Almost two and a half centuries have passed since Europe first became acquainted with the Arabian tales of “The Arabian Nights” in Galland’s free and far from complete French translation, but even now they enjoy the constant love of readers. The passage of time did not affect the popularity of Shahrazad's stories; Along with countless reprints and secondary translations from Galland’s publication, publications of “Nights” appear again and again in many languages of the world, translated directly from the original, to this day. The influence of “The Arabian Nights” on the work of various writers was great - Montesquieu, Wieland, Hauff, Tennyson, Dickens. Pushkin also admired Arabic tales. Having first become acquainted with some of them in Senkovsky’s free adaptation, he became so interested in them that he purchased one of the editions of Galland’s translation, which was preserved in his library.
It’s hard to say what attracts more in the tales of “The Arabian Nights” - the entertaining plot, the bizarre interweaving of the fantastic and the real, vivid pictures of city life in the medieval Arab East, fascinating descriptions amazing countries or the liveliness and depth of experiences of the heroes of fairy tales, the psychological justification of situations, a clear, definite morality. The language of many of the stories is magnificent - lively, imaginative, rich, devoid of circumlocutions and omissions. The speech of the heroes of the best fairy tales of the Nights is clearly individual; each of them has their own style and vocabulary, characteristic of the social environment from which they came.
What is “The Book of a Thousand and One Nights”, how and when was it created, where were Shahrazad’s tales born?
"A Thousand and One Nights" is not the work of an individual author or compiler - the whole Arab people. As we now know it, “A Thousand and One Nights” is a collection of tales in Arabic, united by a framing story about the cruel king Shahriyar, who took for himself every evening new wife and in the morning he killed her. The history of the Arabian Nights is still far from clear; its origins are lost in the depths of centuries.
The first written information about the Arabic collection of fairy tales, framed by the story of Shahryar and Shahrazad and called “A Thousand Nights” or “One Thousand and One Nights,” we find in the works of Baghdad writers of the 10th century - the historian al-Masudi and the bibliographer an-Nadim, who talk about it how long ago and good famous work. Already at that time, information about the origin of this book was quite vague and it was considered a translation of the Persian collection of fairy tales “Khezar-Efsane” (“A Thousand Tales”), allegedly compiled for Humai, the daughter of the Iranian king Ardeshir (IV century BC). The content and nature of the Arabic collection mentioned by Masudi and an-Nadim are unknown to us, since it has not survived to this day.
The evidence of the named writers about the existence in their time of the Arabic book of fairy tales “One Thousand and One Nights” is confirmed by the presence of an excerpt from this book dating back to the 9th century.
Subsequently, the literary evolution of the collection continued until the 14th–15th centuries. More and more fairy tales of different genres and different social origins were put into the convenient frame of the collection. We can judge the process of creating such fabulous collections from the message of the same an-Nadim, who says that his elder contemporary, a certain Abd-Allah al-Jahshiyari - a personality, by the way, is quite real - decided to compile a book of thousands of tales of the “Arabs, Persians, Greeks and other peoples,” one for the night, each containing fifty sheets, but he died having only managed to type four hundred and eighty stories. He took material mainly from professional storytellers, whom he called from all over the caliphate, as well as from written sources.
Al-Jahshiyari’s collection has not reached us, and other fairy-tale collections called “One Thousand and One Nights,” which were sparingly mentioned by medieval Arab writers, have also not survived. These collections of fairy tales apparently differed from each other in composition; they only had in common the title and the frame fairy tale.
In the course of creating such collections, several successive stages can be outlined.
The first suppliers of material for them were professional folk storytellers, whose stories were initially recorded from dictation with almost stenographic accuracy, without any literary processing. Large quantity such stories in Arabic, written in Hebrew letters, are stored in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad; ancient lists date back to the 11th–12th centuries. Subsequently, these records went to booksellers, who subjected the text of the tale to some literary processing. Each tale was considered at this stage not as an integral part of the collection, but as a completely independent work; therefore, in the original versions of the tales that have reached us, later included in the “Book of One Thousand and One Nights,” there is still no division into nights. The text of fairy tales was divided into last stage their processing when they fell into the hands of the compiler who compiled the next collection of “A Thousand and One Nights”. In the absence of material for the required number of “nights,” the compiler replenished it from written sources, borrowing from there not only short stories and anecdotes, but also long knightly romances.
