,
- One Thousand and One Nights (ballet) - ballet
Thousand and One Nights
Preface
Almost two and a half centuries have passed since Europe first became acquainted with the Arabian tales of the Arabian Nights in Galland's free and far from complete French translation, but even now they enjoy the constant love of readers. The passage of time did not affect the popularity of Shahrazad's stories; Along with countless reprints and secondary translations from Galland’s publication, publications of “Nights” appear again and again in many languages of the world, translated directly from the original, to this day. The influence of “The Arabian Nights” on the work of various writers was great - Montesquieu, Wieland, Hauff, Tennyson, Dickens. Pushkin also admired Arabic tales. Having first become acquainted with some of them in Senkovsky’s free adaptation, he became so interested in them that he purchased one of the editions of Galland’s translation, which was preserved in his library.
It’s hard to say what attracts more in the tales of “The Arabian Nights” - the entertaining plot, the bizarre interweaving of the fantastic and the real, vivid pictures of city life in the medieval Arab East, fascinating descriptions amazing countries or the liveliness and depth of experiences of the heroes of fairy tales, the psychological justification of situations, a clear, definite morality. The language of many of the stories is magnificent - lively, imaginative, rich, devoid of circumlocutions and omissions. Speech of heroes best fairy tales“Nights” is clearly individual, each of them has its own style and vocabulary, characteristic of that social environment from which they came.
What is “The Book of a Thousand and One Nights”, how and when was it created, where were Shahrazad’s tales born?
"A Thousand and One Nights" is not the work of an individual author or compiler - the entire Arab people is a collective creator. As we now know it, “A Thousand and One Nights” is a collection of tales in Arabic, united by a framing story about the cruel king Shahriyar, who took a new wife every evening and killed her in the morning. The history of the Arabian Nights is still far from clear; its origins are lost in the depths of centuries.
The first written information about the Arabic collection of fairy tales, framed by the story of Shahryar and Shahrazad and called “A Thousand Nights” or “One Thousand and One Nights,” we find in the works of Baghdad writers of the 10th century - the historian al-Masudi and the bibliographer ai-Nadim, who talk about it , as about a long and well-known work. Already at that time, information about the origin of this book was quite vague and it was considered a translation of the Persian collection of fairy tales “Khezar-Efsane” (“A Thousand Tales”), allegedly compiled for Humai, the daughter of the Iranian king Ardeshir (IV century BC). The content and nature of the Arabic collection mentioned by Masudi and anNadim are unknown to us, since it has not survived to this day.
The evidence of the named writers about the existence in their time of the Arabic book of fairy tales “One Thousand and One Nights” is confirmed by the presence of an excerpt from this book dating back to the 9th century. Subsequently, the literary evolution of the collection continued until the XIV-XV centuries. More and more fairy tales of different genres and different types were put into the convenient frame of the collection. social origin. We can judge the process of creating such fabulous collections from the message of the same anNadim, who says that his elder contemporary, a certain Abd-Allah al-Jahshiyari - a personality, by the way, is quite real - decided to compile a book of thousands of tales of “Arabs, Persians, Greeks and other peoples,” one per night, each containing fifty sheets, but he died having only managed to type four hundred and eighty stories. He took material mainly from professional storytellers, whom he called from all over the caliphate, as well as from written sources.
Al-Jahshiyari’s collection has not reached us, and other fairy-tale collections called “One Thousand and One Nights,” which were sparingly mentioned by medieval Arab writers, have also not survived. These collections of fairy tales apparently differed from each other in composition; they only had in common the title and the frame of the tale.
In the course of creating such collections, several successive stages can be outlined.
