The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 02
'The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 02' Summary
The main frame story concerns Shahryār (Persian: شهريار, from Middle Persian: šahr-dār, 'holder of realm'), whom the narrator calls a "Sasanian king" ruling in "India and China." Shahryār is shocked to learn that his brother's wife is unfaithful. Discovering that his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to dishonour him.
Eventually the Vizier (Wazir), whose duty it is to provide them, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade (Persian: شهْرزاد, Shahrazād, from Middle Persian: شهر, čehr, 'lineage' + ازاد, āzād, 'noble'), the vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. The king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins another one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion of that tale as well, postpones her execution once again. This goes on for one thousand and one nights, hence the name.
The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict jinn, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. Common protagonists include the historical Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, his Grand Vizier, Jafar al-Barmaki, and the famous poet Abu Nuwas, despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire, in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.
Different versions differ, at least in detail, as to final endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing their life or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to Galen—and in all of these cases she turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
Arabic, PersianPublished In
Author
Richard Francis Burton
England
Sir Richard Francis Burton was a British explorer, scholar and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of langu...
More on Richard Francis BurtonDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
Moving the Mountain by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Moving the Mountain is a feminist utopian novel written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was published serially in Perkins Gilman's periodical The Fore...
Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson
Myths and Legends of the Great Plains is a compendium of myths and legends from the Great Plains region of the US. It includes many short stories, and...
The Marrow of Tradition by Charles Chesnutt
The Marrow of Tradition is a historical novel by the African-American author Charles W. Chesnutt, set at the time and portraying a fictional account o...
Las Fábulas de Esopo, Vol 1 by Aesop
The classic Aesop’s Fables have been translated to every language for hundreds of years. The fables, told in the form of allegories, give us universa...
American Fairy Tales by L. Frank Baum
American Fairy Tales is the title of a collection of twelve fantasy stories by L. Frank Baum, published in 1901 by the George M. Hill Company, the fir...
Under the Sunset by Bram Stoker
“Under the Sunset” is a collection of eight amazing fantasy tales from the mind and imagination of the legendary Bram Stoker (Dracula.) Originally con...
The Enchanted Castle: Fairy Tales from Flowerland by Hartwell James
A collection of stories explaining flowers that seem wholly fabricated by the author himself. Instead of focusing on the original intent of European l...
The Fairy Tales of Science by John Cargill Brough
This book, written in the mid 19th century and illustrated by Charles H. Bennett, provides an entertaining introduction to topics in science for child...
The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
"The Ice-Maiden" is an 1861 literary fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. The first English translation was published by King and...
Popular Tales from the Norse by Sir George Webbe Dasent
The most careless reader can hardly fail to see that many of the Tales in this volume have the same groundwork as those with which he has been familia...
Reviews for The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 02
No reviews posted or approved, yet...