The Life of Sir Richard Burton Part 30

That these notes and the Terminal Essay were written in the interests of Oriental and Anthropological students may be granted, but that they were written solely in the interests of these students no one would for a moment contend. Burton simply revelled in all studies of the kind.

Whatever was knowledge he wanted to know; and we may add whatever wasn't knowledge. He was insatiable. He was like the little boy who, seeing the ocean for the first time, cried, "I want to drink it all up." And Burton would have drunk it all. He would have swallowed down not only all the waters that were under the firmament but also all the creatures, palatable and unpalatable--especially the unpalatable--that sported therein.

139. Final Summing up.

To sum up finally: (1) Both translations are complete, they are the only complete translations in English, and the world owes a deep debt of grat.i.tude to both Payne and Burton.

(2) According to Arabists, Payne's Translation is the more accurate of the two. [491]

(3) Burton's translation is largely a paraphrase of Payne's.

(4) Persons who are in love with the beauty of restraint as regards ornament, and hold to the doctrine which Flaubert so well understood and practised, and Pater so persistently preached will consider Payne's translation incomparably the finer.

(5) Burton's translation is for those who, caring nothing for this doctrine, revel in rococo work, a style flamboyant at all costs, and in lawless splendours; and do not mind running against expressions that are far too blunt for the majority of people.

(6) Payne's rendering of the metrical portions is poetry; Burton's scarcely verse.

(7) Burton's Terminal Essay, with the exception of the p.o.r.nographic sections, is largely indebted to Payne's.

(8) The distinctive features of Burton's work are his notes and the p.o.r.nographic sections of his Terminal Essay--the whole consisting of an amazing ma.s.s of esoteric learning, the result of a lifetime's study.

Many of the notes have little, if any, connection with the text, and they really form an independent work.

Burton himself says: "Mr. Payne's admirable version appeals to the Orientalist and the Stylist, not to the many-headed; and mine to the anthropologist and student of Eastern manners and customs." Burton's Arabian Nights has been well summed up as "a monument of knowledge and audacity." [492]

Having finished his task Burton straightway commenced the translation of a number of other Arabic tales which he eventually published as Supplemental Nights [493] in six volumes, the first two of which correspond with Mr. Payne's three volumes ent.i.tled Tales from the Arabic.

140. Mr. Swinburne on Burton.

Congratulations rained in on Burton from all quarters; but the letters that gave him most pleasure were those from Mr. Ernest A. Floyer and Mr.

A. C. Swinburne, whose glowing sonnet:

"To Richard F. Burton On his Translation of the Arabian Nights"

is well known. "Thanks to Burton's hand," exclaims the poet magnificently:

"All that glorious Orient glows Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land Trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose, Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows."

In his Poems and Ballads, 3rd Series, 1889, Mr. Swinburne pays yet another tribute to the genius of his friend. Its dedication runs:--"Inscribed to Richard F. Burton. In redemption of an old pledge and in recognition of a friends.h.i.+p which I must always count among the highest honours of my life."

If private persons accorded the work a hearty reception, a large section of the press greeted it with no les cordiality. "No previous editor,"

said The Standard, "had a t.i.the of Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Moslem East. Apart from the language, the general tone of the Nights is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour... often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism, and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender, simple and true.... In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This work, illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation an opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express." The St.

James's Gazette called it "One of the most important translations to which a great English scholar has ever devoted himself."

Then rose a cry "Indecency, indecency! Filth, filth!" It was said, to use an Arabian Nights expression, that he had hauled up all the dead donkeys in the sea. The princ.i.p.al attack came from The Edinburgh Review (July 1886). "Mr. Payne's translation," says the writer, "is not only a fine piece of English, it is also, save where the exigencies of rhyme compelled a degree of looseness, remarkably literal.... Mr. Payne translates everything, and when a sentence is objectionable in Arabic, he makes it equally objectionable in English, or, rather, more so, since to the Arabs a rude freedom of speech is natural, while to us it is not." Then the reviewer turns to Burton, only, however, to empty out all the vials of his indignation--quite forgetting that the work was intended only for "curious students of Moslem manners," and not for the general public, from whom, indeed, its price alone debarred it. [494]

He says: "It is bad enough in the text of the tales to find that Captain Burton is not content with plainly calling a spade a spade, but will have it styled a dirty shovel; but in his notes he goes far beyond this, and the varied collection of abominations which he brings forward with such gusto is a disgrace and a shame to printed literature.... The different versions, however, have each its proper destination--Galland for the nursery, Lane for the library, Payne for the study and Burton for the sewers." [495]

