STORIES FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS - lavishly illustrated children's tales E-Book

Retold By Laurence Housman

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

In this volume, Laurence Housman, retells 6 of the most popular tales from 1001 Arabian Nights. While there are only 6 tales in this volume, they are brought to life with 50 lavishly illustrated images by the famous illustrator Edmund Dulac. The six tales are:

• The Fisherman And The Genie
• The Story Of The King Of The Ebony Isles
• Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves
• The Story Of The Magic Horse
• The Story Of The Wicked Half-Brothers
• The Story Of The Princess Of Deryabar

All these tales are narrated by Scheherazadè, the heroine of the Thousand and one Nights. She ranks among the great story-tellers of the world and gives a distinctly Arabian flavour and feel to the stories.

In all these tales something magical and wonderful occurs. Sometimes it is a talking donkey, an evil witch or a corrupt Vizier. Whenever evil raises its head, a hero sallies forth to save the day. As per usual evil is vanquished and the hero and his princess ride off into the sunset. While the plot is always the familiar, the characters and the setting are not making the stories all the more interesting and captivating for young minds.

NOTE: The Princess of Deryabar featured in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958). The role was played by Kathryn Grant while Sinbad was played by Kerwin Matthews. It is believed that this volume and other illustrations by Dulac were directly responsible for the making of the film.

10% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities by the Publisher.
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TAGS: Folklore, fairy, tales, myths, legends, fables, children’s, stories, Fisherman, Genie, King, Ebony Isles, Ali Baba, Forty Thieves, 40, Magic Horse, Wicked, Half-Brothers, Princess Of Deryabar, Arabian Nights, Scheherazade, magic, mystery, Arabia, islands, mountains, flying horse, princess, prince, queen, 1001, Edmund Dulac, Laurence Housman,

Leseprobe

Stories fromThe Arabian Nights

Retold by Laurence Housman

With 50 exquisite Colour Illustrations by

Edmund Dulac

Originally Published By

Hodder and Stoughton, London

[1907]

Resurrected by

Abela Publishing, London

[2018]

Stories from the Arabian Nights

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

2018

ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

Website

www.AbelaPublishing.com

Scheherazadè, the heroine of the Thousand and One Nights.

PREFACE

Scheherazadè, the heroine of the Thousand and one Nights, ranks among the great story-tellers of the world much as does Penelope among the weavers. Procrastination was the basis of her art; for though the task she accomplished was splendid and memorable, it is rather in the quantity than the quality of her invention—in the long spun-out performance of what could have been done far more shortly—that she becomes a figure of dramatic interest. The idea which binds the stories together is greater and more romantic than the stories themselves; and though, both in the original and in translation, the diurnal interruption of their flow is more and more taken for granted, we are never quite robbed of the sense that it is Scheherazadè who is speaking—Scheherazadè, loquacious and self-possessed, sitting up in bed at the renewed call of dawn to save her neck for the round of another day. Here is a figure of romance worth a dozen of the prolix stories to which it has been made sponsor; and often we may have followed the fortunes of some shoddy hero and heroine chiefly to determine at what possible point of interest the narrator could have left hanging that frail thread on which for another twenty-four hours her life was to depend.

Yes, the idea is delightful; and, with the fiction of Scheherazadè to colour them, the tales acquire a rank which they would not otherwise deserve; their prolixity is then the crowning point of their art, their sententious truisms have a flavour of ironic wit, their repetitions become humorous, their trivialities a mark of light-hearted courage; even those deeper indiscretions, which Burton has so faithfully recorded, seem then but a wise adaptation of vile means to a noble end. And yet we know that it is not so; for, as a matter of fact, the "Arabian Nights Entertainment" is but a miscellany gathered from various sources, of various dates, and passing down to us, even in its collocated form, under widely differing versions. None but scholars can know how little of the unadulterated originals has come into our possession; and only those whose pious opinions shut their eyes to obvious facts can object in principle to the simplification of a form which, from the point of view of mere story-telling, can so easily be bettered. Even the more accurate of the versions ordinarily available are full of abridgement, alteration, and suppression; and if you have to eliminate Scheherazadè and select your stories mainly with a view to illustration, then you have very largely done away with the reasons for treating tenderly that prolixity which in an impatient age tends to debar readers from an old classic.