The last such compiler was that unknown-named learned sheikh, who compiled the most recent collection of tales of the Arabian Nights in Egypt in the 18th century. Fairy tales also received the most significant literary treatment in Egypt, two or three centuries earlier. This 14th–16th century edition of The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, usually called “Egyptian,” is the only one that has survived to this day and is represented in most printed publications, as well as in almost all the Nights manuscripts known to us and serves as specific material for the study of Shahrazad’s tales.
From the previous, perhaps earlier, collections of “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights,” only single tales have survived, not included in the “Egyptian” edition and presented in a few manuscripts of individual volumes of “Nights” or existing in the form of independent stories, which, however, have a division at night. These stories include the most popular fairy tales among European readers: “Alad Din and the Magic Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and some others; The Arabic original of these tales was at the disposal of the first translator of the Arabian Nights, Galland, through whose translation they became known in Europe.
When studying The Arabian Nights, each tale should be considered separately, since there is no organic connection between them, and they existed independently for a long time before being included in the collection. Attempts to group some of them into groups based on their supposed origin - India, Iran or Baghdad - are not well founded. The plots of Shahrazad's stories were formed from individual elements that could penetrate Arab soil from Iran or India independently of one another; in their new homeland they were overgrown with purely native layers and from ancient times became the property of Arab folklore. This, for example, happened with the framing fairy tale: having come to the Arabs from India through Iran, it lost many of its original features in the mouths of the storytellers.
More appropriate than an attempt to group, say, according to a geographical principle, should be considered the principle of uniting them, at least conditionally, into groups according to the time of creation or according to their belonging to the social environment where they existed. The oldest, most enduring tales in the collection, which may have existed in one form or another already in the first editions in the 9th-10th centuries, include those stories in which the element of fantasy is most strongly manifested and acts supernatural beings actively interfering in people's affairs. These are the tales “About the Fisherman and the Spirit”, “About the Ebony Horse” and a number of others. For my long literary life they, apparently, were repeatedly subjected to literary processing; This is evidenced by their language, which claims to have a certain sophistication, and by the abundance of poetic passages, undoubtedly interspersed into the text by editors or copyists.
Of more recent origin is a group of tales reflecting the life and everyday life of a medieval Arab trading city. As can be seen from some topographical details, the action in them takes place mainly in the capital of Egypt - Cairo. These short stories are usually based on some touching love story, complicated by various adventures; the persons acting in it belong, as a rule, to the trade and craft nobility. In style and language, fairy tales of this kind are somewhat simpler than fantastic ones, but they also contain many poetic quotations of predominantly erotic content. It’s interesting that in urban novels, the brightest and strongest personality is often a woman who boldly breaks the barriers that harem life puts in front of her. A man, weakened by debauchery and idleness, is invariably rendered a simpleton and doomed to second roles.
Other characteristic feature This group of tales is a sharply expressed antagonism between the townspeople and the Bedouin nomads, who are usually the subject of the most caustic ridicule in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
The best examples of urban short stories include “The Tale of the Lover and the Beloved”, “The Tale of Three Apples” (including “The Tale of the Vizier Nur-ad-din and his brother”), “The Tale of Kamar-az-Zaman and the Jeweler’s Wife” , as well as most of the stories united by The Tale of the Hunchback.
Finally, the most recent in time of creation are tales of the picaresque genre, apparently included in the collection in Egypt, during its last processing. These stories also developed in an urban environment, but they reflect the life of small artisans, day laborers and poor people doing odd jobs. These tales most vividly reflected the protest of the oppressed layers of the medieval population eastern city. The curious forms in which this protest was sometimes expressed can be seen, for example, from the “Tale of Ghanim ibn Ayyub” (see this edition, vol. II, p. 15), where a slave, whom his master wants to set free, argues that referring to the books of lawyers that he does not have the right to do this, since he did not teach his slave any craft and by freeing him he condemns the latter to starvation.
Pictorial tales are characterized by the caustic irony of depicting representatives of secular power and the clergy in the most unsightly form. The plot of many of these stories is a complex fraud, the purpose of which is not so much to rob as to fool some simpleton. Brilliant examples of picaresque stories - “The Tale of Delilah the Cunning and Ali-Zeybak of Cairo,” replete with the most incredible adventures, “The Tale of Ala-ad-din Abu-sh-Shamat”, “The Tale of Maruf the Shoemaker”.
