
The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 05
'The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 05' 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
Authors

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...
Books by Richard Francis BurtonDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

The Fisherman and his Soul by Oscar Wilde
To get what we want is often the greatest curse of all. The fisherman here accidentally catches a mermaid in his net. He falls in love with the Mermai...

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...

The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit
Eight enchanting tales about a variety of whimsical dragons, by a master of the craft, E Nesbit, are contained in this absolutely delightful volume, T...

Norwegian Fairy Book by Klara Stroebe
The Norwegian Fairy Book is a collection of traditional Norwegian fairy tales that have been handed down through generations. These tales are full of...

King Arthur by Joseph Comyns Carr
King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the...

The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Red Fairy Book is the second in a series of twelve books known as Andrew Lang's Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Books. The series was imme...

rote Stern by Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov
Rote Sterne is a utopian science fiction novel by Alexander Bogdanov, written in 1908. The novel depicts a socialist society on the planet Mars, where...

Lily Of The West by Anonymous
Lily of the West is an Irish folk poem that explores the themes of emigration and the experiences of Irish people who left their homeland for America....

Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa
Old Indian Legends is a collection of Sioux stories retold by the Yankton Dakota writer Zitkala-Sa and published in 1901. Concerned about the effect o...

The Forged Note: A Romance of the Darker Races by Oscar Micheaux
It tells a captivating story about the complex issues of race and class in early 20th-century America. Published in 1935, "The Forged Note" centers a...
Reviews for The Book of A Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights), Volume 05
No reviews posted or approved, yet...