The Life of Sir Richard Burton Part 35

The most complete text of The Scented Garden is that now preserved in the library at Algiers, and there are also ma.n.u.scripts in the libraries of Paris, Gotha and Copenhagen. In 1850 a ma.n.u.script which seems to have corresponded practically with The Torch of the World was translated into French by a Staff Officer of the French Army in Algeria, and an edition of thirty-five copies was printed by an autographic process in Algiers in the year 1876. [581] In 1886 an edition of 220 copies was issued by the French publisher Isidore Liseux, and the same year appeared a translation of Liseux's work bearing the imprint of the Kama Shastra Society. This is the book that Burton calls "my old version," [582]

which, of course, proves that he had some share in it. [583]

There is no doubt that the average Englishman [584] would be both amazed and shocked on first opening even the Kama Shastra Society's version; unless, perchance, he had been prepared by reading Burton's Arabian Nights or the Fiftieth Chapter of Gibbon's Decline and Fall with the Latin Notes, though even these give but a feeble idea of the fles.h.i.+ness of The Scented Garden. Indeed, as Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, referring to the Arabs, says: "Incredible est quo ardore apud eos in venerem uterque solvitur s.e.xus."

160. Contents of The Scented Garden.

Nafzawi divided his book into twenty one-chapters "in order to make it easier reading for the taleb (student)." It consists of descriptions of "Praiseworthy Men" and "Praiseworthy Women" from a Nafzawin point of view, interpretations of dreams, medical recipes for impotence, &c., lists of aphrodisiacs, and stories confirmatory of Ammia.n.u.s's remark.

Among the longer tales are those of Moseilma, "Bahloul [585] and Hamdonna," and "The Negro Al Dhurgham" [586]--all furiously Fescinnine.

The story of Moseilema, Lord of Yamama, is familiar in one form or another to most students of Arab History. Was.h.i.+ngton Irving epitomises it in his inexpressibly beautiful "Successors" of Mahomet [587] and Gibbon [588] tells it more fully, partly in his text and partly in his Latin footnotes. Moseilema was, no doubt, for some years quite as influential a prophet as his rival Mohammed. He may even have been as good a man, [589] but Nafzawi--staunch Mohammedan--will not let "the Whig dogs have the best of the argument." He charges Moseilema with having perverted sundry chapters in the Koran by his lies and impostures, and declares that he did worse than fail when he attempted to imitate Mohammed's miracles. "Now Moseilema (whom may Allah curse!), when he put his luckless hand on the head of some one who had not much hair, the man was at once quite bald... and when he laid his hand upon the head of an infant, saying, 'Live a hundred years,' the infant died within an hour." As a matter of fact, however, Moseilema was one of the most romantic figures in Arabic history. [590] Sedja, Queen and Prophetess, went to see him in much the same spirit that the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon. Moseilema, who outlived Mohammed about a year, was defeated and slain near his capital Yamama, by the Mohammedan hero Khalid, and Sedjah subsequently embraced Islamism.

In the tale ent.i.tled "Djoaidi and Fadehat el Djemal" [591] appears that h.o.a.ry poet, philosopher and reprobate, Abu Nowas [592] of The Arabian Nights. Like the Nights, The Scented Garden has a cycle of tales ill.u.s.trative of the cunning and malice of women. But all the women in those days and countries were not bad, just as all were not plain.

Plumpness seems to have been the princ.i.p.al attraction of s.e.x, and the Kama Shastra version goes so far as to a.s.sure us that a woman who had a double chin, [593] was irresistible. If so, there were probably no words in the language good enough to describe a woman with three chins.

According, however, to the author of the recent Paris translation [594]

this particular rendering is a mistake. He considers that the idea Nafzawi wished to convey was the tower-like form of the neck, [595] but in any circ.u.mstances the denizens of The Scented Garden placed plumpness in the forefront of the virtues; which proves, of course, the negroid origin of at any rate some of the stories, [596] for a true Arab values slenderness. Over and over again in the Nights we are told of some seductive lady that she was straight and tall with a shape like the letter Alif or a willow wand. The perfect woman, according to Mafzawi, perfumes herself with scents, uses ithmid [597] (antimony) for her toilet, and cleans her teeth with bark of the walnut tree. There are chapters on sterility, long lists of the kind to be found in Rabelais, and solemn warnings against excess, chiefly on account of its resulting in weakness of sight, with other "observations useful for men and women."

While chapters i. to xx. concern almost entirely the relations between the opposite s.e.xes, Chapter xxi. [598] which const.i.tutes more than one-half of the book, treats largely of those unspeakable vices which as St. Paul and St. Jude show, and the pages of Petronius and other ancient authors prove, were so common in the pagan world, and which, as Burton and other travellers inform us, are still practised in the East.

"The style and language in which the Perfumed Garden is written are,"

says the writer of the Foreword to the Paris edition of 1904, "of the simplest and most unpretentious kind, rising occasionally to a very high degree of eloquence, resembling, to some extent, that of the famous Thousand Nights and a Night; but, while the latter abounds in Egyptian colloquialisms, the former frequently causes the translator to pause owing to the recurrence of North African idioms and the occasional use of Berber or Kabyle words, not generally known." In short, the literary merits or the work are trifling.

