The Arabian Nights: Their Best-known Tales. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ house of pleasant things," then, and make yourself at home in the golden palaces, the gem-studded caves, the bewildering gardens. Sit by its mysterious fountains, hear the plash of its gleaming cascades, unearth its magic lamps and talismans, behold its ensorcelled princes and princesses.

      Nowhere in the whole realm of literature will you find such a Marvel, such a Wonder, such a Nonesuch of a book; nowhere will you find impossibilities so real and so convincing; nowhere but in what Henley calls:

      " … that blessed brief

       Of what is gallantest and best

       In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance.

       The Book of rocs,

       Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,

       Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and Calenders,

       And ghouls, and genies—O so huge

       They might have overed the tall Minster Tower,

       Hands down, as schoolboys take a post;

       In truth the Book of Camaralzaman,

       Schemselnihar and Sinbad, Scheherezade

       The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,

       Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,

       And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk—

       Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms—

       Of Kaf … That centre of miracles

       The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights."

      Kate Douglas Wiggin.

      August, 1909.

ILLUSTRATIONS

       Table of Contents

      FROM DRAWINGS IN COLORS

       BY MAXFIELD PARRISH

       The Talking Bird

      It will be sufficient to break off a branch and carry it to plant in your garden

       The Fisherman and the Genie

      The smoke ascended to the clouds, and extending itself along the sea and upon the shore formed a great mist

       The Young King of the Black Isles

      When he came to this part of his narrative the young king could not restrain his tears

       Gulnare of the Sea

      And she proceeded to burn perfume and repeat spells until the sea foamed and was agitated

       Aladdin

      At the same time the earth, trembling, opened just before the magician, and uncovered a stone, laid horizontally, with a brass ring fixed into the middle

       Prince Agib

      And when the boat came to me I found in it a man of brass, with a tablet of lead upon his breast, engraven with names and talismans

       Prince Agib

      At the approach of evening I opened the first closet and, entering it, found a mansion like paradise

       The City of Brass

      And when they had ascended that mountain they saw a city than which eyes had not beheld any greater

       The Story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

      Cassim … was so alarmed at the danger he was in that the more he endeavoured to remember the word Sesame the more his memory was confounded

       The History of Codadad and His Brothers

      As it drew near we saw ten or twelve armed pirates appear on the deck

       Second Voyage of Sinbad

      The spot where she left me was encompassed on all sides by mountains that seemed to reach above the clouds, and so steep that there was no possibility of getting out of the valley

       Third Voyage of Sinbad

      Having finished his repast, he returned to his porch, where he lay and fell asleep, snoring louder than thunder

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS

       Table of Contents

       "When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free

       In the silken sail of infancy,

       The tide of time flow'd back with me,

       The forward-flowing time of time;

       And many a sheeny summer morn,

       Adown the Tigris I was borne,

       By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,

       High-walled gardens green and old;

       True Mussulman was I and sworn,

       For it was in the golden prime

       Of good Haroun Alraschid.

       "Anight my shallop, rustling thro'

       The low and bloomèd foliage, drove

       The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove

       The citron-shadows in the blue:

       By garden porches on the brim,

       The costly doors flung open wide,

       Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim,

       And broider'd sofas on each side:

       In sooth it was a goodly time,

       For it was in the golden prime

       Of good Haroun Alraschid."

      Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

THE TALKING BIRD, THE SINGING TREE, AND THE GOLDEN WATER

       СКАЧАТЬ