Chapter I · THE IMAGINATIVE GROUP

Of all the wide lands open to the wandering imagination none has a more perennial charm than the mysterious East. To that magical country the Arabian Nights, ever since its first appearance in English in the early years of the eighteenth century, has proved a favourite gateway, over which might well be inscribed:—

“Be glad, thou reder, and thy sorwe of-caste,

Al open am I; passe in, and by the faste!”

With the exception of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Orient has given us no book that has become so intimate a part of our imaginative inheritance. “Aladdin’s lamp,” the “Open Sesame,” “changing old lamps for new,” “the Old Man of the Sea,” have entered into familiar household speech. Many a reader has echoed the mood of Hawthorne, 2“To Persia and Arabia and all the gorgeous East I owed a pilgrimage for the sake of their magic tales.”^[9]

It would be superfluous to describe this familiar book in detail. That ground has been well covered by such translators and essayists as Sir Richard Burton and Mr. John Payne. Our purpose is rather to examine briefly the general character of the Arabian Nights^[10] in order to understand the significance of its sudden entrance into the England of Queen Anne. The earliest collection of oriental tales to appear in English in the century, it is also the richest in pure imaginative power and therefore has a twofold right to first consideration in this chapter.

One of the chief elements of charm in the Arabian Nights has already been suggested—the sense of mystery and magic. The arrangement of the stories enhances this impression. At first glance the form seems simple. The frame-tale, that well-known device believed to be of oriental origin, is the story of the beautiful Scheherezade telling tales to the cruel sultan 3for a thousand and one nights. But within this simple setting the stories are so interwoven and so varied—apologues, romances, anecdotes, and fables—that the total effect is as intricate as the design of an oriental carpet. One strange story follows another in bewildering profusion until the reader seems to be walking in a dream “in the days of Haroun Alraschid,” when the unexpected always happens. In this land of wonder and enchantment any threatening cloud may assume the form of an enormous genie, white-bearded, terrific, with torch in hand and a voice like thunder, “a Slave of the Lamp,” ready to carry a sleeping prince a thousand leagues through the air or to erect over night a palace of dazzling splendour; any serpent may be an enchanted fairy; any beautiful woman may be a disguised princess or a cruel sorceress with power to transform human beings into dogs or black stones; and at every turn one may meet African magicians who can pronounce the “Open Sesame” to subterranean treasure-caves. In the bazaars fairies disguised as old women sell magic carpets to fortunate princes; by the wayside an aged dervish sits for the sole purpose of directing seekers toward the talking bird, the 4singing tree, and the yellow water. “The wondrous horse of brass” is no more marvelous than the roc, “a white bird of monstrous size and of such strength that it takes elephants from the plains to the tops of the mountains.” In the world of the Arabian Nights is to be found the magic mirror that reveals character by remaining unsullied only in the presence of the pure in heart. On the sea furious storms arise and drive ships to sure disaster against the black mountain of adamant. Shipwrecked Sindbad meets strange dwarfs; “tremendous black giants, one-eyed and as high as a tall palm-tree”; and, most dangerous of all, the terrible Old Man of the Sea. Shark-headed monsters and beautiful mermaids arise from the deep; and, if one could only look down far enough, one would see in the ocean depths vast kingdoms of boundless wealth and unutterable beauty, ruled over by the flamebreathing princes of the sea. In these enchanted domains it is not surprising to find superlatively horrible monsters “with the head of an elephant and the body of a tiger”; or to encounter blinding flashes of lightning, “followed by most tremendous thunder, ... hideous darkness, ... a dreadful cry, ... and an earthquake such as 5Asrayel is to cause on the day of judgment.” The same naïve love of magical unreality that adorns these stories with such transcendent horrors produces the scenes of “surpassing beauty,” which have made the splendour of the Arabian Nights proverbial.^[11] Aladdin’s magnificent palace—jeweled windows and all—is eclipsed by the palace of the third Calendar, “more splendid than imagination can conceive.”

And yet, despite all this misty atmosphere of wonder and magic, there is in the Arabian Nights a strange sense of reality in the midst of unreality, a verisimilitude which accounts in large part for the steady popularity the book 6has enjoyed with the English people. The cities of Bagdad and Cairo, the countries of the East, the Seven Seas, are real places, though so far-away that they seem on the borders of fairy-land. Time as well as space is an actuality, however remote and vague. Plausible introductory phrases imitate the manner of a veracious historian, e.g., “There was a Sultan named Mirza who had peaceably filled the throne of India many years.” It is easy for the reader to imagine himself present at the scenes described, e.g., the opening of the divan of the mock caliph in the Sleeper Awakened, when “the grand vizier Giafar and the judge of the police ... first bowed themselves down before him and paid him the salutations of the morning.” In the bezesteins silk merchants, glass dealers, and jewelers sit by their wares and fall in love with veiled ladies; venders of roses, dervishes, and beggars crowd past; and dogs who may be enchanted princes tell false coin from true to the delight of the lookers-on. At the water-gate of the palace on the Tigris, the favourite slave of the sultaness Zobeide outwits the crabbed old eunuch and secures safe admission for the trunk containing her lover. 7Prince Houssain tells us travelers’ tales of the brazen temple in which “the principal idol was ... of massive gold; its eyes were rubies, so artificially set, that it seemed to look at the spectator in whatever direction he stood.” When the king of Serendib appears in public, he has a throne fixed on the back of an elephant and is surrounded by attendants clad in silk and cloth of gold; “and the officer before him cries out occasionally, ‘Behold ... the potent and redoubtable sultan of the Indies, whose palace is covered with an hundred thousand rubies, ... greater than the greatest of princes!’ After which the officer who is behind cries out, ‘This monarch, so great, so powerful, must die, must die, must die.’ The officer who is before replies, ‘Praise be to him who liveth forever.’”^[12]

Other customs are described in equally vivid detail. The obsequies of a prince include long processions of lamenting guards, anchorites, and maidens; marriage ceremonies are accompanied by feasting, music, dancing, and the bride’s seven-fold salutation of her husband. “The pure religion of our holy prophet” is contrasted with the cruel rites of fire-worshipers. 8Devout Mussulmans pass through the streets to the mosques and make pilgrimages to Mecca.

But of all the glimpses of Eastern life the most interesting is the constantly recurring picture of the oriental story-teller. Everywhere—in the bazaars, by the wayside, in palace gardens or fishermen’s cottages, during the feasts or before the caliph’s tribunal, by night and by day—the teller of tales is sure of an interested audience. The variety of stories in the Arabian Nights makes credible the theory of recent editors, that the ultimate sources were equally diverse,—an hypothesis that goes far toward explaining the artistic excellences and limitations of the collection.

What wonder that, with listeners clamouring like children for another story, each narrator exerted his ingenuity to outdo his predecessors and, like Scheherezade herself, promised greater marvels next time? In most of the tales one surprising adventure succeeds another with kaleidoscopic rapidity, unconnected except by the mere presence of the hero. In that respect these tales resemble the modern historical romance. The chief appeal is to the listener’s or reader’s curiosity, and little thought is given 9to the structural unity of the narrative. There is a succession of events, but rarely any causal sequence. Even in so capital a story as Aladdin the two elements of the climax—Aladdin’s marriage and the magician’s resolve upon vengeance—are loosely knit by chance and by magic. The close of the average story is usually as movable a point as the climax. If the narrator thinks of another incident, he merely adds a postscript. Witness the Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother, in which the misfortunes of Shacabac after the Barmecide’s death are foisted upon the admirably dramatic tale of the Barmecide’s feast.

But, though the majority of the tales possess little structural unity, many individual incidents are perfect dramatic sketches, cleverly introduced, wrought to a climax, developed to a dénouement, and characterized by compression and rapid movement no less than by brilliant descriptive phrases and good dialogue. Such are the disastrous day-dream of Alnaschar the glass merchant, the adventure of the barber’s blind brother, and the ruse of Abon Hassan and his wife to win gifts from the caliph and Zobeide by feigning death.^[13] The dénouement of the last 10will readily be recalled. The perplexed caliph offered a thousand pieces of gold to any one who could prove which of the two, Abon Hassan or his wife, died first. “Instantly a hand was held out, and a voice from under Abon Hassan’s pall was heard to say, ‘I died first, Commander of the Faithful, give me the thousand pieces of gold.’” This dramatic instinct for situation or incident is especially noticeable in the numerous clever introductions. The favourite device of the disguised caliph Haroun wandering through the city in search of adventure never fails to awaken interest. Mysterious scenes of grief or sudden exclamations stimulate curiosity at once. “‘For God’s sake, sir,’ replied the stranger, ‘let me go! I cannot without horror look upon that abominable barber!’”