The first suppliers of material for them were professional folk storytellers, whose stories were initially recorded from dictation with almost stenographic accuracy, without any literary processing. A large number of such stories in Arabic, written in Hebrew letters, are kept in the State Public library named after Saltykov-Shchedrin in Leningrad; ancient lists belong to the XI-XII centuries. Subsequently, these records went to booksellers, who subjected the text of the tale to some literary processing. Each fairy tale was considered at this stage not as component collection, but as a completely independent work; therefore, in the original versions of the tales that have reached us, later included in the “Book of One Thousand and One Nights,” there is still no division into nights. The breakdown of the text of the fairy tales took place at the last stage of their processing, when they fell into the hands of the compiler who compiled the next collection of “A Thousand and One Nights”. In the absence of material for the required number of “nights,” the compiler replenished it from written sources, borrowing from there not only short stories and anecdotes, but also long knightly romances.
The last such compiler was that unknown-named learned sheikh, who compiled the most recent collection of tales of the Arabian Nights in Egypt in the 18th century. Fairy tales also received the most significant literary treatment in Egypt, two or three centuries earlier. This edition of the XIV-XVI centuries of “The Book of the Thousand and One Nights”, usually called “Egyptian”, is the only one that has survived to this day - is presented in most printed editions, as well as in almost all manuscripts of the “Nights” known to us and serves as specific material for studying the tales of Shahrazad.
What do you know about the Arabian Nights fairy tales? Most are content with the well-known stereotype: this is the famous Arab fairy tale about the beautiful Scheherazade, who became a hostage of King Shahriyar. The eloquent girl befuddled the king and thereby bought herself freedom. It's time to find out the bitter (or rather, salty) truth.
And of course, among her stories were stories about Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and other brave men, but it turned out that all this was complete nonsense.
Fairy tales have come to us after many centuries of censorship and translation, so there is little left of the original. In fact, the heroes of Scheherazade's fairy tales were not as sweet, kind and morally stable as the characters in the Disney cartoon. Therefore, if you want to preserve a good memory of your favorite childhood characters, stop reading immediately. For everyone else, welcome to a world you may never have known existed. The first documented information describing the story of Scheherazade as well famous work, belong to the pen of the 10th century historian al-Masudi. Subsequently, the collection was rewritten more than once and modified depending on the time of life and language of the translator, but the core remained the same, so it has reached us, if not original story, then very close to the original.
It begins, oddly enough, not with the tears of a young beauty about to say goodbye to life, but with two brothers, each of whom ruled their own country. After twenty years of separate rule, the elder brother, whose name was Shahriyar, invited the younger brother, Shahzeman, to his domain. He agreed without thinking twice, but as soon as he left the capital, he “remembered one thing” that he had forgotten in the city. Upon his return, he found his wife in the arms of a black slave.
Angry, the king hacked them both to death, and then with a clear conscience went to his brother. While visiting, he became sad because his wife was no longer alive, and he stopped eating. Although his elder brother tried to cheer him up, it was all to no avail. Then Shahriyar suggested going hunting, but Shahzeman refused, continuing to sink into depression. So, sitting by the window and indulging in black melancholy, the unfortunate king saw how the wife of his absent brother had an orgy with slaves at the fountain. The king immediately cheered up and thought: “Wow, my brother will have more serious problems.”
Shahryar returned from hunting, finding his brother with a smile on his face. There was no need to question him for long; he immediately told everything frankly. The reaction was unusual. Instead of acting like the younger brother, the older brother suggested going on a trip and seeing if other husbands’ wives cheated on them. 
They were unlucky, and their wanderings dragged on: they could not find their unfaithful wives until they came across an oasis located on the seashore. From deep sea a genie came out with a chest under his arm. He pulled out a woman (a real one) from the chest and said: “I want to sleep on you,” and so he fell asleep. This woman, seeing the kings hiding on the palm tree, ordered them to go down and take possession of it right there on the sand. Otherwise, she would have awakened the genie, and he would have killed them.