Stories of this type came into the collection directly from the mouths of the storytellers and were subjected to only minor literary processing. This is indicated first of all by their language, not alien to dialectisms and colloquial turns of speech, the saturation of the text with dialogues, lively and dynamic, as if directly overheard in the city square, as well as the complete absence of love poems - the listeners of such fairy tales, apparently, were not hunters of sentimental poetic outpourings. Both in content and form, the picaresque stories represent one of the most valuable parts of the collection.
In addition to the tales of the three categories mentioned, the Book of the Thousand and One Nights includes a number of large works and a significant number of small anecdotes, undoubtedly borrowed by the compilers from various literary sources. These are the huge knightly novels: “The Tale of King Omar ibn al-Numan”, “The Tale of Adjib and Gharib”, “The Tale of the Prince and the Seven Viziers”, “The Tale of Sinbad the Sailor” and some others. In the same way, edifying parables and stories, imbued with the idea of the frailty of earthly life (“The Tale of the Copper City”), edifying stories-questionnaires such as “Mirror” (the story of the wise girl Tawaddud), anecdotes about famous Muslim mystics-Sufis, etc. . n. Small stories, as already mentioned, were apparently added by the compilers to fill the required number of nights.
Fairy tales of a particular group, born in a certain social environment, naturally had the greatest distribution in this environment. The compilers and editors of the collection themselves were well aware of this, as evidenced by the following note, rewritten into one of the later manuscripts of “Nights” from an older original: “The narrator should tell in accordance with those who listen to him. If these are common people, let him tell the stories from the Arabian Nights about ordinary people- these are the stories at the beginning of the book (obviously referring to tales of the picaresque genre. - M.S.), and if these people belong to the rulers, then they should be told stories about kings and battles between knights, and these stories - at the end books."
We find the same indication in the text of the “Book” itself - in “The Tale of Seif-al-Muluk”, which appeared in the collection, apparently, at a rather late stage of its evolution. It says that a certain storyteller, who alone knew this tale, yielding to persistent requests, agrees to let it be rewritten, but sets the following condition for the scribe: “Do not tell this tale at a crossroads or in the presence of women, slaves, slaves, fools and children. Read it from the emirs 1
Emir - military leader, commander.
Kings, viziers and men of knowledge from the interpreters of the Koran and others."
In their homeland, the tales of Scheherazade in different social layers met since ancient times different attitude. If fairy tales have always enjoyed enormous popularity among the broad masses, then representatives of Muslim scholastic science and the clergy, guardians of the “purity” of the classical Arabic invariably spoke of them with undisguised contempt. Even in the 10th century, an-Nadim, speaking about “A Thousand and One Nights,” disdainfully noted that it was written “thinly and tediously.” A thousand years later, he also had followers who declared this collection an empty and harmful book and prophesied all sorts of troubles to its readers. Representatives of the progressive Arab intelligentsia look at Shahrazad's tales differently. Fully recognizing the great artistic, historical and literary value of this monument, literary scholars of the United Arab Republic and other Arab countries are studying it in depth and comprehensively.
The negative attitude towards “A Thousand and One Nights” by reactionary Arab philologists of the 19th century had a sad effect on the fate of its printed editions. A scholarly critical text of The Nights does not yet exist; The first complete edition of the collection, published in Bulaq, near Cairo, in 1835 and reprinted several times subsequently, reproduces the so-called “Egyptian” edition. In the Bulak text, the language of fairy tales underwent significant processing under the pen of an anonymous “scientific” theologian; the editor sought to bring the text closer to classical norms literary speech. To a somewhat lesser extent, the activity of the processor is noticeable in the Calcutta edition, published by the English scientist Macnaghten in 1839–1842, although the Egyptian edition of “Nights” is also presented there.
The Bulak and Calcutta editions are the basis for the existing translations of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The only exception is the above-mentioned incomplete French translation of Galland, carried out in the 18th century from handwritten sources. As we have already said, Galland’s translation served as the original for numerous translations into other languages and for more than a hundred years remained the only source of acquaintance with the Arabian tales of the Arabian Nights in Europe.