Beyond incident and situation, however, the dramatic instinct of the story-teller does not go. He shows little psychological insight. His characters are wooden automata, picturesque truly, but neither individualized nor alive. Various figures recur repeatedly: the prodigal youth, forsaken by his fair-weather friends; the tyrant sultan; the clever man; the superlative hero; the unjust judge; good and bad 11viziers; and good and bad sons. They might be shifted from one story to another with no more shock than Aladdin’s palace felt when lifted and set down again. The Arabian Nights contains, fortunately, little or no direct moralizing, but in these abstract types it offered suggestions not lost upon the eighteenth-century writers of moralistic oriental tales. Even familiar figures like Aladdin and Sindbad owe their existence as individuals to the reader’s sympathetic imagination. They are interesting, not in themselves, but on account of their marvelous adventures.

For, after all, one supreme attraction of the Arabian Nights is the charm of pure adventure, the story for the sake of the story. Sentimental tales are exceptional; in only eight is love the chief interest. Adventurous tales of the Sindbad type are more characteristic. It is noticeable that in many of the stories where picaresque or farcical realism is strong, magic plays no part. But in all the tales, whether magical or realistic, the emphasis is thrown on events. Exciting incidents are given verisimilitude by picturesque details, until the reader, forgetting for the moment the absence of the 12deeper realities of character, comes under the spell of pure romance,—as in the case of Robinson Crusoe, the novels of Dumas, or the folk-ballads,—and must himself “mitdichten.” The magical atmosphere, the rich variety of dramatic incident, the spirit of adventure, and the brilliant background, atone in part for the lack, in the Arabian Nights, of structural unity and characterization. Across the scene moves the seemingly endless, ever shifting pageant of dramatis personæ, all sorts and conditions of men: princes and viziers, ropemakers and fishermen, dervishes and cadis, sheiks and slaves, queens and beggar-women. One can see them, hear them speak, and guess at their characters as one might in observing passers-by in the bazaars of some strange Eastern city. For the time being it is easy to follow Ali Baba to the forest to gather wood; or to share the fright of the fisherman who liberates the genie; or to hear the tired porter Hindbad railing at Fortune as he rests in the cool street sprinkled with rose-water, while the white-bearded, travel-wise Sindbad listens from his palace window and summons the poor man in; or to feel the human interest in the dramatic 13scene that serves as the general background—Scheherezade saving the lives of her countrywomen by telling her tales to the sultan.

The collection of oriental tales next in order of importance is the Persian Tales or the Thousand and One Days^[14] (1714), the companion-piece to the Arabian Nights. The plan is similar: a frame-tale which introduces and concludes the collection and links the successive stories. But in the Persian Tales, instead of a sultan who has lost faith in women, the central figure is the princess of Casmire, who, having dreamed that she saw an ungrateful stag forsaking a hind, has lost faith in men and has decided never to marry. Her beauty drives men mad; the king, her father, is in despair; and her old nurse, Sutlememé, undertakes to convert her by tales of faithful lovers. For a thousand and one days the tales are told, but each hero is criticized by the skeptical and obdurate princess. She is finally persuaded to marry the prince of Persia only by the magic powers and religious authority of a holy dervish. The conclusion of the frame-tale is unnecessarily complicated by the introduction of the witch Mehrefsa, a Persian Circe. 14There is at the close an attempt to recall the introduction by the story of the prince’s dream that the princess, “fairer than a houri,” appeared to him in a flowery meadow and told him of her dream and consequent loss of faith in mankind. But this incident gives only a superficial unity to the frame-tale; structural unity is lacking. The same criticism holds true of the majority of individual stories in the Persian Tales. Considerable unity of feeling, however, is given to the collection by the fact that Sutlememé’s avowed purpose holds her chiefly to one theme,—true love,—which often rises above the sensuous or the ridiculously sentimental and throws a pleasant light over the stories as a whole.

This characteristic differentiates the Persian Tales at once from the Arabian Nights. For instance, a typical story in the Persian Tales begins as follows: the hero, Couloufe, a youth of noble birth, having wasted his substance, wanders to a far-off city. A mysterious slave in the bazaar beckons him. He follows into a palace; enters one hall after another, each more glorious than the last; and beholds pillars of “massy gold,” silver trees with emeralds for leaves, singing birds behind golden lattices, 15fragrant roses growing around marble basins of crystal water, banquets on sandalwood tables, little pages offering wine in cups made of single rubies; and, finally, the princess arrayed in “rose-coloured taffeta, thick-sown with pearls,” seated on a golden throne, surrounded by “radiant damsels” singing to the lute or dulcimer, “Love but once, but love forever.” “Couloufe imagined that he saw the moon surrounded by the stars, and fainted, quite overpowered with the sight of this ravishing object.” To faint seems, in fact, the customary mode of showing affection. In another tale, the heroine on the slightest provocation melts into “floods of tears” and the hero is not far behind with his tears and swoons. Reproached by his mistress, he says, “It struck me to my very soul, and in the height of my grief ... I fell into a fit and swooned away at the foot of the throne.” Violent agitation, “a languishing air,” transports of passion or of wrath, remorse which causes death, call to mind the eighteenth-century novel of sentiment.

More sentimental than the Arabian Nights, the Persian Tales is also more fantastic. The talking bird of the prophet Isaac, which came 16to aid Aboulfouaris on the desert island, had a blue head, red eyes, yellow wings, and a green body. We are not surprised when the hero says, “I had never seen one like it.” This remarkable bird is, however, eclipsed in the same story by an ugly Afrite with a nose like an elephant’s trunk and with one eye blood-red, the other blue, who led Aboulfouaris past roaring lions, huge dragons, and fierce griffins. The Afrite and the griffins themselves seem commonplace beside the prophet Elias, who is pictured as a cavalier wearing a green turban set with rubies and riding a rose-coloured horse under whose feet the earth immediately produces flowers. In describing scenes of beauty or of horror the Persian Tales is far more lavish than the Arabian Nights. The princess Tourandocte, asking riddles of Prince Calaf, “not satisfied with putting this question to him, ... maliciously threw off her veil, to dazzle and confound him with the luster of her beauty. Her despite and shame [at his having guessed her other riddles] had given her a blush which added new charms, ... her head was adorned with ... flowers; ... and her eyes shone brighter than the stars, brighter than the sun when he shines in his full glory at the opening 17of the black cloud. The amorous son of Timurtasch, at the sight of this incomparable princess ... stood mute.” Scenes of horror are equally marvelous. The Persian Old Man of the Sea, for instance, is a huge monster with tiger’s eyes and an impenetrable skin, who meets his death only by battling with “the greatest roc that was ever seen.”

Like the Arabian Nights, the Thousand and One Days carries us to a land of magic and enchantment. There we find the magic mountain of polished steel which draws all ships to it with fatal power; the ring with Solomon’s seal; and the magic chest that transports its occupant through the air when guided by pressure of certain springs, like the horse of brass. There are bad genii, black and lean with sparkling eyes and horns; and there are good spirits, clothed in white like “religious Sophis.” There are magicians like the witch Bedra, who sits in a dismal cavern with a great book open upon her knees, in which she reads before a furnace of gold, wherein there is a pot of silver, full of black earth that boils without fire. Caverns of treasure contain kings and princesses in magic sleep. One amusing variation from the ordinary treasure-cave 18is the cavern of books. Avicena, the sage, says: “Towards the Caspian Sea there is a mountain which is called the Red Mountain, because it is covered with roses throughout the year.” At the foot is a cavern of vast extent, the doors of which by virtue of a talisman open once a year of their own accord and shut again in half an hour and fifteen minutes, and if “any bookish man, too intent upon his choice of authors,” stay, he is sure to be starved to death. “The wise Chec Chehabeddin” gathered there twenty thousand books, which treat of the philosopher’s stone, of the method of discovering hidden treasure, of changing men into beasts, and of giving souls to vegetables: “all the secrets of nature.”^[15] Apparently this remarkable library was carefully catalogued and efficiently watched by genii, who seized all persons that neglected to return books and “tormented them cruelly, ... even to death.”^[16]

19One of the greatest charms of the Persian Tales, as of its better-known rival, lies in the mingling of reality and unreality. Genuine glimpses of oriental customs and beliefs alternate with strange adventures. The scenes are laid in real places, but the Eastern names have a magic all their own. We see Aboulfouaris, “the Great Voyager,” sailing down the Gulf of Basra, between Persia and Araby the Blest, toward Ormus and the kingdom of Indes. It is easy for the fancy to fly as on a magic carpet from the vale of Cashmere, from Carisme and Candahar to Golconda and Samarcande; or to sail past China to the Isle of Cheristany till our ship drives “to the Strait of the Moluccas, south of the Philippines into seas unknown to our mariners.”