Burton's spirited reply will be found in the last volume of his Supplemental Nights. Put compendiously, his argument is: "I had knowledge of certain subjects such as no other man possessed. Why should it die with me? Facts are facts, whether men are acquainted with them or not." "But," he says, "I had another object while making the notes a Repertory of Eastern knowledge in its esoteric form. Having failed to free the Anthropological Society [496] from the fetters of mauvaise honte and the mock-modesty which compels travellers and ethnographical students to keep silence concerning one side of human nature (and that side the most interesting to mankind) I proposed to supply the want in these pages.... While Pharisee and Philistine may be or may pretend to be 'shocked' and 'horrified' by my pages, the sound commonsense of a public, which is slowly but surely emanc.i.p.ating itself from the prudish and prurient reticences and the immodest and immoral modesties of the early 19th century, will in good time do me, I am convinced, full and ample justice."

In order to be quite ready, should prosecution ensue, Burton compiled what he called The Black Book, which consisted of specimens, of, to use his own expression, the "turpiloquium" of the Bible and Shakespeare. It was never required for its original purpose, but he worked some portions into the Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights. [497] And here it may be said that when Burton attacks the Bible and Christianity he is inconsistent and requires to be defended against himself. The Bible, as we have seen was one of the three books that he constantly carried about with him, and few men could have had greater admiration for its more splendid pa.s.sages. We know, too, that the sincere Christian had his respect. But his Terminal Essay and these notes appeared at a moment when the outcry was raised against his Arabian Nights; consequently, when he fires off with "There is no more immoral work than the Old Testament," the argument must be regarded as simply one of Tu quoque.

Instead of attacking the Bible writers as he did, he should, to have been consistent, have excused them, as he excused the characters in The Arabian Nights, with: "Theirs is a coa.r.s.eness of language, not of idea, &c., &c.... Such throughout the East is the language of every man, woman and child," [498] and so on. The suggestion, for example, that Ezekiel and Hosea are demoralizing because of certain expressions is too absurd for refutation. The bloodshed of the Bible horrified him; but he refused to believe that the "enormities" inflicted by the Jews on neighbouring nations were sanctioned by the Almighty. [499] "The murderous vow of Jephthah," David's inhuman treatment of the Moabites, and other events of the same category goaded him to fury.

If he attacks Christianity, nevertheless, his diatribe is not against its great Founder, but against the abuses that crept into the church even in the lifetime of His earliest followers; and again, not so much against Christianity in general as against Roman Catholicism. Still, even after making every allowance, his article is mainly a glorification of the crescent at the expense of the cross.

Chapter x.x.x. 21st November 1885-5th June 1886 K. C. M. G.

Bibliography:

74. Six Months at Abbazia. 1888. 75. Lady Burton's Edition of the Arabian Nights. 1888.

141. In Morocco, 21st November 1885.

On October 28th the Burtons went down to Hatfield, where there was a large party, but Lord Salisbury devoted himself chiefly to Burton. After they had discussed the Eastern Question, Lord Salisbury said to Burton "Now go to your room, where you will be quiet, and draw up a complete programme for Egypt."

Burton retired, but in two or three minutes returned with a paper which he handed to Lord Salisbury.

"You've soon done it," said his Lords.h.i.+p, and on unfolding the paper he found the single word "Annex."

"If I were to write for a month," commented Burton, on noticing Lord Salisbury's disappointment, "I could not say more."

However, being further pressed, he elaborated his very simple programme.

[500] The policy he advocated was a wise and humane one; and had it been instantly adopted, untold trouble for us and much oppression of the miserable natives would have been avoided. Since then we have practically followed his recommendations, and the present prosperous state of Egypt is the result.

On 21st November 1885, Burton left England for Tangier, which he reached on the 30th, and early in January he wrote to the Morning Post a letter on the Home Rule question, which he thought might be settled by the adoption of a Diet System similar to that which obtained in Austro-Hungary. On January 15th he wants to know how Mr. Payne's translation of Boccaccio [501] is proceeding and continues: "I look forward to Vol. i. with lively pleasure. You will be glad to hear that to-day I finished my translation and to-morrow begin with the Terminal Essay, so that happen what may subscribers are safe. Tangier is beastly but not bad for work.... It is a place of absolute rascality, and large fortunes are made by selling European protections--a regular Augean stable."

Mrs. Burton and Lisa left England at the end of January, and Burton met them at Gibraltar.

142. K.C.M.G., 5th February 1886.