Among other translations of the “Book” into European languages should be mentioned English translation parts of the collection, made directly from the Arabic original by the famous expert on the language and ethnography of medieval Egypt - William Lane. Len's translation, despite its incompleteness, can be considered the best existing English translation in accuracy and conscientiousness, although its language is somewhat difficult and stilted.
Another English translation, made in the late 80s of the last century by the famous traveler and ethnographer Richard Burton, pursued very specific goals, far from science. In his translation, Burton in every possible way emphasizes all the somewhat obscene passages of the original, choosing the harshest word, the most rude option, and in the field of language, inventing extraordinary combinations of archaic and ultra-modern words.
Burton's tendencies are most clearly reflected in his notes. Along with valuable observations from the life of the Middle Eastern peoples, they contain huge amount“anthropological” comments, verbosely explaining every obscene allusion that comes across in the collection. By piling up dirty anecdotes and details characteristic of the contemporary morals of the jaded and idle European residents in Arab countries, Burton seeks to slander the entire Arab people and uses this to defend the whip and rifle policy he advocates.
The tendency to emphasize all the more or less frivolous features of the Arabic original is also characteristic of the sixteen-volume French translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, completed in the first years of the 20th century by J. Mardrus.
From German translations“Books”, the newest and best is the six-volume translation of the famous Semitic scholar E. Liggman, first published in the late 20s of our century.
The history of studying translations of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights in Russia can be outlined very briefly.
Before the Great October Revolution There were no Russian translations directly from Arabic, although translations from Galland began to appear already in the 60s of the 18th century. The best of them is the translation by Yu. Doppelmayer, published in late XIX century.
Somewhat later, a translation by L. Shelgunova was published, made with abbreviations from the English edition of Len, and six years after that an anonymous translation from the edition of Mardrus appeared - the most complete collection of “The Thousand and One Nights” that existed at that time in Russian.
The translator and editor tried, to the best of their ability, to maintain in the translation closeness to the Arabic original, both in terms of content and style. Only in those cases where the exact rendering of the original was incompatible with the norms of Russian literary speech, did this principle have to be deviated from. Thus, when translating poetry, it is impossible to preserve the obligatory rhyme according to the rules of Arabic versification, which must be uniform throughout the poem; only external structure verse and rhythm.
Intending these tales exclusively for adults, the translator remained faithful to the desire to show the Russian reader “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights” as it is, even while conveying the obscene parts of the original. In Arab fairy tales, as in the folklore of other peoples, things are naively called by their proper names, and most of the obscene, from our point of view, details do not have a pornographic meaning; all these details are in the nature of a crude joke rather than deliberate obscenity.
In this edition, the translation edited by I. Yu. Krachkovsky is printed without significant changes, while maintaining the main goal of being as close as possible to the original. The translation language has been somewhat simplified - excessive literalism has been softened, and in some places idiomatic expressions that are not immediately understandable have been deciphered.
M. Salie
The story of King Shahryar and his brother
Glory to Allah, Lord of the worlds! Greetings and blessings to the lord of the messengers, our lord and ruler Muhammad! May Allah bless him and greet him with eternal blessings and greetings, lasting until the Day of Judgment!
And after that, truly, the legends about the first generations became an edification for the subsequent ones, so that a person could see what events happened to others and learn, and so that, delving into the legends about past peoples and what happened to them, he would abstain from sin Praise be to him who made the tales of the ancients a lesson for subsequent nations.
Such legends include stories called “A Thousand and One Nights”, and the sublime stories and parables contained in them.
They tell in the traditions of peoples about what happened, passed and has long passed (and Allah is more knowledgeable in the unknown and wise and glorious, and most generous, and most favorable, and merciful), that in ancient times and past centuries and for centuries there was a king from the kings of the Sasan family on the islands of India and China 2
The descendants of the semi-mythical king Sasan, or Sassanids, ruled Persia in the 3rd–7th centuries. The inclusion of King Shahriyar among them is a poetic anachronism, of which there are many in “1001 Nights.”