The kings agreed and fulfilled her wish. After the act of love, the woman asked each of them for rings. They gave it away, and she added the jewelry to the other five hundred and seventy (!) that were kept in her casket. So that the brothers would not languish in guesswork, the seductress explained that all the rings once belonged to men who took possession of her secretly from the genie. The brothers looked at each other and said: “Wow, this genie will have more serious problems than ours,” and returned to their countries. After that, Shahriyar cut off the head of his wife and all the “accomplices,” and he himself decided to take one girl per night. 
Nowadays, this story may seem chauvinistic, but it is much more reminiscent of a script for a film for adults. Think for yourself: no matter what the heroes do, no matter where they go, they either have to watch the act of intercourse or participate in it. Similar scenes are repeated more than once throughout the book. What's there, younger sister Scheherazade personally observed the wedding night of her relative: “And the king then sent for Dunyazade, and she came to her sister, hugged her and sat on the floor near the bed. And then Shahriyar took possession of Shahrazade, and then they began to talk.”
Other distinguishing feature tales of a thousand and one nights is that their heroes act for absolutely no reason, and often the events themselves look extremely ridiculous. This is how, for example, the tale of the first night begins. One day a merchant went to some country to collect debts. He felt hot and sat down under a tree to eat dates and bread. “Having eaten a date, he threw the stone - and suddenly he sees: in front of him is an ifrit tall, and in his hands he has a naked sword. Ifrit approached the merchant and said to him: “Get up, I will kill you, like you killed my son!” - “How did I kill your son?” - asked the merchant. And the ifrit replied: “When you ate the date and threw the stone, it hit my son in the chest, and he died at that very moment.” Just think about it: the merchant killed the genie with a date stone. If only the enemies of Disney's Aladdin knew about this secret weapon. 
In our folk tale there are also a lot of absurdities like: “The mouse ran, waved its tail, the pot fell, the testicles broke,” but you definitely won’t meet such crazy characters as in the story of the fifth night. It tells the story of King al-Sinbad, who long years trained a falcon to help him hunt. And then one day the king, together with his retinue, caught a gazelle, and then the devil pulled him to say: “Anyone whose head the gazelle jumps over will be killed.” The gazelle, naturally, jumped over the king's head. Then the subjects began to whisper: why did the owner promise to kill everyone whose head a gazelle jumps over, but he still hasn’t committed suicide? Instead of doing what he promised, the king chased the gazelle, killed it and hung the carcass on the croup of his horse.
Getting ready to rest after the chase, the king came across a source of life-giving moisture dripping from a tree. Three times he filled the cup, and three times the falcon knocked it over. Then the king got angry and cut off the falcon’s wings, and he pointed his beak upward, where a baby echidna was sitting on the branches of a tree, emitting poison. It’s hard to say what the moral of this story is, but the character who told it in the book said that it was a parable about envy. 
Of course, it is stupid to demand a coherent dramatic line from a book that is at least 11 centuries old. That is why the purpose of the above-described persiflage was not to rudely ridicule it, but to show that it can be an excellent bedtime reading that will definitely make anyone laugh modern man. The tales of the Arabian Nights are a product of time, which, having passed through the centuries, unwittingly turned into a comedy, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Despite the wide popularity of this historical monument, there are incredibly few film adaptations of it, and those that exist usually show the famous Aladdin or Sinbad the Sailor. However, the most striking film version of fairy tales was the French film with same name. It does not retell all the plots of the book, but presents a bright and absurd story that is worthy of Monty Python films and at the same time corresponds to the crazy spirit of fairy tales.
For example, Shahriyar in the film is a king who dreams of simultaneously growing roses, writing poetry and touring in a traveling circus. The vizier is an old pervert, so worried about the king's absent-mindedness that he himself goes to bed with his wife so that he understands how flighty women are. And Scheherazade is an extravagant girl who offers to give birth to her child to everyone she meets. By the way, she is played by the young and beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones, who appears naked before the audience more than once throughout the film. We've listed at least four reasons why you should watch this movie. Surely after this you will want to read the book “A Thousand and One Nights” even more. 
