قراءة كتاب Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

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Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

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great Alexandrian library, to the period when the family of the Abbasides, who mounted the throne of the Caliphs A.D. 750, introduced a passionate love of art, science, and even poetry. The celebrated Haroun Al Raschid never took a journey without at least a hundred men of science in his train. But the most munificent patron of Arabic literature was Al Mamoun, the seventh Caliph of the race of the Abbasides, and son of Haroun Al Raschid. Having succeeded to the throne A.D. 813, he rendered Bagdad the centre of literature: collecting from the subject provinces of Syria, Armenia, and Egypt the most important books which could be discovered, as the most precious tribute that could be rendered, and causing them to be translated into Arabic for general use. When Al Mamoun dictated the terms of peace to Michael, the Greek emperor, the tribute which he demanded from him was a collection of Greek authors.

The Arabian tales had their birth after this period; and when the Arabians had yielded to the Tartars, Turks, and Persians, the empire of the sword. Soldiers are seldom introduced; the splendours of the just Caliph's reign are dwelt upon with fond remembrance; the style is that of a mercantile people, while riches and artificial luxuries are only rivalled by the marvellous gifts of the genii and fairies. This brilliant mythology, the offspring of the Arabian imagination, together with the other characteristics of the Arabian tales, has had an extensive influence on our own literature. Many of these tales had found their way into our poetry long before the translation of the Arabian Nights; and are met with in the old Fabliaux, and in Boccacio, Ariosto, and Chaucer. But while these tales are Arabian in their structure, the materials have been derived, not only from India, Persia, and China, but also from ancient Egypt, and the classical literature of Greece.

I shall content myself at present with adducing one example of such probable derivation from the source last mentioned. The stories to be compared are too long for quotation, which, as they are well known, will not be necessary. I shall therefore merely give, in parallel columns, the numerous points of resemblance, or coincidence, between the two. The Arabian tale is that of "Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers;" the corresponding story will be found in Herodotus, b. II. c. cxxi.; it is that of Rhampsinitus and the robbery of his royal treasury:

The Egyptian Tale.	The Arabian Tale.
1. The king constructs a stone edifice for the security of his vast riches.	1. In a rock so steep and craggy that none can scale it, a cave has been hewn out, in which the robbers deposit their prodigious wealth.
2. In the wall of this treasury is a stone so artfully disposed that a single person can move it, so as to enter and retreat without leaving any trace of his having done so.	2. In this rock is a door which opens into the cave, by means of two magical words, "Open Sesame;" and closes again in like manner by pronouncing the words "Shut Sesame."
3. Two brothers become acquainted with the secret opening into the treasury, and enter it for the purpose of enriching themselves.	3. Two brothers become acquainted with the door of the cave, and the means of opening and shutting it; and they enter it for the purpose of enriching themselves.
4. One of the brothers becomes rich by abstracting large sums of money from the royal treasury.	4. Ali Baba, one of the two brothers, becomes rich by carrying off a great quantity of gold coin from the robbers' cave.
5. The other brother is caught in the snare which the king had laid within the treasury, for the detection and apprehension of the intruders.	5. Cassim, the other brother, is caught as in a snare, by forgetting, when in the cave, the magical words by which alone an exit could be obtained.
6. At his own request the brother thus caught is beheaded by the other to avoid recognition, and to secure the escape of one. The dead body is hung from the wall of the treasury, for the purpose of discovering his accomplice.	6. Cassim, in his attempt to escape, is killed by the robbers, and his dead body is quartered, and hung up within the door of the cave, to deter any who might be his accomplices.
7. The surviving brother, at his mother's earnest request, carries off the dead body, and brings it home on the back of one of his asses.	7. Ali Baba, at the instance of Cassim's widow, carries off his remains from the cave, and brings them home on the back of one of his asses.
8. The king, unable to ascertain how his treasury had been entered, is enraged at the removal of the body, and alarmed at finding that some one who possesses the secret still survives.	8. The robbers, unable to guess how their cave had been entered, are alarmed at the removal of Cassim's remains, which proves to them that some one who possesses the secret still survives.
9. The king has recourse to stratagem, for the purpose of detecting the depredator, but without success.	9. The robbers have recourse to stratagem, for the purpose of discovering the depredator, but without success.
10. The surviving brother baffles the king's first attempt to detect him, by means of some asses, which, in the character of a wine-seller, he had loaded with wine-flasks, making the king's guards drunk, and leaving them all fast asleep.	10. Ali Baba, assisted by his female slave, baffles the robber captain's first attempt upon him, by means of some oil in a jar, his men being concealed in the other jars, with which the captain, in the character of an oil-merchant, had loaded some asses: thus the latter, who thought his men asleep, finds them all dead.
11. In the darkness of the night, the surviving brother tells the king's daughter, whom her father had employed to detect him, the story of his exploits in baffling the guards and carrying off the body of his brother.	11. In the dusk of the evening, Baba Mustapha relates to the two robbers in succession, who had been employed to detect Ali Baba, the story of his having sewed a dead body together; and, blindfold, himself conducts each of them to Ali Baba's door.
12. The king's daughter attempts to seize the brother, but he baffles her, by leaving in her hand a dead arm instead of his own.	12. The two robbers successively mark the house of Ali Baba with chalk; but his female slave baffles them by putting a similar mark on the other houses, in consequence of which they are put to death instead of her master.
13. The king, who admires the audacity and ingenuity of the surviving brother, offers him, by proclamation, pardon and reward; and, on his coming forward, gives him his daughter in marriage.	13. Ali Baba, saved from the robber captain's designs by the course and ingenuity of Morgiana, his female slave, gives her freedom, and marries her