Master of troops, guards, servants and servants. And he had two sons - one adult, the other young, and both were brave knights, but the elder surpassed the younger in valor. And he reigned in his country and ruled his subjects fairly, and the inhabitants of his lands and kingdom loved him, and his name was King Shahriyar; and his younger brother’s name was King Shahzeman, and he reigned in Persian Samarkand. Both of them stayed in their lands, and each of them in the kingdom was a fair judge of his subjects for twenty years and lived in complete contentment and joy. This continued until the elder king wanted to see his younger brother and ordered his vizier 3
The vizier is the first minister in the Arab caliphate.
Go and bring him. The vizier carried out his order and set off and rode until he safely arrived in Samarkand. He went in to Shahzeman, said hello to him and said that his brother missed him and wanted him to visit him; and Shahzeman agreed and got ready to go. He ordered his tents to be taken out, camels, mules, servants and bodyguards equipped, and he installed his vizier as ruler of the country, while he himself went to the lands of his brother. But when midnight came, he remembered one thing that he had forgotten in the palace, and he returned and, entering the palace, saw that his wife was lying in bed, hugging a black slave from among his slaves.
Thousand and one nights
Arabian tales
The story of King Shahryar
AND Once upon a time there was an evil and cruel king Shahriyar. Every day he took a new wife, and the next morning he killed her. Fathers and mothers hid their daughters from King Shahriyar and ran away with them to other lands.
Soon there was only one girl left in the whole city - the daughter of the vizier, the king's chief adviser, Shahrazad.
The vizier left the royal palace sadly and returned to his home, crying bitterly. Shahrazad saw that he was upset about something and asked:
Oh, father, what is your grief? Maybe I can help you?
For a long time the vizier did not want to reveal to Shahrazade the reason for his grief, but finally he told her everything. After listening to her father, Shahrazad thought and said:
Don't worry! Take me to Shahryar tomorrow morning and don’t worry - I will remain alive and unharmed. And if what I have planned succeeds, I will save not only myself, but also all the girls whom King Shahriyar has not yet managed to kill.
No matter how much the vizier begged Shahrazad, she stood her ground, and he had to agree.
And Shahrazada had a little sister - Dunyazade. Shahrazad went to her and said:
When they bring me to the king, I will ask his permission to send for you, so that we can last time to be together. And you, when you come and see that the king is bored, say: “Oh sister, tell us a fairy tale so that the king will be more cheerful.” And I'll tell you a story. This will be our salvation.
And Shahrazad was a smart and educated girl. She read many ancient books, legends and stories. And there was not a person in the whole world who knew more fairy tales, than Shahrazad, daughter of the vizier of King Shahryar.
The next day, the vizier took Shahrazad to the palace and said goodbye to her, shedding tears. He never hoped to see her alive again.
Shahrazad was brought to the king, and they had dinner together, and then Shahrazad suddenly began to cry bitterly.
What's wrong with you? - the king asked her.
O king, said Shahrazad, I have a little sister. I want to look at her one more time before I die. Let me send for her, and let her sit with us.
“Do as you please,” the king said and ordered Dunyazada to be brought.
Dunyazada came and sat on the pillow next to her sister. She already knew what Shahrazad was planning, but she was still very scared.
And King Shahriyar could not sleep at night. When midnight came, Dunyazade noticed that the king could not sleep, and said to Shahrazad:
Oh sister, tell us a story. Maybe our king will feel more cheerful and the night will seem less long to him.
Willingly, if the king orders me,” said Shahrazad. The king said:
Tell me, and make sure the tale is interesting. And Shahrazad began to tell. The king listened so deeply that he did not notice how it was getting light. And Shahrazad had just reached the very interesting place. Seeing that the sun was rising, she fell silent, and Dunyazada asked her:
The king really wanted to hear the continuation of the tale, and he thought: “Let him finish it in the evening, and tomorrow I will execute her.”
In the morning the vizier came to the king, neither alive nor dead from fear. Shahrazad met him, cheerful and pleased, and said:
You see, father, our king spared me. I began to tell him a fairy tale, and the king liked it so much that he allowed me to finish telling it that evening.
The delighted vizier entered the king, and they began to deal with the affairs of the state. But the king was distracted - he could not wait until evening to finish listening to the tale.
As soon as it got dark, he called Shahrazad and told her to continue the story. At midnight she finished the story.
The king sighed and said:
It's a shame it's already over. After all, there is still a long time until morning.
O king,” said Shahrazad, “where is this fairy tale compared to the one that I would tell you if you would allow me!”