Strange customs are described with a lavish and yet plausible use of detail. The throne of the king of China was “made of Catai steel in the form of a dragon, about three cubits high; 20over it was a canopy of yellow satin adorned with diamonds supported by four lofty pillars of the same Catai steel.” The king, when disposed “to take the diversion of fowling, ... was clothed in a straight caffetan, and his beard was tied up in a black bag.” Grief of the Chinese courtiers for their king’s death was expressed by dyeing their faces yellow and strewing rose leaves before the throne. In the story of Aboulfouaris’s first voyage occurs an elaborate description of the suttee—the funeral pyre, the ablutions, the gorgeous apparel, and the voluntary suicide of the widow.

Other customs described are masquerades, visits, and feasts. On one festival night fireworks were set off, sherbets and sweetmeats were offered to every one, dancing to the tambours and deffs took place in the square, and “Calenders ran to and fro in the street like men transported with frenzy.” “The shops in all the great streets and squares were hung with tapestry ... illuminated with sashes that contained some verse out of the Alcoran; ... the sacred book might be read entire as you walked the streets. It seemed as if the Angel Gabriel had brought it down to our great prophet a second 21time in characters of light.” The most binding oath is, “I swear by the black stone of the sacred temple of Mecca and by the holy grove of Medina, where the tomb of our prophet lies.” “There is no other God but one, and Mahomet is his prophet.” Belief in the divine pen of fire that writes on a tablet of light is referred to in the story of Couloufe. “I know not whether God wills that I die or live for you, but at least I know well that it will never be written in heaven that I shall repudiate you.” There are several curious references to Eastern philosophies, e.g., the captive princess who has just stabbed herself says: “[I learned in infancy] the doctrine of Xaca, and you need not then wonder I had the courage to do this. I am returning to my original nothing.” The king replies, “May you ... after having passed through the nine hells, be born again daughter of another sovereign as at the first transmigration.” In the tale of Fadlallah and Zemroude the idea of transmigration is prominent.

Scattered through the Persian Tales are incidents and phrases suggesting familiar European stories. It is interesting to note the resemblances, but impossible to say whether the original source 22was oriental or European.^[17] For instance, this version of the Ballad of the Heir of Linne occurs. Atalmulc, the spendthrift son of a rich jeweler, had been told by his dying father that after he had wasted all his patrimony, he should tie a rope to the branch of a certain tree in the garden and “prevent the miseries of poverty.” Atalmulc, thinking his father had suggested suicide, endeavoured to hang himself. The branch broke, disclosing the careful father’s hoard of jewels. In the story of King Ruzvanchad the king marries the princess of the genii with the promise never to reprove her, but to say, “She is a genie and has special reasons for her actions.” He breaks his promise, after great provocation; and she vanishes, to return after ten years to reward his constancy. There is a resemblance here to the story of Undine. Both tales, like Lohengrin and Cupid and Psyche, are variants on the world-wide theme: Lack of faith means loss of love. Other incidents in Ruzvanchad might find parallels in Celtic, or Teutonic, or Greek legends. The king meets a white doe, “beautifully sprinkled with blue 23and black spots; with rings of gold upon her feet; and upon her back a yellow satin, bordered round with embroidery of silver.” She disappears into a fountain; the king, thinking her a nymph in disguise, falls asleep to be awakened by “a ravishing symphony” coming from “a very magnificent palace all illuminated,” which has been raised by superhuman power. Later he finds a melancholy lady in torn garments, who says: “I am the daughter and the wife of a king, and yet not what I say. I am a princess, and yet not what I am.” Her misfortunes prove to be due to the machinations of a witch who, Duessa-like, has assumed her form and won away her husband. In the History of Two Brothers, Genies [sic], Adis and Dahy, a tale in some respects coarse and repulsive, there is a curious description of an island where ideas of beauty are topsyturvy; the wrinkles and decrepitude of old age are adored and the loveliness of youth despised—characteristics recalling the Topsyturvy land of European story. In the same tale the costume of the islanders seems borrowed from the san benito. They wore “long robes of cotton on which were painted several figures of demons in red, green, and yellow, 24with flames and other odd conceits.” In The History of Malek and the Princess Schirine, Malek, by flying in a magic chest, gains entrance to the apartment of the princess and persuades her and her father that he is the prophet Mahomet and her destined husband. There are touches of humour here, a rare quality in these tales. “I had eat up all my provisions and spent all my money. The prophet Mahomet was reduced to as low a state of want as ever man was that had asked alms.” Throughout the tale there is a spirit of mockery, of practical joking, not unlike that of a Spanish story. One cannot help surmising that Le Sage’s collaboration with Pétis de la Croix went further than strictly editorial work. In fact, in view of the resemblances to European legend noted above, it is most probable that Pétis de la Croix himself, taking advantage of the wave of enthusiasm recently aroused by Galland’s Mille et une Nuit,^[18] treated his oriental manuscripts far more freely even than Galland, added decorative incidents from European sources, and invented the 25title Mille et un Jour.^[19] in direct imitation of Galland’s title.

In general the Persian Tales resembles the Arabian Nights in the mingling of magic and reality, of strange enchantments and oriental customs almost as strange; in dramatic presentation of picturesque incident and background; in lack of characterization and, with few exceptions, of structural unity. But the Persian Tales is far more sentimental, more fantastic, more brilliant in colour. Here the reader is in a fairy-land of charming or grotesque surprises, while in the Arabian Nights, despite the misty clouds of enchantment, there is substantial ground under foot. May not this be one reason why the Arabian Nights has always been a greater favourite in England than the Persian Tales; and why, in France, the popularity of the Persian Tales has equaled, if not surpassed, that of the Arabian Nights?

The Turkish Tales, the third important collection, was translated from French into English in 1708, and appeared also in a version called 26The Persian and the Turkish Tales Compleat [sic] (1714).^[20] It is a version of the old oriental story of Sendebar, best known to English students in the Middle English form, The Seven Sages of Rome. The frame-tale in this version is briefly as follows: Queen Canzade’s evil passion for her stepson turns to hatred upon his rejection of her love and her scheme to murder the king. The prince is bound to forty days’ silence for fear of a mysterious calamity predicted by his tutor. The latter, meanwhile, to avoid questions retires discreetly into a cave. Canzade persuades the king to decree the prince’s death; the forty viziers successively plead for him by stories of wicked women and loyal sons; the queen endeavours to win her way by tales of evil viziers and murderous princes; until finally the tutor is unearthed, the prince justified, and the queen condemned in his stead. The Tales are appropriately called by the Turks “Malice of Women,” for the queen’s stories reveal her malice and the vizier’s tales defend the prince more by attacking women in general, and the queen in particular, than by praising him.

In this satirical spirit the Turkish Tales 27affords a marked contrast to the Persian Tales. The two collections are similar in use of magic and of oriental customs, lack of structural unity, absence of characterization, and emphasis on the story for the story’s sake. The Turkish Tales differs in that it contains no elaborate descriptions. This absence of stage-setting, as it were, focuses attention on the plot and throws the characters into bolder relief. A few of the tales, as a result, are admirable narratives. The best is the most famous of the collection, The Santon Barsisa, quoted by Steele in the Guardian, No. 148, and in that form suggesting to Lewis—according to his own statement—the idea of The Monk.^[21] The story here is brief and crude, but swift in movement and powerful in a way not unlike early versions of the Faust saga. The dialogues between the devil and the saint are thoroughly dramatic; no mention has been 28made of the devil at all, and the reader is as utterly unprepared for his sudden stage-entrance as is the saint himself. An evil idea arises in the santon’s mind and, quick as thought, “the devil, taking this opportunity, whispered in his ear thus: ‘O santon, do not let slip such a fortunate minute.’” The santon yields, commits one crime after another, is detected, and condemned to be hanged. On the scaffold he hears a whisper in his ear: “‘O santon, if you will worship me, I will extricate you out of this difficulty and transport you two thousand leagues from here, into a country where you shall be reverenced by men as much as you were before this adventure.’—‘I am content,’ says Barsisa; ‘deliver me and I will worship thee.’ ‘Give me first a sign of adoration,’ replies the devil; whereupon the santon bowed his head and said, ‘I give myself to you.’ The devil, then raising his voice, said, ‘O Barsisa, I am satisfied; I have obtained what I desired’; and with these words, spitting in his face, he disappeared, and the wretched santon was hanged.”

