Note 58 — THE STORY OF THE THREE SHARPERS.[17]
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
The careless scribe forgets that the Sultan is speaking and here drops into the third person. This “Enallage of persons” is, however, Koranic and therefore classical: Arab critics aver that in such cases the “Hikáyah” (= literal reproduction of a discourse etc.) passes into an “Ikhbár” (= mere account of the same discourse). See Al-Mas’údí iii. 216. I dare not reproduce this figure in English.