And so, in the present version, whoever shall care to make comparison will find that the original material has been treated with considerable freedom in the direction of brevity, and with an almost uniform departure from the exact text, save where essentials of plot or character or local colour required a closer, accuracy. In the case also of conflicting versions, there has been no reluctance to choose and combine in order to secure a livelier result; and a further freedom has sometimes been taken of giving to an incident more meaning and connexion than has been allowed to it in the original. That is, perhaps, the greatest licence of all, but it is the one that does least harm in formal result; for no one can read the majority of the tales in their accepted versions without perceiving that, as regards construction and the piecing of event with event, they are either incredibly careless or discreditably perfunctory. We have to reckon with them as the product of a race keenly alive to the value of colour and pictorial description, but a race whose constructive imagination was feeble and diffuse, lacking almost entirely that great essential for the development of art in its finer forms—the economy of means toward ends.

But because they contain, though at a low pressure, the expression of so much life, habit and custom, so many coloured and secluded interiors, so quaint a commingling of crowds, so brilliant and moving a pageantry of Eastern mediævalism, because of all these things the "Arabian Nights" will still retain their perennial charm. Those of us who read are all travellers; and never is our travelling sense so awakened perhaps, as when we dip into a book such as this where the incredible and the common-place are so curiously blended, and where Jinn and Efreet and Magician have far less interest for us now than the silly staring crowds, and the bobbing camels in the narrow streets, and Scheherazadè spinning her poor thin yarn of wonders that she may share for another night the pillow of a homicidal maniac.

Contents

The Fisherman and the Genie

The Story of the King of the Ebony Isles

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

The Story of the Magic Horse

The Story of the Wicked Half-Brothers

The Story of the Princess of Deryabar

Illustrations

1.Scheherazadè, the heroine of the Thousand and One

Nights.

2. And there in its midst stood a mighty Genie.

3. When having brought into submission all the rest of my

race.

4. No sooner had the monarch seen them, so strange of form

and so brilliant and diverse in hue.

5. Thereupon the damsel upset the pan into the fire.

6. Recalling the fisherman by a swift messenger.

7. He arrived within sight of a palace of shining marble.

8. The Queen of the Ebony Isles.

9. Supposing me asleep, they began to talk.

10. The cup of wine which she gives him each night contains

a sleeping-draught.

11. She went on to vent her malice upon the city and islands.

12. Began to heap upon me terms of the most violent and

shameful abuse.

13. Thus by her wicked machinations the city became a lake.

14. Great was the astonishment of the Vizier and the Sultan's

escort.

15. Their chief in a low but distinct voice uttered the two

words "Open Sesame!"

16. Ali Baba departed for the town a well satisfied man.

17. As soon as he came in she began to jeer at him.

18. Greater still was the exultation of a greedy nature like

that of Cassim's.

19. Mustapha doubted much of his ability to refrain from

question.

20. This way and that she led him blindfold.

21. Having transformed himself by disguise.

22. "Sir," said he, "I have brought my oil a great distance to

sell to-morrow".

23. She poured into each jar in turn a sufficient quantity of

the boiling oil to scald its occupant to death.

24. When Morgiana, who had remained all this time on the

watch.

25. Then for the last figure of all she drew out the dagger.

26. At so arrogant a claim all the courtiers burst into loud

laughter.

27. As he descended, the daylight in which hitherto he had

been travelling faded from view.

28. He saw black eunuchs lying asleep.

29. She gave orders for a rich banquet to be prepared.

30. Till the tale of her mirror contented her.

31. She cried: "O miserable man, what sorry watch is this

that thou hast kept".

32. All this time the Princess had been watching the combat

from the roof of the palace.

33. In the garden of the summer palace all was silence and

solitude.

34. Sat by the lake and solaced themselves sweetly with love.

35. It was in vain that all the wisest physicians in the country

were summoned into consultation.

36. For many months he travelled without clue.

37. And ever with the tears falling down from her eyes she

sighed and sang.

38. There appeared before him an old man of venerable

appearance.

39. Pirouzè, the fairest and most honourably born.

40. Reaching his farthest wounded the giant in the knee.

41. The lady advanced to meet him.

42. A city among the Isles named Deryabar.

43. Presently in the distance he perceived a light.

44. The ship struck upon a rock.

45. And presently, feeling myself lifted by men's hands.

46. The Princess of Deryabar.

47. She found to her grief the place where Codadad had lain

left vacant.

48. She and her companion arrived at the city of Harran.

49. And taking her hand he led her to the apartments of the

Queen Pirouzè.

50. After these, maidens on white horses, with heads

unveiled, bearing in their hands baskets of precious

stones.