Of the other tales, six deserve mention. Two were quoted in the Spectator: Chec Chehabeddin and the Sultan of Egypt in No. 94; The Fable 29of the Sultan Mahmoud and the Two Owls in No. 512. The third, the story of the King of Aad,^[22] has an interesting resemblance to an incident in Gulliver’s Travels. The fourth and fifth are characteristic of the collection, The History of the Brahman and the Young Fiquay, a Turkish version of the Aladdin story, and the oriental apologue of King Togrul-Bey. The sixth, The History of the Prince of Carizme and the Princess of Georgia, may be noted as exceptionally fantastic, and as containing the song attributed to John Hughes:—

“Eternal are the chains which here

The generous souls of lovers bind,” etc.^[23]

After the Arabian Nights, the Persian Tales, and the Turkish Tales, the best imaginative oriental tales are the English versions of the so-called pseudo-translations. The first to appear in English was The Travels and Adventures of the Three Princes of Serendip^[24] ... (1722) from the 30French of De Mailli [or Mailly], whose version was in turn from the Italian Peregrinaggio ... by Armeno (1557).^[25] The events of the story, in De Mailli’s rendering, are said to have occurred “in the happy time when kings were philosophers and sent each other important problems to solve,”—a sentiment lacking in the Italian, and characteristic of a French eighteenth-century version. The frame-tale recounts the travels of three “equally beautiful and gifted” princes, who seek culture and win success in various enterprises. In the Emperor Behram’s country, their first adventure is the one probably imitated by Voltaire in Zadig. They tell a camel driver that his lost camel is blind, lame, and laden with honey, butter, etc., but that they have not seen him. When accused of theft, they inform the judge that their close observation of the camel’s footprints, the cropped herbage, etc., has led them to infer the truth. Another achievement is their recovery of the Emperor’s lost mirror of justice, which has the extraordinary property of detecting false accusations. If a slanderer 31look into the mirror, his face turns black and can be restored only by public confession and penance. Many of the stories are apparently based on Italian novelle of shepherdesses, Venetian ladies, clever goldsmiths, and other similar characters, and are unoriental. There is one story of metempsychosis, however, similar to the oriental tale, Fadlallah and Zemroude, in the Persian Tales. But “the general plan of the Peregrinaggio is more inflexible and homogeneous than is usual in oriental tales.”^[26] The English version stands by itself in being perhaps the only pseudo-translation which came by way of eighteenth-century France from sixteenth-century Italy.

One of the most facile and prolific of French writers of pseudo-translations was Thomas Simon Gueullette (1683–1766). Four of his collections were translated into English under the names: Chinese Tales, or the Wonderful Adventures of the Mandarin Fum-Hoam ... (1725); Mogul Tales, or the Dreams of Men Awake: being Stories Told to Divert the Sultanas 32of Guzarat, for the Supposed Death of the Sultan (1736); Tartarian Tales; or, a Thousand and One Quarters of Hours (1759); and Peruvian Tales Related in One Thousand and One Hours by One of the Select Virgins of Cuzco, to the Inca of Peru ... (1764, Fourth (?) Edition).^[27] The last named is a worthless collection, oriental or rather pseudo-oriental in everything except locale and interesting only as an example of the ultra-fantastic, degenerate oriental tale. One bit of unconscious humour rewards the reader; the author gives local colour to the terrors of Peru by mentioning “muskettas, reptiles, and other insects.”

Of the three other collections, the Chinese Tales may serve as the type. The frame-tale is as follows: The sultan of China in disguise wins the love of the princess Gulchenraz, kills the usurper of her kingdom, tests her love by the suit of a mock-sultan, and is accepted by her on condition that her Mahometan faith be unmolested. She agrees to listen to the Mandarin Fum-Hoam, who tells her tales to convert her to belief in transmigration; and the sultan promises that, if she remain unconverted, he will 33become a Mahometan. Fum-Hoam tells many tales, and at the end reveals himself as her lost brother, who is wise as Solomon, and who has brought to pass all the events of the story. He then transports them to his kingdom, Georgia, and admits that there is no truth in the transmigration theory, and that he has told his tales solely to make the sultan keep his promise of embracing Mahometanism. The frame-tale closes with the implication that they all lived happily ever after. The oriental colouring is very slight. Transmigration is mentioned only to be ridiculed. Reference is made to the suttee, to pilgrimages to Mecca, and to the fast of Ramadan according to the Koran. Descriptions of emotion are absurd; one hero dies of grief, with lamentations “like the roarings of a lion.” The narratives are often grotesque, e.g. the journey to the Country of Souls,^[28] where the soul can be put into a bag to be brought back to the land of the living and reëmbodied by placing the bag at the mouth of the corpse. The author’s fancy runs riot as to the successive transmigrations of Fum-Hoam, who assumes in tedious 34succession numerous forms, such as those of a dog, a maid, a flea, and a bat. There is surprisingly little satire, considering the opportunities for observing mankind possible to the ubiquitous Fum-Hoam. In the use of magic, the Chinese Tales follows conventional lines—the elixir of life or water of youth, the secret of transmuting metals to gold, the mysterious words of Solomon which command the genii; cabalistic prayers, which reveal black marble staircases leading to subterranean treasure-caves; and incantations in the manner of Theocritus. Many other incidents imply a knowledge of European legend and literature. One story tells of Grecian shepherds; another of Kolao, the wild man, and his Robinson Crusoe life; another recalls Pandora; another, the fairy tale of brothers rewarded for helping fairies in the form of animals. One incident might easily be a masque of Neptune—a venerable man rising from the sea in a chariot of mother-of-pearl, drawn by sea-horses, and accompanied by mermaids. The adventure of the prince in the haunted tower of the forty virgins serves as sequel to a story similar to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. A dwarf agreed for a certain sum to free the city of Ispahan from rats 35by playing on tabor and pipe. When the people refused payment, they were threatened with dire punishments by the dwarf’s mother, “a genie in the shape of an old black woman above fifty feet high ... with a whip in her hand,” unless they brought at once forty of their most beautiful daughters. To the sound of the genie’s leather trumpet, “these unhappy victims of their father’s perfidy” were led to the tower and seen no more until rescued by the prince. The Chinese Tales contains less moralizing than the other pseudo-translations. There is one reference to the happiness of a tranquil life away from court, from lawsuits, and from women; one moral drawn as to the ill results of educating women: “I am, from my own experience, fully satisfied that the care to govern her family should be the only employ of a virtuous wife; and that it is next to a miracle, if pride, or some other more dangerous passion, make not a woman neglect her duty, when she once comes to apply herself to the study of learning, and affects to surpass the rest of her sex.” We find, also, the poetical fancy common in Persian literature that even the palace of the king is but an inn, for its successive inhabitants are but travelers upon 36earth toward the same common end,—death;^[29] and the equally familiar figure in which life is compared to a game of chess. “Some act the kings, the queens, the knights, the fools, and simple pawns. There is a vast difference between them, while they are in motion; but when once the game is over, and the chess-board shut, they are all thrown promiscuously together into the same box, without any sort of distinction—all then become equal; and there is nothing but our good works and charity towards our neighbours, that will give us the superiority.”

Gueullette’s two other collections, the Mogul Tales and the Tartarian Tales, are similar in plan and treatment. Extravagant in the use of magic, fantastic in description and incident, employing European legends freely and oriental colouring very slightly, sometimes moralizing, sometimes coarse, seldom satirical, imitating the faults rather than the excellences of genuine oriental translations, these narratives are frequently entertaining, but possess little intrinsic value.

