burton--1001-nights--sample

which are usually, by common consent, left undescribed. As Sir
William Jones observed long ago, “that anything natural can be offensively
obscene never seems to have occurred to the Indians or to their
legislators; a singularity (?) pervading their writings and conversation,
but no proof of moral depravity.” Another justly observes, Les peuples
primitifs n’y entendent pas malice: ils appellent les choses par leurs noms et
ne trouvent pas condamnable ce qui est naturel. And they are prying as
children. For instance the European novelist marries off his hero and
heroine and leaves them to consummate marriage in privacy; even Tom
Jones has the decency to bolt the door. But the Eastern story-teller,
especially this unknown “prose Shakespeare,” must usher you, with a
flourish, into the bridal chamber and narrate to you, with infinite gusto,
everything he sees and hears. Again we must remember that grossness
and indecency, in fact les turpitudes, are matters of time and place; what
is offensive in England is not so in Egypt; what scandalises us now
would have been a tame joke tempore Elisae. Withal The Nights will not
be found in this matter coarser than many passages of Shakespeare,
Sterne, and Swift, and their uncleanness rarely attains the perfection of
Alcofribas Naiser, “divin maître et atroce cochon.” The other element
is absolute obscenity, sometimes, but not always, tempered by wit,
humour and drollery; here we have an exaggeration of Petronius
Arbiter, the handiwork of writers whose ancestry, the most religious
and the most debauched of mankind, practised every abomination
before the shrine of the Canopic Gods.
In accordance with my purpose of reproducing the Nights, not
virginibus puerisque, but in as perfect a picture as my powers permit,
I have carefully sought out the English equivalent of every Arabic
word, however low it may be or “shocking” to ears polite; preserving,
on the other hand, all possible delicacy where the indecency is not
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