ARABIAN SOCIETY
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS:
Commonly called, in England, "The Arabian Nights'Entertainments."
A New Translation from the Arabic, with copious Notes, by EdwardWilliam Lane.
Illustrated by many hundred Engravings on Wood, from OriginalDesigns by William Harvey.
A New Edition, from a Copy annotated by the Translator, editedby his Nephew, Edward Stanley Poole.With a Preface by StanleyLane-Poole.
ARABIAN SOCIETY
IN THE MIDDLE AGES
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
BY
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
CORRESPONDANT DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE
EDITED BY HIS GRANDNEPHEW
STANLEY LANE-POOLE
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1883
[All rights reserved]
E. H. PALMER,
THE TRUE SUCCESSOR OF
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE,
IN HIS INSIGHT INTO EASTERN CHARACTER AND THOUGHT
AND HIS GENIUS FOR THE ARABIC LANGUAGE,
THIS BOOK IS SORROWFULLY
DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
When Mr. Lane translated the "Thousand and One Nights," he was notcontent with producing a mere rendering of the Arabic text: he saw thatthe manners and ideas there described required a commentary if they wereto become intelligible to an unlearned reader. At the end of eachchapter of his translation, therefore, he appended a series ofexplanatory notes, which often reached the proportions of elaborateessays on the main characteristics of Mohammadan life.
These notes have long been recognized by Orientalists as the mostcomplete picture in existence of Arabian society—or rather of thoseArab, Persian, or Greek, but still Mohammadan, conditions of life andboundaries of the mental horizon which are generally distinguished by[viii]the name of Arabian. Their position and arrangement, however, scatteredas they were t