One special point of interest in the Mogul Tales must not be omitted,—the incident of the 37sinners with flaming hearts,—since this was probably the source of the parallel passage in Beckford’s Vathek. It is worth remark as external evidence that the Mogul Tales is in the catalogue of Beckford’s library. The points of similarity and the superiority of Vathek are obvious, if the quotations from Vathek, pp. 62–65 of this chapter, are compared with the following extract from the Mogul Tales (Weber’s Tales of the East, Edinburgh, 1812, Vol. III., p. 58 et seq.). Aboul-Assam tells how he saw “a flambeau ... carried by a little man ... entering a subterranean passage.... We went down together ... into the mountain; at last we traversed a long alley of black marble; but so finely polished, that it had the appearance of a looking-glass; ... we reached a large hall, where we found three men standing mute, and in postures of sorrow. They were looking earnestly on a triangular table, whereon lay a book, with clasps of gold; on its back was this inscription: ‘Let no man touch this divine treatise that is not perfectly pure’ ... I wish, said I ... that this peace may continue always among you. Peace is banished from these sad places, replied the eldest of the three, with an 38air of sternness.... We wait, said the second, in this sepulcher, for the just judgment of God.—You are then, continued I, great sinners.—Alas! cried the third, we are continually tortured for our evil actions ... they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and through their skin, which appeared like crystal, I saw their hearts compassed with fire, by which, though burnt without ceasing, yet [they were] ... never consumed; I then was at no loss for the reason of their looking so ghastly and affrighted.” Aboul-Assam is then shown paintings representing their crimes, rebukes them in horror, is in turn rebuked by a picture of his own past sins, and condemned to blindness for seven years. Vathek is also punished, but the genius of Beckford chooses a more dramatic and awful penalty.

In connection with Vathek, the Adventures of Abdalla, Son of Hanif ... by Jean Paul Bignon, translated into English by William Hatchett (1729),^[30] is of even greater interest than the Mogul Tales. It is similar in general character to its predecessors. The frame-tale, which recounts Abdalla’s search for the fountain of youth, includes all his adventures and the past 39history of all the people he meets, and is so bewilderingly entangled that the Arabian Nights, by contrast, seems simplicity itself. The tales are more or less interesting stories^[31] of adventure and love, and are melodramatic, humorous, moralizing, and satirical. Magic abounds, European legends and previous oriental tales are freely utilized, and great stress is laid upon the “horrid,” the grotesque, the fantastic. Given these characteristics, it is easy to see how Abdalla appealed to the author of Vathek. That it did make a strong appeal is shown by Beckford’s numerous borrowings. In every instance he improved upon his original. The author of Abdalla describes rest in a delightful country place surrounded by “flowers of remarkable beauty,” “birds of every colour,” and “very fine trees.” Beckford’s similar description gives concrete 40images—fountains, roses, jessamines, violets, nightingales, doves, orange trees, palms, and pomegranates. Dilsenguin, the hero in Abdalla, “precipitated himself into a subterranean apartment,” seeking “detestable volumes” of magic. The phantoms seized Dilsenguin by the feet and threw him into the well, head foremost. When he reached the hall of Eblis, he found it an immense temple of black and white marble. At the keystone of one of the arches he saw “a globe of fire, which, sometimes obscure and sometimes brilliant, filled the temple with unsteady flashes of light.” The globe opened and there descended from it a huge old man in a yellow robe, holding a scepter of gold. He “seated himself upon the throne. It was the formidable Eblis.... His looks were horrid, his beard and hair bristled.... [He had] a hole in the place of a nose,” etc. When Dilsenguin thanked him for his magic books, Eblis, “enraged that a mortal should break silence in his temple,” kicked him so violently that he lost consciousness. Contrast the impressive description of Vathek’s reception by “the formidable Eblis” enthroned upon the globe of fire. “His person was that of a young man, 41whose noble and regular features seemed to have been tarnished by malignant vapours; in his large eyes appeared both pride and despair; his flowing hair retained some resemblance to that of an angel of light; in his hand, which thunder had blasted, he swayed the iron scepter that causes the monster Ouranabad, the Afrits, and all the powers of the abyss to tremble; at his presence the heart of the Caliph sunk within him, and for the first time, he fell prostrate on his face.” Beckford’s Eblis is a faint but not wholly unworthy echo of Milton’s Satan, while Bignon’s Eblis is merely the grotesque ogre of the fairy tale.

The last pseudo-translation that need be noticed is the New Arabian Nights (1792), from the French of Dom Chavis and M. Cazotte.^[32] The book purported to be a continuation of the Arabian Nights, translated from the Arabic. Modern scholars believe that the “translators” undoubtedly utilized Arabic manuscripts as a basis, but made so many changes that the book is to be regarded as a pseudo-translation. It may be dismissed as a weak imitation of the Arabian Nights, redeemed in part by two admirable 42tales: The Robber Caliph and The History of Maugraby^[33] the Magician. The latter has additional interest in that it suggested to Southey the germinal idea of Thalaba.^[34] Maugraby, the evil enchanter, half human, half genie, carries away children to his magical domains under Mt. Atlas, and by tortures and caresses enslaves them for his master Zatanai [Satan]. If obedient, they are taken to the caverns under the sea adjoining the Dom Daniel near Tunis,—the school of magic and the magnificent court of Asmodeus,—where evil magicians assemble in the wane of the moon. The hero of this tale is the captive prince Habed, who after exciting adventures compasses the destruction of Maugraby and the liberation of his prisoners, including the princess of Egypt. The story closes with the marriage of the prince 43and the princess. The narrative is marred by coarse incidents and a few long digressions, but contains several interesting passages, e.g. the introductory scenes between Maugraby, the vizier, the buffoon,^[35] and the king; the descriptions of the wiles of the magician; and the account of Habed’s life in the fairy palace. The interest is always centered on the hero’s terrible task of fighting the powers of darkness, led by Maugraby. The latter possesses no countenance peculiar to himself, but changes even his features according to the passion of the moment and transfers his evil soul from one body to another. “He takes every method to engage the kings of the earth to part with their first-born sons to him that they may become powerful instruments in his hands; ... he prowls about the houses of those that are discontented. If a father ... be displeased with his son and happen to curse him, he seizes the child; if, on the other hand, the son should curse his father, still the child is made his prey.... If a caravan set out for Upper Egypt ... through the desart [sic], the magician mounts on the wind schirak ... in order to destroy them. When 44the unfortunate company are reduced to the last extremity, he appears ... as a benefactor ... on condition that they shall surrender themselves soul and body to him, to Zatanai [Satan] and the great Kokopilesobe [Lucifer]. The caravan agreeing, presently arrives at his retreat, and, instead of two or three hundred beasts of burden, there are now above four hundred; for all the merchants and other persons are metamorphosed into brutes.... Though he was handsome in his youth, his person is now become a mass of deformity, as well as his mind. His decrepitude is such as may be expected from his great age, which exceeds a century and a half. His human body is a mere chimera; he can, however, assume every form he chooses, and nothing discovers him but the sinister expression of his eye.”^[36]

The other tale, The Robber Caliph, is farcical and amusing—very different from Maugraby. Haroun Alraschid, tired of elaborate court festivals, escapes to his beloved streets of Bagdad in the disguise of an Arab robber-chief, “Il Bondocani.” His thirst for adventure is gratified by the rescue of a white-handed beggar-woman, 45who proves to be the princess of Persia. She, likewise, wanders disguised through the city, and unwittingly rouses Haroun’s jealousy of a young officer, Yemalledin. The latter and the princess are imprisoned. Again the disguised caliph goes forth, finds a poor old woman with a marvelously beautiful daughter, Zutulbe, and sends the mother to order the cadi to marry Zutulbe and “Il Bondocani.” The old woman’s mystification, the cadi’s haughty behaviour and his sudden obsequiousness at the name of “Il Bondocani” are amusing; and so are the sudden preparations for the gorgeous wedding-feast and the more sudden dispersal of clamouring neighbours by the display of “Il Bondocani’s” ring. The caliph discovers from the old woman’s talk the innocence of her son Yemalledin, reveals his identity, restores Yemalledin to honour, and gives him the Princess of Persia. Of course all live happily ever after. The dramatic effect throughout is capital, for the reader is in the secret and enjoys with Haroun the complication and the resolution of the plot. There are many admirable touches in dialogue, description, and oriental setting. On the whole, the story deserves to rank with the true Arabian Nights.

