ADVERTISEMENT.

 The present edition is an exact reproduction of that edited by my father, with my great-uncle's final corrections, and published by Mr. John Murray in 1859. Several reprints of that edition have testified to the continued popularity of the work, and the necessity for the present issue shows that an acquaintance of nearly half a century has not yet wearied the public of the standard translation of the Thousand and One Nights. The secret of Mr. Lane's success is to be found partly in the instinctive¹ sympathy for the spirit of the East, which enabled him faithfully to reproduce the characteristic tone of the original, and partly in the rich store of illustrations of oriental life and thought contained in his Notes. In the various cheap versions, based upon Galland's French paraphrase², the Eastern tone and local colour is wholly wanting; and the peculiarities³ of life and manners, which contrast so markedly with those of the West, are left unnoted and unexplained. Such versions may serve in an inadequate⁴ degree to make the Arabian Nights known to those who care only for the bare stories; but educated readers, who are capable of something more than the mere⁵ enjoyment⁶ of the romance, and desire to understand the character and habits of the actors and the spectators, find in Mr. Lane's translation, and in his only, a complete satisfaction of their want. It is not merely a scholar's edition, though no oriental student can afford to be without it; but beyond this narrow circle it has ever appealed to the wide audience that cares to know the famous books of the world in their most perfect and faithful reflections.

 

vi

 

The actual moment is an opportune⁷ one for the reappearance of the work. Egypt just now holds a foremost place in the eyes of the world, and it is of Egypt that the Thousand and One Nights have most to tell. Indian or Persian as many of the tales are in their origin, their setting is almost purely⁸ Egyptian; and though the place may be nominally⁹ Baghdad or India, or even furthest China, it is in medi?val Cairo, in the days of the Memlooks, that the scene of the Arabian Nights is really laid. The people described are not Hindoos or Chinese, but Arabs and Egyptians as they lived and moved in the fifteenth century, when some of the beautiful mosques¹⁰ and tombs, that still make Cairo the delight of artists, were being built, and the devastating¹¹ hand of the Ottoman Turk had not yet been laid on the land of the Pharaohs. For a minute picture of Arabian society as it was in the Middle Ages, the Thousand and One Nights have no rival, and it is Mr. Lane's appreciation¹² of this picture, and the wealth of illustration lavished¹³ upon it in his Notes, that render his edition the most complete commentary we possess on Muslim life and manners, religion and literature, and make it an indispensable supplement to his famous Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. The poetry of Eastern life is rapidly fading away under the effacing¹⁴ touch of European civilisation¹⁵; the characteristic society in which an Haroon-Er-Rasheed, an Aboo-Nuwas, a Kafoor, a Saladin, or a Ka?t-Bey, revelled¹⁶ and jested and conquered, is fast becoming matter of history rather than of experience, a field for the antiquary instead of the traveller; and it is well that we can reconstruct it in the pages of the Thousand and One Nights, whose compiler saw it when it was still almost in its Golden Prime, and in the Modern Egyptians, whose author knew it when it still preserved the romantic character which has charmed and fascinated readers of every age and condition.

 

Stanley Lane-Poole.  

 

  The Day of Tell-el-Kebeer, 1882.

1 instinctive   

adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的

参考例句：

• He tried to conceal his instinctive revulsion at the idea.他试图饰盖自己对这一想法本能的厌恶。
• Animals have an instinctive fear of fire.动物本能地怕火。

2 paraphrase   

vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义

参考例句：

• You may read the prose paraphrase of this poem.你可以看一下这首诗的散文释义。
• Paraphrase the following sentences or parts of sentences using your own words.用你自己的话解释下面的句子或句子的一部分。

3 peculiarities   

n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪

参考例句：

• the cultural peculiarities of the English 英国人的文化特点
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another. 他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

4 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

5 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

6 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

7 opportune   

adj.合适的，适当的

参考例句：

• Her arrival was very opportune.她来得非常及时。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

8 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

9 nominally   

在名义上，表面地； 应名儿

参考例句：

• Dad, nominally a Methodist, entered Churches only for weddings and funerals. 爸名义上是卫理公会教徒，可只去教堂参加婚礼和葬礼。
• The company could not indicate a person even nominally responsible for staff training. 该公司甚至不能指出一个名义上负责职员培训的人。

10 mosques   

清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Why make us believe that this tunnel runs underneath the mosques? 为什么要让我们相信这条隧洞是在清真寺下？
• The city's three biggest mosques, long fallen into disrepair, have been renovated. 城里最大的三座清真寺，过去年久失修，现在已经修复。

11 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

12 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

13 lavished   

v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I lavished all the warmth of my pent-up passion. 我把憋在心里那一股热烈的情感尽量地倾吐出来。 来自辞典例句
• An enormous amount of attention has been lavished on these problems. 在这些问题上，我们已经花费了大量的注意力。 来自辞典例句

14 effacing   

谦逊的

参考例句：

• He was a shy, self-effacing man. 他是个腼腆谦逊的人。
• She was a quiet woman, bigboned, and self-effacing. 她骨架很大，稳稳当当，从来不喜欢抛头露面。 来自辞典例句

15 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

16 revelled   

v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉

参考例句：

• The foreign guests revelled in the scenery of the lake. 外宾们十分喜爱湖上的景色。 来自辞典例句
• He revelled in those moments of idleness stolen from his work. 他喜爱学习之余的闲暇时刻。 来自辞典例句