The Thousand Nights and a Night, Introduction

So, I said I'd do this on Sundays: A brief review/overview of Sir Richard Burton's The Thousand Nights and a Night, more commonly known to us today as the Arabian Nights tales. For the vast majority of us, our exposure to these stories comes from children's stories and Hollywood movies. And, in an extreme case, a Bugs Bunny cartoon. ("Open...Sasparilla? Open...Saskatchewan?" Ah, the classics never get old.) And the version of these stories we got was invariably family-friendly, with no indication that there even were any naughty bits to take out.

Surprise! This is the unexpurgated version of the stories. That means, the 'unedited' versions, with all the naughty bits left in and described in loving detail. This isn't your childhood Arabian Nights; this is Aladdin done by the Playboy Channel. And judging from the legacy left by Sir Richard Burton, the man who introduced the Kama Sutra to Victorian England, I have no doubt he enjoyed himself immensely.

So, most of us who are familiar with these stories knows how the framing story goes: Once upon a time, there was a king whose wife was unfaithful to him. He had her executed, then decided that all women were unfaithful by nature, so he began marrying young women every day, executing them the following morning to make sure they didn't cheat on him. The vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, worked up a plan to stop the murderous king. When she married the king, she had her younger sister show up before they went to sleep and ask for a story; the king assented to the story, and she told an enchanting tale, not finishing it before the end of the night, and thus the king kept her alive to continue telling these marvelous stories for 1,001 nights before he realized that he loved Scheherazade and she wasn't unfaithful to him after all. And they all lived happily ever after.

Yeah, right. That's the kiddie version. Here's how it actually went down. Brace yourselves; this is going to be a wild ride.

First of all, there were two brothers, both kings. The older, Shahryar, invited the younger, Zaman King of Samarcand, for a friendly visit. As he was leaving, Zaman realized he'd forgotten a gift for his brother. Going back to get it, he finds his wife in bed with a black slave. This didn't sit well with him, and he sliced them both in half with his trusty scimitar. This depressed him, however, and he went to his brother's kingdom feeling quite rotten about the world.

His brother was happy to see him, and did everything he could to help his brother. After a month of so, he invited Zaman to go hunting, but the younger man refused. So, as King Shahryar went hunting, Zaman wandered the palace by himself until he looks through a window and sees his brother's wife and twenty-one other people (including her husband's concubines, so the whole notion of 'faithful marriage' doesn't really fly here) go into a secluded courtyard. And as he watches, they all strip down and go to town in a wild orgy.

I told you, this is wild stuff, especially for Victorian readers. Did I mention that this wasn't available to the general public, but only by special subscription? Yeah.

Anyway, the revelation that his brother's wife was an even worse cheat than his own cheers Zaman up, and while he doesn't explain himself, Shahryar is happy to see him in better spirits. But when he presses Zaman for details, Zaman really, really doesn't want to tell him. But eventually he gives in, and after they leave on a fake hunt, they come back and watch the courtyard in secret, and sure enough Mrs. King and her friends get down and dirty once again. Shahryar and Zaman aren't quite sure how to respond to this, so they just leave the palace altogether in search of someone who has suffered the same indignities that they have.

Well, they run into a Jinni, or at least see him before he sees them, and he's got a beautiful woman with him. These genies are not like Robin Williams at all, by the way. Anyway, he boasts about how awesome he is because he kidnapped her from her wedding night so he could have her virginity all to himself. Nice guy, isn't he? Anyway, he gets drunk and goes to sleep on her lap. She spots the two wayward kings and because she hates the jinni so much, she demands that they get to know her in the Biblical sense, or she'll wake up the jinni to kill them. So, they both give her what she wants, and then she takes their seal rings, adding them to her collection of over five hundred rings.

We haven't even gotten to the Scheherazade part of the story yet.

So, after leaving the jilted jinni, they head back to Shahryar's kingdom and decide that all women are naturally unfaithful. Zaman heads home after Shahryar has his wife executed and makes the vow to begin the marry-screw-kill game, except he does all three with the same girl, all within twenty-four hours. Zaman doesn't show up again before the thousand nights stories happen, so I don't know what he does when he gets home. King Shahryar spends three years doing this every single day, until his chief Vizier can't find any more virgins to sacrifice. Here is where Scheherazade enters the story.

See, Scheherazade and her sister Dunyazad are the vizier's daughters, and Scheherazade insists that she be the next girl to be married to the king. Obviously, the Vizier isn't thrilled with this plan, and he gets to tell the first story in his attempts to stop her crazy plan. That story is the Tale of the Bull and the Ass (Donkey), and it's a fable about an overworked bull who complains to the donkey about his situation. The donkey advises the bull to just roll over and refuse to work or eat. So, when the bull won't do the job, the farmer (who, thanks to a blessing from Allah, understands the language of the animals and knows exactly what's going on) drags the donkey to the plow and makes him do the bull's work while the bull relaxes and spends the day in the spa.

So, the donkey convinces the bull that the farmer's going to send him to the butcher shop if he doesn't get back to work the next day. End of the story, right? Wrong. Now we get the farmer laughing at the banter between the animals, and his wife thinks he's laughing at her. He can't reveal that he knows the language of the animals, or else Allah will strike him dead. She's not buying it, and demands that he tell her, even if it literally kills him. She nags him until he's about ready to tell her just to get it over with and die in peace, and as he's putting his affairs in order he overhears the dogs and chickens talking about it, and the rooster points out that if he can handle fifty hens on his own, the farmer should be able to handle one wife, and advises that he do so in the traditional manner, by beating the crap out of her with a stick until her curiosity is satisfied.

I'm paraphrasing a bit. But you get the idea. Anyway, the farmer follows the rooster's advice, and the Vizier finishes the story by saying he'll do the same thing to Scheherazade if she tries to become the king's next sacrificial bride. However, she doesn't budge, and since the Vizier doesn't have any options, he goes to the king and finally tells him about Scheherazade. She, of course, has the plan I mentioned above, although there's a detail here that didn't make it into the stories I read when I was younger. See, before the king gives her the bridal poke, she asks him if her sister can be there for her last night on earth. The king agrees, and Dunyazad is brought into the room. And then they consummate the wedding, with the sister sitting on the floor nearby.

And then Scheherazade and Dunyazad start the bedtime stories. And this entry is long enough as it is, so I'm going to follow in Scheherazade's footsteps and keep you in suspense as to what stories she is telling the king.

So, like I said, this is definitely not the kid's version of the stories. I'm definitely keeping these books away from my twelve-year-old son; he can read the kiddie version instead for now. I'm not being a prude, but really, this isn't suitable material for young minds.

I will say, though, that it's a good thing the king agreed to hear the stories; if he'd just rolled over and started snoring, the book would have been a lot shorter...