46Following these pseudo-translations, three small groups of imaginative oriental fiction deserve brief notice: the heroic romances, the realistic tales, and the eclogues. Of little intrinsic value, they are interesting chiefly as evidence of the diffusion of the orientalizing tendency. The first group includes reprints and imitations of a few of the heroic romances of the previous century. The Beautiful Turk (1720) is another translation of the French romance by G. de Brémond translated as Hattige, or the Amours of the King of Tamaran ..., a Novel (a roman à clef concerning Charles II. and the Duchess of Cleveland), published Amsterdam, 1680, and also in Vol. I. (1679 or 1683?), of R. Bentley’s Modern Novels, London (1679–1692).^[37] The Bajazet of J. Regnauld de Segrais was reprinted in 1725.^[38] Mrs. Aubin’s Noble Slaves, or the Lives and Adventures of Two Lords and Two Ladies (1722?)^[39] is Spanish in plot and character, but contains minor personages,—Chinese, Persian, etc.,—who recount their experiences. In 1733 appeared a translation from the French 47of D’Orville: The Adventures of Prince Jakaya, or the Triumph of Love over Ambition, being Secret Memoirs of the Ottoman Court,^[40] a romantic tale. Jakaya, the true heir to the Ottoman sultanate, flees in disguise from his brother’s murderous wrath, has many adventures, marries for love, and renounces ambition. The story is imaginative, but is too frequently moralistic and didactic. Yet, with others of the same type, it is interesting as constituting the last feeble wave of the receding tide of seventeenth-century heroic romances. It is true that these romances were read far into the eighteenth century; witness Mrs. Lennox’s satire, The Female Quixote, and George Colman’s Polly Honeycomb. But by 1740 imitations had ceased to be written; the wave had spent its force and ebbed away in stories like The Adventures of Prince Jakaya.

The second group referred to at the beginning of the preceding paragraph, also of little intrinsic value, is of even greater consequence as a touchstone of the times. The realistic oriental tales connect the orientalizing tendency, if one may so call it, with the more profound and widespread 48tendency of the age toward realism. Appropriately enough, the first great writer of realistic fiction in the century, was also the first to utilize—though very slightly—the oriental material in a realistic tale. In The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719),^[41] the hero travels through China, where he meets mandarins, sees porcelain houses, and witnesses “incredible performances.” In Muscovy he destroys a village idol, escapes in safety, fights Cossacks, etc.—incidents in the manner of travelers’ accounts. In 1755 a feeble imitation of Robinson Crusoe appeared, with some resemblance to an oriental tale. It is best described by the title: The Life and surprizing Adventures of Friga Reveep, of Morlaix, France, who was Sixteen years in an uninhabited Part of Africa and how he met with a young Virgin who was bannish’d and in what manner they liv’d together and had two children, a Son and a Daughter, the latter dying when she was six years of Age; together with their surprizing Deliverance to their own Country again with a faithful Relation of all that past during the Time that he was there. Written in French by himself and translated into 49English by Mr. Transmarine (1755).^[42] Four or five other members of this realistic group, though comparatively unimportant, are worth notice, because they are possibly founded on tales brought home from the East by English merchants, and thus bear witness to the growing interest of England in the Orient. In The History of Rodomond and the Beautiful Indian,^[43] an English merchant, saved from treacherous natives by an East Indian girl, escapes with her to England and marries her. The History of Henrietta de Bellgrave[43] is the story of a girl, who, shipwrecked in the East Indies, escapes from pirates, leads a Robinson Crusoe life, and is finally married to a “Banyan.” The Disinterested Nabob (1788)^[44] is an anonymous “novel, interspersed with genuine descriptions of India, its Manners and Customs.” The scene is laid partly in India, and there is an unsuccessful attempt at local colour. The story is in reality a mediocre imitation of Sir Charles Grandison. 50The Asiatic Princess, by Mrs. Pilkington (1800),^[45] is oriental only in so far as the heroine is the Princess Merjee of Siam and references are made to Eastern treatment of slaves and to the suttee. The princess is intrusted to an English lady and her husband to be educated by travel. Her instructors moralize on the differences between oriental and English ways, and endeavour to guide her by moral tales. Another realistic story, The Female Captive, has far more life. The entire title reads, The Female Captive, a narrative of Facts which happened in Barbary in the Year 1756, written by herself. London, 1769.^[46] It has many evidences of being a true story. The heroine, engaged to an Englishman, sails for home from Minorca under the care of a Mr. Crisp. Captured by Moors, she passes for his sister, and later for his wife, to save herself. After imprisonments and other hardships, she is given an audience by the prince of the country and thoughtlessly repeats unknown words a French boy interpreter asks her to say. They prove to be, “There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet,” and she 51is told by the prince that her saying them has made her a Moor, subject to death by fire if she prove renegade.^[47] Through Mr. Crisp’s aid she escapes to England. There she finds her fiancé unworthy, and is finally married to Mr. Crisp. The narrative is by far the best of the realistic group. There are frequent appeals to Virtue and Fortitude in true eighteenth-century style, but the story is well told. Little direct description of the narrator is given, yet from what she does and suffers and what others do for her, it is easy to picture her as a fair English girl, shy and brave—an attractive heroine.

The Fair Syrian, by Robert Bage (1787),^[48] is a long and tedious novel in letter-form, diversified by the adventures of the English heroine among the Turks, and extolling her devotion to Virtue. The Anaconda, by “Monk” Lewis, in Romantic Tales (1808),^[49] belongs in certain respects to this group, being a realistic story of the adventures of various English people and natives in the East in their struggles with an anaconda. Before leaving these realistic tales, it may be well 52to mention The Unfortunate Princess, by Mrs. Eliza Haywood (1741),^[50] a fantastic tale called by the author “a veracious history,” but bearing every mark of invention. Extravagant in describing magic storms and horrible monsters, coarse, didactic, and bombastic, the story is valuable only as exemplifying both the moralizing and the fantastic tendencies under the guise of realism.

The third group referred to above (p. 46) includes the oriental eclogues, of which the chief writers were William Collins, Thomas Chatterton, and John Scott.^[51] The four brief poems by Collins published in 1742 as Persian Eclogues,^[52] and afterward (1757) called Oriental Eclogues, include: I. Selim, or the Shepherd’s Moral, which represents the shepherd Selim in “a valley near 53Bagdat” calling the shepherdesses to practise various virtues; II. Hassan, or the Camel Driver, being Hassan’s lament over the dangers of the desert; III. Abra, or the Georgian Sultana, a poem praising the pastoral life of the beautiful shepherdess who married the Sultan and brought him back occasionally to the happy shepherd life for a vacation from the cares of state; and IV. Agib and Secander, or the Fugitives. These eclogues bear to the later and better work of Collins a relation similar to that borne by Tennyson’s youthful experiments in versification to the poems of his maturity. Collins’s eclogues are not remarkable as poetry, but they are superior to Chatterton’s or Scott’s, and they possess something of the delicate finish and the pensive note characteristic of the author of The Ode to Evening. Chatterton’s African Eclogues^[53] are three in number: I. Narva and Mored (May, 1770), recounting the love of the priest Narva for the beautiful Mored, and their tragic death; II. The Death of Nicou (June, 1770), who avenged his sister and slew himself; and III. Heccar and Gaira (printed 1784; written January, 1770), the vengeance wrought by Gaira for 54the enslaving of his family. These poems are characterized by crude imaginative force and incoherent, almost Ossianic, fervor. John Scott’s (1730–1783) Oriental Eclogues (1782)^[54] (I. Zerad, or the Absent Lover, an Arabian Eclogue; II. Serim, or the Artificial Famine, an East-Indian Eclogue; and III. Li-po, or the Good Governor, a Chinese Eclogue) are early examples of the influence of the movement we have called the new scholarly movement. The author refers to the “elegant and judicious essay” of the “learned and ingenious Mr. Jones” [i.e. Sir William Jones]; and, like Moore and Southey, though with less assimilative power, draws copiously from numerous orientalists. Hence Scott’s use of oriental material forms an interesting link between the simple Johnsonian manner of orientalizing by a few phrases—a manner exemplified in the eclogues of Collins—and the elaborate orientalization in the verse of Southey and of Moore.^[55]

