In this entertaining book a Parrot is ārNārepresented as relating stories night after night, in order to prevent a merchant’s wife from carrying on a criminal intrigue during her husband’s absence. Nakshabī’s work has not yet been wholly translated into English—see _foot_ note, page 197. Of Kāderī’s abridgment (which is very clumsily done) a translation, together with his Persian text, was published at Calcutta, and reprinted at London in 1801. Kāderī has certainly done Nakshabī’s literary reputation no small injury, by the manner in which he has cut down the stories, and by substituting his own inexpressive and bald style for the graceful composition of the original. It is to be hoped that ere long some competent scholar will present English readers with a fair translation of Nakshabī’s excellent work, which would prove of considerable service to those interested in tracing the migrations and transformations of popular tales.—Besides the _Suka Saptati_, above mentioned, there is another Indian book, in Tamul, on the same plan, entitled _Hamsa Vinsati_, Twenty Tales of a Hamsa, or Goose, told with the same object as that of the Parrot—to keep an amorous lady at home until her husband returns.
_Arabian Nights’ Entertainments._ To which is added a Selection of New Tales, now first translated from the Arabic originals; also an Introduction and Notes, by Jonathan Scott, LL.D. London, 1811. 6 vols.—This edition, says Lowndes, “was carefully revised and corrected from the Arabic,” but it is not easy to discover any of the Editor’s emendations: the sixth volume consists of Scott’s additional Tales, one or two of which had been better left in the “original Arabic.”
Evidently a misprint for “literal,” since Scott accuses Cazotte of taking “liberties” with his originals, and contrasts his work with Ouseley’s more accurate translation. It is curious to find, for once, at least, a misprint proving to be no error; for Ouseley’s translation is in fact very “liberal,” and Scott assuredly could never have compared it with the text.
As the Eleventh Day, is the Story of the Freed Slave.
In allusion to the name, compounded of _Bakht_, Fortune, and _yār_, a friend, or companion.
Bihrūz and Rūzbih are compounded of the words _bih_, good, excellent, and _rūz_, day; meaning “whose day is excellent.”—ED.