The Fisherman and the Genie

There was once an old fisherman who lived in great poverty with a wife and three children. But though poorer than others he ever toiled in humble submission to the decrees of Providence, and so, at the same hour each day, he would cast his net four times into the sea, and whatever it brought up to him therewith he rested content.

One day, having cast for the first time, he found his net so heavy that he could scarcely draw it in; yet when at last he got it to shore all that it contained was the carcase of an ass.

He cast a second time, and found the draught of the net even heavier than before. But again he was doomed to disappointment, for this time it contained nothing but a large earthenware jar full of mud and sand. His third attempt brought him only a heap of broken old bottles and potsherds: fortune seemed to be against him. Then, committing his hope to Providence, he cast for the fourth and last time; and once more the weight of the net was so great that he was unable to haul it. When at last he got it to land, he found that it contained a brazen vessel, its mouth closed with a leaden stopper, bearing upon it the seal of King Solomon.

And there in its midst stood a mighty Genie.

The sight cheered him. "This," thought he, "I can sell in the market, where I may get for it enough to buy a measure of corn; and, if one is to judge by weight, what lies within may prove yet more valuable."

Thus reckoning, he prised out the stopper with his knife, and turning the vessel upside down looked for the contents to follow. Great was his astonishment when nothing but smoke came out of it. The smoke rose in a thick black column and spread like a mist between earth and sky, till presently, drawing together, it took form; and there in its midst stood a mighty Genie, whose brows touched heaven while his feet rested upon ground. His head was like a dome, his hands were like flails, and his legs like pine trees; his mouth was black as a cavern, his nostrils were like trumpets, his eyes blazed like torches, and his wings whirled round and over him like the simoom of the desert.

At so fearful a sight all the fisherman's courage oozed out of him; but the Genie, perceiving him, cried with a loud voice, "O, Solomon, Prophet of God, slay me not, for never again will I withstand thee in word or deed!"

"Alas!" said the fisherman, "I am no prophet; and as for Solomon, he has been dead for nearly two thousand years. I am but a poor fisherman whom chance has knocked by accident against thy door."

"In that case," answered the Genie, "know that presently thou wilt have to die."

"Heaven forbid!" cried the fisherman; "or, at least, tell me why! Surely it might seem that I had done thee some service in releasing thee."

"Hear first my story," said the Genie, "then shalt thou understand."

"Well, if I must!" said the fisherman, resigning himself to the inevitable; "but make it short, for truly I have small stomach left in me now for the hearing of tales."

"Know, then," said the Genie, "that I am one of those spirits which resisted the power and dominion of Solomon; and when, having brought into submission all the rest of my race, he could not make me yield to him either reverence or service, he caused me to be shut up in this bottle, and sealing it with his own seal cast it down into the depths of the sea.

"Now when I had lain there prisoner for a hundred years, I swore in my heart that I would give to the man that should release me all the treasures attainable in heaven or earth. But when none came to earn so great a reward in all the hundred years that followed, then I swore that I would give to my liberator earthly riches only; and when this gift also had lain despised for yet another hundred years, then would I promise no more than the fulfilment of three wishes.

When having brought into submission all the rest of my race.

But thereafter finding that all promises and vows were vain, my heart became consumed with rage, and I swore by Allah that I would only grant to the fool that should release me his own choice of the most cruel form of death by which he should die. Now therefore accept that mercy which I still offer and choose thy penalty!"

When the fisherman heard this he gave himself up for lost, yet he did not the less continue by prayer and supplication to entreat the Genie from his purpose. But when he found that there was no heart left in him to be moved, then for the first time he bestirred his wits, and remembering how that which is evil contains far less wisdom than that which is good, and so falls ever the more readily into the trap prepared for it, he spoke thus: "O Genie, since thou art determined on my death, there is yet a certain thing touching thine honour that I would first know. So, by the Ineffable Name, which is the seal of Solomon, I will ask thee one question, and do thou swear to answer it truly."

The Genie was ready enough to give the oath as desired. Then said the fisherman, "How is it that one so great as thou art, whose feet o'er-step the hills and whose head out-tops the heaven—how can such an one enter into so small a vessel to dwell in it? Truly, though mine eyes tell me I have seen it, I cannot any longer believe so great a marvel."

"What?" cried the Genie, "dost thou not believe what I have already told thee?"

"Not till I have seen it done can I believe it," said the fisherman.

Thereupon, without more waste of words, the Genie, drawing his limbs together and folding himself once more in a thick veil of smoke, descended from his vast altitude into the narrow neck of the brazen [...]