55Two years after the death of Scott, in 1785, appeared one of the most interesting of all the imaginative oriental tales: Charoba, translated from the French, and published by Clara Reeve in The Progress of Romance.^[56] In addition to considerable intrinsic value, Charoba deserves especial notice as the direct source of Landor’s poem, Gebir (1798). The story of Charoba is briefly as follows: Gebirus, the fierce and gigantic king of the Gadites, determines to marry Charoba, queen of Egypt, and take possession of her kingdom. His naïve motive is the hope of being cured of an illness by the favourable climate of that country. A prelude concerning Charoba gives an account of her father Totis, a cruel despot, who, like Balak, seeks to propitiate God’s servant—in this case, Abraham. Totis dies; Charoba, handsome, “ingenious,” generous, and wise, is made queen, and receives from Abraham a blessing, which distinctly foreshadows her victory over Gebirus, and enhances the artistic effect: “Great God, give her subtilty to deceive her enemies and to vanquish all those who shall arise to do her harm and to strive with her for her land.” On the appearance of 56Gebirus, Charoba’s nurse, a great enchantress, persuades him by rich gifts and by Charoba’s promise to marry him when his task is done, to build a city with the stones he has brought to dam the Nile. He makes no progress, because the nurse employs demons of the sea to tear down the work each night. At last he learns from a melancholy shepherd that every evening a fair lady rises from the sea, overcomes the shepherd in wrestling, and takes away a sheep; the flock is diminishing, and he is pining for love of her. Gebirus in his stead overcomes the lady and wins as price of her freedom the secret of circumventing the destructive demons and of getting treasure from a magic cave. Thus he finishes his city. Charoba, desperate, by her nurse’s advice poisons his army, receives him with royal honours, and kills him with a poisoned robe.^[57] Three years later she dies from a serpent’s sting, and is buried in Gebirus’s city.

The scene of the death of Gebirus is dramatic. The subtle nurse, throwing over his shoulders the poisoned robe, sprinkled him with magic water, and he fell at Charoba’s feet. The attendants raised him up and seated him on a throne. 57The nurse said to him: “‘Is the king well tonight?’—He replied—‘A mischief on your coming hither!—May you be treated by others as you have treated me!—this only grieves me, that a man of strength and valour should be overcome by the subtilty of a woman.’ ‘Is there anything you would ask of me before you taste of death?’ said the queen—‘I would only intreat,’ said he, ‘that the words I shall utter may be engraven on one of the pillars of this palace which I have built.’ Then said Charoba, ‘I give thee my promise that it shall be done; and I also will cause to be engraven on another pillar, “This is the fate of such men as would compel queens to marry them, and kingdoms to receive them for their kings.” Tell us now thy last words.’

“Then the king said—‘I, Gebirus the Metaphequian, the son of Gevirus, that have caused marbles to be polished,—both the red and the green stone to be wrought curiously; who was possessed of gold, and jewels, and various treasures; who have raised armies; built cities, erected palaces:—who have cut my way through mountains; have stopped rivers; and done many great and wonderful actions:—with 58all this my power and my strength, and my valour and my riches, I have been circumvented by the wiles of a woman; weak, impotent, and deceitful; who hath deprived me of my strength and understanding; and finally hath taken away my life:—wherefore, whoever is desirous to be great and to prosper; (though there is no certainty of long success in this world)—yet, let him put no trust in a woman, but let him, at all times, beware of the craft and subtilty of a woman.’ After saying these words, he fainted away and they supposed him dead; but after some time he revived again. Charoba comforted him and renewed her promise to him. Being at the point of death, he said: ‘Oh Charoba!—triumph not in my death!—for there shall come upon thee a day like unto this, and the time is not very far distant.—Then thou shalt reflect on the vicissitudes of fortune and the certainty of death.’”^[58]

The other notable scene, the victory of Gebirus over the sea-nymph, recalls the Siegfried-Brunhilde story. The entire shepherd-episode, the nightly destruction of the day’s work, and the incident of the poisoned robe, are like classic 59legends. The strange demons of the sea, the spell-bound statues, the enchanted cave, remind one of many oriental tales. Magic in Charoba is used with considerable skill, and is made subsidiary to, and symbolic of, human subtlety. It is the cunning of Charoba’s nurse, more than her witchcraft, that wins the final victory, and both kinds of skill typify the desperate resistance of Charoba’s will to the determination of Gebirus. But the characterization is faint, as in other oriental tales; the characters are suggested rather than wrought out. As a whole, Charoba has a rude, tragic force far superior to that of the average oriental tale. No wonder it kindled the imagination of Landor.

The poet’s use of the material he found in Charoba is characteristic of his peculiar genius. He has kept the main features: the determined wooing of the princess by Gebir, the building and destruction of his city, the shepherd-episode, and the manner of Gebir’s death. He has omitted the prelude concerning Totis and Abraham, and the sequel concerning Charoba’s death. The poem closes with the death of Gebir, consistently with Landor’s theme, which is not The History of Charoba, but Gebir. For the same reason 60throughout the poem he has heightened the character of Gebir into an heroic figure of almost epic proportions. The Gebirus of the History, a fierce and rude giant, who covets Egypt for selfish reasons, gives place to a patriotic hero, who invades Egypt in revenge for ancestral wrongs, ambitious, brave, full of pity for his brother Tamar and of love for Charoba, devout and reverent to the gods, oppressed by impending fate, yet undaunted. It is the figure of the traditional epic hero. To throw it into bolder relief, Landor has changed Charoba from the proud queen to a love-sick girl, whose fear and pride keep her from avowing her passion for Gebir. Her silence causes Gebir’s death, for her nurse Dalica, inferring that she does not love him, proceeds, unknown to Charoba, to compass his death. Dalica’s use of magic gives Landor the opportunity of inserting one of his most striking passages, describing her visit to the ruined city and incantations over the poisoned robe. The magic in Gebir is no longer the primitive enchantment of The History of Charoba. The latter recalls Biblical and oriental stories, such as the Witch of Endor or the Arabian Nights; but the former is rather the magic of classical legend,—incantations 61like those in Theocritus and Homer. The descent into the subterranean treasure-cave in Charoba is replaced by the journey of Gebir to Hades, where he is taught the futility of ambition and the certainty of punishment for evil-doers and of reward for the righteous after death. The shepherd-episode is developed into a story by itself after the manner of Ovid, with descriptions of the nymph, the woods, the seashore, the shepherd, and the wrestling-match. In such ways the poem assumes an entirely different aspect from that of the History. It has lost the crude and primitive simplicity of the conflict between the wills of Charoba and of Gebirus, but it has gained in the heroic proportions of the character of Gebir, in remarkable descriptive passages, and in blank verse of great, though uneven, beauty.

Of even greater significance than Charoba is the History of the Caliph Vathek,^[59] the bizarre masterpiece of William Beckford, which holds among all the oriental tales of the century a unique 62and deservedly high place. It is indeed almost the only modern oriental story “which might appear without disadvantage in the Arabian Nights, with Aladdin on its right hand and Ali Baba on its left.”^[60] Although not a great book, it is entitled to live chiefly for the sake of one remarkable scene—the catastrophe in the Hall of Eblis—in which the author, having laid aside the mockery, the coarseness, and the flippancy that reduce the first part of the book to the level of a mere jeu d’esprit, shows himself capable of conceiving and depicting an impressive catastrophe. From the moment when Vathek and Nouronihar approach the dark mountains guarding the infernal regions until they meet their doom, the note of horror is sustained. “A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain and through the air; the moon dilated on a vast platform the shade of the lofty columns which reached from the terrace almost to the clouds; the gloomy watch-towers were veiled by no roof, and their capitals, of an architecture unknown in the records of the earth, served as an asylum for the birds of darkness, which, alarmed at the approach of such visitants, fled away 63croaking.” They proceeded, and, “ascending the steps of a vast staircase, reached the terrace, which was flagged with squares of marble, and resembled a smooth expanse of water, upon whose surface not a leaf ever dared to vegetate; on the right rose the watch-towers, ranged before the ruins of an immense palace.” On the walls Vathek beheld an Arabic inscription permitting him to enter the subterranean abode of Eblis. “He had scarcely read these words before the mountain against which the terrace was reared, trembled, and the watch-towers were ready to topple headlong upon them; the rock yawned, and disclosed within it a staircase of polished marble that seemed to approach the abyss; upon each stair were planted two large torches, like those Nouronihar had seen in her vision, the camphorated vapour ascending from which gathered into a cloud under the hollow of the vault.” They descended to be welcomed by the malignant Giaour who had first tempted Vathek, and to be led into a magnificent hall radiant with light and fragrant with subtle odours, but containing “a vast multitude incessantly passing, who severally kept their right hands on their hearts,” as if in agony. Refusing to explain 64this ominous mystery, the guide conducted them into the presence of “the formidable Eblis,” the fallen archangel enthroned on a globe of fire.^[61] He received them and promised them treasures and talismans. But when they eagerly followed the evil Giaour to an inner treasurechamber, they heard from “the great Soliman” himself an account of his ambitions, his evil deeds, and his terrible punishment. He “raised his hands toward Heaven ... and the Caliph discerned through his bosom, which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames.” To Vathek’s cry of terror the malicious Giaour replied: “‘Know, miserable prince! thou art now in the abode of vengeance and despair: thy heart also will be kindled, like those of the other votaries of Eblis. A few days are allotted to thee previous to this fatal period; employ them as 65thou wilt; recline on these heaps of gold; command the Infernal Potentates, ... no barrier shall be shut against thee; as for me, I have fulfilled my mission: I now leave thee to thyself.’ At these words he vanished.” When the inevitable hour came, their hearts “immediately took fire, and they at once lost the most precious of the gifts of Heaven—Hope.” Their mutual passion turned into hate and they “plunged themselves into the accursed multitude, there to wander in an eternity of unabating anguish.”