Tell me quickly! - the king exclaimed, and Shahrazad began a new fairy tale.
And when morning came, she again stopped at the most interesting place.
The king no longer thought of executing Shahrazad. He couldn't wait to hear the story to the end.
This happened on the second and third night. For a thousand nights, almost three years, Shahrazad told King Shahryar her wonderful tales. And when the thousand and first night came and she finished last story, the king said to her:
O Shahrazad, I am used to you and will not execute you, even if you don’t know a single fairy tale anymore. I don’t need new wives, not a single girl in the world can compare with you.
This is how the Arabian legend tells about where the wonderful tales of the Arabian Nights came from.
Aladdin and the magic lamp
IN One Persian city lived a poor tailor Hassan. He had a wife and a son named Aladdin. When Aladdin was ten years old, his father said:
Let my son be a tailor like me,” and began to teach Aladdin his craft.
But Aladdin did not want to learn anything. As soon as his father left the shop, Aladdin ran outside to play with the boys. From morning to evening they ran around the city, chasing sparrows or climbing into other people's gardens and filling their bellies with grapes and peaches.
The tailor tried to persuade his son and punished him, but to no avail. Soon Hassan fell ill with grief and died. Then his wife sold everything that was left after him and began to spin cotton and sell yarn to feed herself and her son.
So much time passed. Aladdin turned fifteen years old. And then one day, when he was playing on the street with the boys, a man in a red silk robe and a large white turban approached them. He looked at Aladdin and said to himself: “This is the boy I am looking for. Finally I found it!
This man was a Maghreb - a resident of the Maghreb. He called one of the boys and asked him who Aladdin was and where he lived. And then he came up to Aladdin and said:
Are you not the son of Hassan, the tailor?
“I am,” Aladdin answered. - But my father died a long time ago. Hearing this, the Maghreb man hugged Aladdin and began to cry loudly.
Know, Aladdin, I am your uncle,” he said. “I have been in foreign lands for a long time and have not seen my brother for a long time.” Now I came to your city to see Hassan, and he died! I recognized you immediately because you look like your father.
Then the Maghrebian gave Aladdin two gold pieces and said:
Give this money to your mother. Tell her that your uncle has returned and will come to you for dinner tomorrow. Let her cook a good dinner.
Aladdin ran to his mother and told her everything.
Are you laughing at me?! - his mother told him. - After all, your father didn’t have a brother. Where did you suddenly get an uncle?
How can you say that I don’t have an uncle! - Aladdin shouted. - He gave me these two gold pieces. Tomorrow he will come to us for dinner!
The next day Aladdin's mother prepared a good dinner. Aladdin was sitting at home in the morning, waiting for his uncle. In the evening there was a knock on the gate. Aladdin rushed to open it. A Maghrebi man entered, followed by a servant who carried a large dish with all sorts of sweets on his head. Entering the house, the Maghreb man greeted Aladdin’s mother and said:
Please show me the place where my brother sat at dinner.
“Right here,” said Aladdin’s mother.
The Maghribian began to cry loudly. But he soon calmed down and said:
Don't be surprised that you've never seen me. I left here forty years ago. I have been to India, the Arab lands and Egypt. I've been traveling for thirty years. Finally, I wanted to return to my homeland, and I said to myself: “You have a brother. He may be poor, and you still haven’t helped him in any way! Go to your brother and see how he lives.” I drove for many days and nights and finally found you. And now I see that although my brother died, he left behind a son who will earn money by craft, like his father.
We all love fairy tales. Fairy tales are not just entertainment. Many fairy tales contain encrypted wisdom of humanity, hidden knowledge. There are fairy tales for children, and there are fairy tales for adults. Sometimes some are confused with others. And sometimes about everyone famous fairy tales We have a completely wrong idea.
Aladdin and his magic lamp. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. What collection are these tales from? Are you sure? Are you firmly convinced that we are talking about the collection of fairy tales “A Thousand and One Nights”? However, none of the original lists of this collection contain the tale of Aladdin and his magic lamp. It appeared only in modern editions of One Thousand and One Nights. But who and when inserted it there is not known exactly.
Just as in the case of Aladdin, we have to state the same fact: not a single authentic list of the famous collection of fairy tales contains the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It appeared in the first translation of these tales into French. The French orientalist Galland, preparing a translation of “The Thousand and One Nights,” included in it the Arabic fairy tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” from another collection.
