THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Lane, Edward William, Poole, Edward Stanley, and Harvey, William
u as in 'bull.'
The letter y is to be pronounced as in 'you' and 'lawyer:' never as in 'by.'
An apostrophe, when immediately preceding or following a vowel, I employ to denote the place of a letter which has no equivalent in our alphabet; it has a guttural sound like that which is heard in the bleating of sheep: ạ (with a dot beneath) represents the same sound at the end of a syllable, when it is more forcibly pronounced.
Each of the consonants distinguished by a dot beneath has a peculiarly hard sound.
Having avoided as much as possible making use of accents, I must request the reader to bear in mind that a single vowel, when not marked with an accent, is always short; and that a double vowel or diphthong at the end of a word, when not so marked, is not accented ('Welee,' for instance, being pronounced 'Wĕ'lee'): also, that the acute accent does not always denote the principal or only emphasis ('Hároon' being pronounced 'Hároón'); that a vowel with a grave accent (only occurring at the end of a word), is not emphasized, though it is long; and that dh, gh, kh, sh, and th, when not divided by a hyphen, represent, each, a single Arabic letter."8
I have only to add one more extract from Mr. Lane's Preface.
"Many of the engravings which are so numerously interspersed in this work will considerably assist to explain both the Text and the Notes; and to insure their accuracy, to the utmost of my ability, I have supplied the artist with modern dresses, and with other requisite materials. Thus he has been enabled to make his designs agree more nearly with the costumes &c. of the times which the tales generally illustrate than they would if he trusted alone to the imperfect descriptions which I have found in Arabic works.9 Except in a few cases, when I had given him such directions as I deemed necessary, his original designs have been submitted to me; and in suggesting any corrections, I have, as much as possible, avoided fettering his imagination, which needs no eulogy from me. He has acquired a general notion of Arabian architecture from the great work of Murphy on the Arabian remains in Spain, and from the splendid and accurate work on the Alhambra by Messrs. Goury and Jones; and through the kindness of my friend Mr. Hay, of Linplum, he has been allowed to make a similar use of a very accurate and very beautiful collection of drawings of a great number of the finest specimens of Arabian architecture in and around Cairo, executed by M. Pascal Coste, and now the property of Mr. Hay.10 He has also consulted a number of Oriental drawings, and various other sources. My acknowledgments to other persons I have expressed in several of the Notes.
"The portion which is comprised in the first volume of this translation, terminates with part of the hundred and thirty-seventh Night: it is therefore necessary to remark,—first, that there is less to omit in the early part of the original work than in the later:—secondly, that the Nights in the early part are generally much longer than in the subsequent portion; the first hundred Nights (without the Introduction) comprising 213 pages in the Cairo edition of the original work; the second hundred, 149 pages; the third, 107; the fourth, 106; the fifth, 94:11—thirdly, that a similar observation applies to the Notes which are inserted in my translation; those appended to the early tales being necessarily much more copious than the others."
Source notes
1 Two other printed editions were also used by Mr. Lane—that of the first two hundred Nights, printed at Calcutta, and in consequence of the loss, by shipwreck, of nearly the whole impression of the first volume, never completed; and that of Breslau. The former differs much, in matter and manner, from any other known copy; the latter, which was edited to the close of the seven hundred and third night by Professor Habicht, and completed by Professor Fleischer, is far inferior to all the others. One other edition has appeared in the Arabic, that of Calcutta, or "the Calcutta edition of the complete work." It was brought from Cairo, and is apparently (though not immediately) from the same original as the Booláḳ edition. I have continually referred to it for various readings, without finding any one of importance. And here I must animadvert on the practice of German orientalists of wasting their own time and their readers' patience in collecting such various readings of a work like "The Thousand and One Nights" as must necessarily be the result of the carelessness or the ignorance of copyists and reciters. The habit is unfortunately adopted by some Englishmen, who seem to imagine that all that is German is therefore learned.—Ed.
2 "I must here state, that peculiar qualifications are required to enable a person to judge of the fidelity of my translation. The original work contains many words not comprised in any printed dictionary, and a great number of words used in senses which no such dictionary gives: in cases of both these kinds, I am guided either by the explanations of the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád, or by my having been long in the habit of noting down new words during conversation with Arabs, and in the perusal of works in which they are explained."
3 "As I hope that the copy which he has rendered so valuable may be of great utility to many students of the Arabic language when I have ceased to profit by it, I may mention here, that the few corrections, and some explanations, which I have inserted upon the margins of pages will be easily distinguished from those of the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád by the difference of our handwritings."
4 "When I mention 'my sheykh' in the notes, the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád is the person to whom I allude. In several instances, when he has given brief explanations of words, phrases, customs, &c., with which I was previously acquainted, I have not thought it necessary to name him as my authority in notes which I have inserted, though I have sometimes done so."
5 "English writers generally express the Arabic vowels and diphthongs by their nearest Italian equivalents. This mode is very well suited for those who know, and for those who do not care for, the correct pronunciation of the words so transcribed; but for others I think it objectionable. Our language is altogether much more suitable to the purpose of expressing the sounds of Arabic than the Italian. Besides, I believe it is the custom of every other European nation, in transcribing Oriental words, to employ a system congenial with its own language. In a former work, I made use of a double h to express a very strong Arabic aspirate (as others had done before me), and the word 'Hhágg' or 'Hhájj' was pointed out by a critic as one remarkably uncouth: Von Hammer, in a review of that work, writes the same word (and very properly as a German writer) 'Hadschdsch.'"
6 "Strictly speaking, it has a sound between that of a in 'bad' and that of u in 'bud;' sometimes approximating more to the former; and sometimes to the latter."
7 "Its sound, however, often approximates to that of a in 'ball.'"
8 "Dh is pronounced as th in 'that:' gh represents a guttural sound like that produced in gargling: kh represents a guttural sound like that which is produced in expelling saliva from the throat, and approaching nearer to the sound of ḥ (a very strong aspirate) than to that of k: sh is pronounced as in 'shall:' and th, as in 'thin.'"
9 "Es-Suyooṭee, in his 'Ḥosn el-Moḥáḍarah,' after quoting a description of certain dresses, says, 'As to their dresses of honour, and those of the Wezeers and others of similar rank, I have struck out the description of them from the words of Ibn-Faḍl-Allah; for they are composed of silk and gold, which is forbidden by the law, and I have obliged myself not to mention in this book any thing of which I should be questioned in the world to come, if it be the will of God.'—I have never seen any Arabic work with drawings of costumes; but Persian drawings are often useful in explaining Arab dresses."
10 These drawings, with some few exceptions, have now been published, from copies in the possession of M. Coste.
11 "The substance of the first five chapters in my translation, ending with part of the thirty-second Night, occupies a hundred and sixty-eight Nights in the edition of Breslau."