The rest of the book does not begin to equal the catastrophe. Perhaps, indeed, one should not take it too seriously, but regard it rather as an intentionally absurd and brilliant extravaganza. Beckford seems to have begun merely with the idea of writing a clever oriental tale in the lighter manner of Voltaire and Count Hamilton; but, as he went on improvising one fantastic scene after another, the concept of the Hall of Eblis fired his imagination and roused his real genius. The plot follows the caprice of the narrator in turning aside for grotesque episodes, but is clear in its main course. It begins with Vathek’s impious building of a marvelously high tower from whence he studies 66astrology. Suddenly “a hidious Giaour” appears at court and intensifies the Caliph’s evil ambition for power and riches at any cost. Vathek abjures his Mahometan faith, murders, or at least attempts to murder, fifty innocent children after winning their confidence; with the aid of his mother, a horrible sorceress, kills many of his faithful subjects; insults holy dervishes; and finally violates the sacred hospitality of the Emir Fakreddin by seducing his daughter Nouronihar. Her ambition strengthens that of Vathek, and together they go on to their inevitable fate. Throughout the story premonitions, ominous hints of impending disaster, are skilfully used to prepare for the tragic outcome. Charming scenes of quiet beauty—serene sunsets, children playing with butterflies and flowers, nightingales singing among the roses—are almost invariably followed by some sudden horror: an eclipse, streaks of blood across the blue sky, a vast black chasm, and other terrifying portents. The whole book gives the impression of an extraordinary dream. On one occasion Nouronihar, led by a strange globe of fire, followed through the darkness. “She stopped a second time, the sound of waterfalls mingling 67their murmurs, the hollow rustlings amongst the palm-branches, and the funereal screams of the birds from their rifted trunks, all conspired to fill her with terror; she imagined every moment that she trod on some venomous reptile; all the stories of malignant Dives and dismal Goules thronged into her memory; but her curiosity was, notwithstanding, stronger than her fears.” Such passages reveal the kinship of Vathek with The Mysteries of Udolpho and other “tales of terror.” An interesting distinction is noticeable between the kind of horror present here and that in tales like the Arabian Nights. In the latter it is more objective and lacks the psychological, uncanny quality found in Vathek and the others. Vathek is, however, a thoroughly oriental tale of terror. The author handles his rich store of oriental allusions, names, phrases, and imagery, so easily that one would hardly realize how great the abundance is, if one were not confronted with the elaborate annotations by the first editor, Henley. The exotic brilliance of the various scenes is enhanced by references to the angels Munkir and Nekir, who guard the bridge of death; to incantations and prayers; to the blue butterflies of Cashmere; 68the loves of Megnoun and Leileh; cheeks the colour of the blossom of the pomegranate, etc. Another element of charm in Vathek is the style, admirably clear and forcible, though occasionally grandiose. Written by Beckford originally in French, the book retains in the English version something of the French manner. Always lucid, sometimes oratorical, frequently crisp and witty, the style recalls that of Count Hamilton and of Voltaire. Beckford follows his French prototypes, also, in his spirit of mockery and sarcasm, his fitful humour, and intentional extravagance. When Vathek was angry “one of his eyes became so terrible, that no person could bear to behold it, and the wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward and sometimes expired. For fear, however, of depopulating his domains and making his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to his anger.” Vathek “wished to know everything, even sciences that did not exist.” In one of the most grotesque scenes the Caliph and all his court were bewitched into kicking the Giaour, who had rolled himself up into a ball, until he disappeared into a chasm.

But Beckford’s mockery has frequently a repulsive 69quality; it is brutal as well as cynical, and usually dwells with repellent emphasis on things that appeal to the senses. His brief and brilliant descriptions of sensuous beauty—colour, form, fragrance, melody—are also too frequently tinged with sensuality. This does not preclude, however, the moralizing tendency; in fact, the two propensities are often coexistent in the oriental tales, as they are in other forms of literature. Besides repulsive mockery and sensuality the most serious defect in Vathek is one we have noticed as distinctive of the oriental fiction under discussion, i.e. lack of characterization. The hero himself is a mere bundle of attributes, self-indulgent, voluptuous, cruel, and ambitious, not a living individual. Hence even the impressive catastrophe lacks vitality and fails to rouse either the tragic terror or the tragic pity.

Vathek has been called a sporadic and isolated phenomenon in eighteenth-century fiction. In one sense that is true; there was before Vathek no book just like it, and there has been none since. Yet it is far more closely connected with its predecessors and successors than has been generally acknowledged. We have already 70pointed out the obligations of Beckford to the Mogul Tales and the Adventures of Abdalla and suggested his indebtedness to Hamilton and Voltaire. The Arabian Nights was an obvious source of inspiration. The moralistic tales of Dr. Johnson and of Hawkesworth, in which the hero is punished for evil deeds, in all probability gave suggestions to Beckford. In the scene of the Hall of Eblis, Vathek is unique, and in a certain brilliance of execution the book has few equals. Yet far from being sporadic or abnormal, it is rather an epitome of many characteristic features of the oriental tale: fantastic in plot and brilliant in colouring like the Arabian Nights; weak in characterization, marred by sensuality, and grotesque in incident like many oriental tales; witty and satirical like some of the fiction of Voltaire and Hamilton; and tinged with the moralizing spirit seen in Dr. Johnson’s tales. As a “tale of terror” it exemplifies another contemporary tendency of English fiction. The wealth of oriental allusion drawn from books reflects one more contemporaneous movement, the revival of interest in the East by scholars like Sir William Jones, and in so far foreshadows the similar use of similar material by Moore, Southey, 71and Byron. To Byron,^[62] moreover, as to lesser writers like Barry Cornwall,^[63] Vathek was a direct source of inspiration.^[64] For all these reasons the book is especially interesting to students of the literary history of the times.^[65]

Half-way between the imaginative oriental tales and the moralistic is a small group including such stories as Amorassan, or the Spirit of the Frozen Ocean^[66] and The History of Abdalla and Zoraide, or Filial and Paternal Love. The former is one of the Romantic Tales of M. G. Lewis (1808), and is in part a close translation from Der Faust der Morgenländer by F. M. Klinger and in part original with Lewis. It is a heavy and uninteresting story concerning a caliph, his brother, good and bad viziers, genii, and fishermen. The spirit of the frozen ocean comes to the good vizier Amorassan “to dispel 72illusions,” and shows him so much of the truth about mankind that he is handicapped in all his actions and exiled. He attains happiness only after dismissing the uncomfortable monitor. The moral is explicit: Do not endeavour to dispel illusions, “let benevolence and reason guide you: beyond that all is Destiny.” There is a slight attempt at oriental colouring and at fanciful descriptions, but the tale is of little value. The History of Abdalla and Zoraide^[67] (1750?) is recommended on the title-page as “well worthy the perusal of every tender parent and dutiful child”; and, as might be inferred, is a highly moral effort. It is interesting chiefly in that it is the possible source of a tale used by Goldsmith to embellish The Citizen of the World, and that it may, with Amorassan, be taken as a type of the imaginative oriental tale so far removed from purely imaginative fiction like the Arabian Nights, the Persian Tales, or Charoba, as to be almost moralistic.

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