Modern text fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights" are rather not Arabic, but Western. If we follow the original, which, by the way, is a collection of Indian and Persian (and not Arabic) urban folklore, then only 282 short stories should remain in the collection. Everything else is late layers. Neither Sinbad the Sailor, nor Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, nor Aladdin with the Magic Lamp are in the original. Almost all of these tales were added by the French orientalist and first translator of the collection, Antoine Galland.
Initially, these tales had a slightly different name - “Tales from a Thousand Nights”. As we have already noted, they were formed in India and Persia: they were told in bazaars, in caravanserais, in the courts of noble people and among the people. Over time, they began to be recorded.
It must be said that in the East this book has long been viewed critically. "A Thousand and One Nights" was not considered highly artistic for a long time literary work, because her stories did not have a pronounced scientific or moral overtones.
It is interesting that the original tales of "A Thousand and One Nights" in to a greater extent full of eroticism rather than magic. If in the version familiar to us, Sultan Shahriyar indulged in sadness and therefore demanded every night new woman(and executed her the next morning), then in the original the Sultan from Samarkand was angry with all the women because he had caught his beloved wife cheating (with a black slave - behind a willow hedge in the palace garden). Fearing that his heart would be broken again, he killed women.
And only the beautiful Scheherazade managed to quell his thirst for revenge. Among the stories she told there were many that children for those who love fairy tales You can't read: about lesbians, homosexual princes, sadistic princesses, and beautiful girls who gave their love to animals, since there were no sexual taboos in these fairy tales.
Glory to Allah, Lord of the worlds! Greetings and blessings to the lord of the messengers, our lord and ruler Muhammad! May Allah bless him and greet him with eternal blessings and greetings, lasting until the Day of Judgment!
And after that, truly, the legends about the first generations became an edification for the subsequent ones, so that a person could see what events happened to others and learn, and so that, delving into the legends about past peoples and what happened to them, he would abstain from sin Praise be to him who made the tales of the ancients a lesson for subsequent nations.
Know, O my daughter, - said the vizier, - that one merchant had wealth and herds of cattle, and he had a wife and children, and Allah the Great granted him knowledge of the language and dialects of animals and birds. And this merchant lived in a village, and in his house he had a bull and a donkey. And one day the bull entered the donkey's stall and saw that it had been swept and sprinkled, and in the donkey's feeding trough there was sifted barley and sifted straw, and he himself lay and rested, and only sometimes the owner rode him, if some business happened, and returns immediately.
First night.
Shahrazad said: “They say, O happy king, that there was one merchant among merchants, and he was very rich and did great business in different lands. One day he went to some country to collect debts, and the heat overcame him, and then he sat down under a tree and, putting his hand into his saddlebag, took out a piece of bread and dates and began to eat dates with bread. And, having eaten a date, he threw the stone - and suddenly he sees: in front of him is a tall ifrit, and in his hands is a naked sword.
Know, O ifrit,” the elder said then, “that this gazelle is the daughter of my uncle and, as it were, my flesh and blood.” I married her when she was very young, and lived with her for about thirty years, but did not have a child with her; and then I took a concubine, and she gave me a son like the moon at full moon, and his eyes and eyebrows were perfect in beauty! He grew up and became big, and reached the age of fifteen;
Know, O lord of the kings of the jinn,” the elder began, “that these two dogs are my brothers, and I am the third brother.” My father died and left us three thousand dinars, and I opened a shop to trade, and my brothers also opened a shop. But I did not stay in the shop for long, since my elder brother, one of these dogs, sold everything he had for a thousand dinars and, having bought goods and all sorts of goods, left to travel. He was absent for a whole year, and suddenly, when I was in the shop one day, a beggar stopped next to me. I told him: “Allah will help!” But the beggar exclaimed, crying: “You don’t recognize me anymore!” - and then I looked at him and suddenly I saw - this is my brother!
“Oh, Sultan and head of all genies,” the old man began, “Know that this mule was my wife.” I went on a trip and was away for a whole year, and then I finished the trip and returned to my wife at night. And I saw a black slave who was lying in bed with her, and they were talking, playing, laughing, kissing and fussing. And seeing me, my wife hurriedly rose with a jug of water, said something over it and splashed it on me and said: “Change your image and take the form of a dog!” And I immediately became a dog, and my wife kicked me out of the house; and I left the gate and walked until I came to the butcher's shop.
It came to me, O happy king,” said Shahrazad, “that there was a fisherman, far advanced in years, and he had a wife and three children, and he lived in poverty. And it was his custom to cast his net four times every day, no less; and then one day he went out at midday, and came to the seashore, and put down his basket, and, picking up the floors, entered the sea and cast the net. He waited until the net was established in the water, and gathered the ropes, and when he felt that the net was heavy, he tried to pull it, but could not;
Know, O ifrit,” the fisherman began, “that in ancient times and past centuries and centuries there was a king named Yunan in the city of the Persians and in the land of Ruman. And he was rich and great and commanded an army and bodyguards of all kinds, but there was leprosy on his body, and doctors and healers were powerless against it. And the king drank medicines and powders and smeared himself with ointments, but nothing helped him, and not a single doctor could heal him. And a great doctor, far advanced in years, came to the city of King Yunan, whose name was doctor Duban. He read Greek, Persian, Byzantine, Arabic and Syrian books, knew healing and astronomy and learned their rules and foundations; benefits and harms, and he also knew all the plants and herbs, fresh and dry, beneficial and harmful, and studied philosophy, and comprehended all the sciences, etc.
And when this doctor came to the city and spent a few days there, he heard about the king and the leprosy that had affected his body, with which Allah tested him, and that scientists and doctors could not cure it.
They say, and Allah knows best,” the king began, “that there was one king from the kings of the Persians who loved fun, walking, hunting and fishing. And he raised the falcon and did not part with it day or night, and all night he held it in his hand, and when he went hunting, he took the falcon with him. The king made a golden cup for the falcon, which hung on his neck, and gave him water from this cup. And then one day the king was sitting, and suddenly the chief falconer came to him and said: “Oh, king of time, the time has come to go hunting.” And the king ordered to leave and took the falcon in his hand; and the hunters rode until they reached one valley, there they stretched out a net for catching, and suddenly a gazelle was caught in this net, and then the king exclaimed: “I will kill anyone whose head the gazelle jumps over.”
Among Arabic tales, the most famous is a collection of tales called “ Thousand and one nights».
More than two and a half centuries have passed since the whole world first became acquainted with Arabian tales "One Thousand and One Nights", but even now they use strong love readers. The passage of time had no effect on the popularity of Scheherazade's stories. The influence was enormous fairy tales 1001 nights on the work of many writers.
It's difficult to say what attracts more fairy tales 1001 nights- fascinating plot, interesting interweaving of the incredible and the real, rich pictures of life in the Arab East, entertaining descriptions extraordinary countries or the vividness of the experiences of fairy tale characters.
Fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights" are not the work of a single writer - the collective author is the entire Arab people. In the form in which we now know it, " 1001 and one night" - a collection of fairy tales in the Arabic language, united by a common story about the bloodthirsty king Shahriyar, who took a new wife every night and killed her the next day. History of " Thousand and One Nights» has not been clarified to date; its origins are lost in the depths of centuries. On our website you can look list of Arabian Nights tales.
The Heart of the East - colorful tales of the Thousand and One Nights, adapted for children. Read Arabian tales- is to immerse yourself in the bright pictures of the East and experience unforgettable adventures.
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Introducing a child to the tales of 1001 nights
A child’s first acquaintance with the Arabian tales of the Thousand and One Nights must necessarily take place with original stories. After watching, for example, a cartoon about Aladdin from Disney, there will be no point in reading this oriental fairy tale. Why?
The most attractive thing in Arabic tales is the descriptions of overseas countries, always wonderful heroes, special magic with bizarre artifacts - you can’t feel this through a cartoon. Children's imagination is needed, and by reading Arabic fairy tales to your child, you will give him a chance to show it.
Tales of the Thousand and One Nights: for children or adults?
There are, as you might guess, many tales of the Thousand and One Nights, however, most of them are intended for an adult audience. The most popular Arabic tales of 1001 Nights, adapted for young readers, are selected in this section.
To introduce a child to the culture of the East, it is enough to read to him the most best fairy tales, the moral of which will be clear, and the translation is done in a language that a small person can understand, without tricky words. This is exactly what you will find here.