Although Nafzawi wrote his extended Scented Garden for scholars only, he seems afterwards to have become alarmed, and to have gone in fear lest it might get into the hands of the ignorant and do harm. So he ended it with:

"O you who read this, and think of the author And do not exempt him from blame, If you spare your good opinion of him, do not At least fail to say 'Lord forgive us and him.'" [599]

161. Sir Richard Burton's Translation.

It was in the autumn of 1888, as we have seen, that Sir Richard Burton, who considered the book to take, from a linguistic and ethnological point of view, a very high rank, conceived the idea of making a new translation, to be furnished with annotations of a most elaborate nature. He called it at first, with his fondness for rhyming jingle, The Scented Garden-Site for Heart's Delight, and finally decided upon The Scented Garden--Man's Heart to Gladden. Sir Richard's Translation was from the Algiers ma.n.u.script, a copy of which was made for him at a cost of eighty pounds, by M. O. Houdas, Professor at the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes. This was of the first twenty chapters. Whether a copy of the 21st Chapter ever reached Sir Richard we have not been able to ascertain. On 31st March 1890, he wrote in his Journal: "Began, or rather resumed, Scented Garden," [600] and thenceforward he worked at it sedulously. Now and again the Berber or Kabyle words with which the ma.n.u.script was sprinkled gave him trouble, and from time to time he submitted his difficulties to M. f.a.gnan, "the erudite compiler of the Catalogue of Arabic books and MSS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale d'Alger" and other Algerian correspondents. Lady Burton describes her husband's work as "a translation from Arabic ma.n.u.scripts very difficult to get in the original" with "copious notes and explanations" of Burton's own--the result, indeed, of a lifetime of research. "The first two chapters were a raw translation of the works of Numa Numantius [601]

without any annotations at all, or comments of any kind on Richard's part, and twenty chapters, translations of Shaykh el Nafzawi from Arabic. In fact, it was all translation, except the annotations on the Arabic work." [602] Thus Burton really translated only Chapters i. to xx., or one-half of the work. But it is evident from his remarks on the last day of his life that he considered the work finished with the exception of the pumice-polis.h.i.+ng; and from this, one judges that he was never able to obtain a copy of the 21st Chapter. Lady Burton's statement and this a.s.sumption are corroborated by a conversation which the writer had with Mr. John Payne in the autumn of 1904. "Burton," said Mr. Payne, "told me again and again that in his eyes the unpardonable defect of the Arabic text of The Scented Garden was that it altogether omitted the subject upon which he had for some years bestowed special study." If Burton had been acquainted with the Arabic text of the 21st Chapter he, of course, would not have made that complaint; still, as his letters show, he was aware that such a ma.n.u.script existed. Having complained to Mr. Payne in the way referred to respecting the contents of The Scented Garden, Burton continued, "Consequently, I have applied myself to remedy this defect by collecting all manner of tales and of learned material of Arab origin bearing on my special study, and I have been so successful that I have thus trebled the original ma.n.u.script." Thus, as in the case of The Arabian Nights, the annotations were to have no particular connection with the text. Quite two-thirds of these notes consisted of matter of this sort.

Mr. Payne protested again and again against the whole scheme, and on the score that Burton had given the world quite enough of this kind of information in the Nights. But the latter could not see with his friend.

He insisted on the enormous anthropological and historical importance of these notes--and that the world would be the loser were he to withold them; in fact, his whole mind was absorbed in the subject.

Chapter x.x.xV. 15th October 1888 to 21st July 1890. Working at the "Catullus" and "The Scented Garden"

Bibliography:

78. Catullus translated 1890, printed 1894. 79. The Golden a.s.s and other works left unfinished.

162. Switzerland 15th October 1888.

From London the Burtons proceeded first to Boulogne where Sir Richard visited the haunts of his early manhood and called upon his old fencing master, Constantin, who was hale and well, though over eighty; and then to Geneva, where he delivered before the local Geographical Society what proved to be his last public lecture. From Geneva he wrote several letters to Mr. Payne. In that of November 21st, his mind running on the Bandello, he says, "You would greatly oblige me by jotting down when you have a moment to spare the names of reverends and ecclesiastics who have written and printed facetious books. [603] In English I have Swift and Sterne; in French Rabelais, but I want one more, also two in Italian and two in German."

In reply, Mr. Payne sent him some twenty or thirty names in half a dozen literatures. From Geneva the Burtons made their way first to Vevey, where Sir Richard revelled in its a.s.sociations with Ludlow, the English regicide, and Rousseau; and then to Lausanne for the sake of his great hero, Edward Gibbon; and on 12th March (1889) they were back again at Trieste.

Writing to Mr. A. G. Ellis on May 8th, Burton enquires respecting some engravings in the Museum brought over from Italy by the Duke of c.u.mberland, and he finished humorously with, "What news of Mr.

Blumhardt? And your fellow-sufferer from leather emanations, the Sanskiritist?" [604]--an allusion to the Oriental Room, under which, in those days, was the book-binding department.

163. Mr. Letchford, August and September 1889.

In July, for Burton found it impossible to content himself long in any place, the Burtons made another journey, this time through Western Austria, being accompanied as usual by Dr. Baker and Lisa. After their return, on September 13th, it was necessary for Burton to undergo two operations; and Lady Burton, racked with anxiety and fearing the worst, seemed, when all was successfully over, to have recovered from a horrible nightmare. Then followed acquaintance with the gifted young artist, Mr. Albert Letchford, and his beautiful and winning sister, Daisy. Mr. Letchford became the Burtons' Court Painter, as it were--frequently working in their house--and both he and his sister admired--nay, wors.h.i.+pped Sir Richard down to the ground. Even as a child, Albert Letchford was remarkable for his thoughtful look, and his strong sense of beauty. In church one day he begged his mother to let him run home and get his little sword, as there was such an ugly woman there and he wished to cut her head off. As a youth he drew and studied from morning to night, living in a world of his own creation--a world of books and pictures. His letters were those of a poet and an artist.

Beauty of the mind, however, attracted him even more than beauty of the body. Thus, he fell in love with his cousin Augusta, "though she had the toothache, and her head tied up in a handkerchief." At seventeen he studied art in Venice. From Venice he went to Florence, where he met the Burtons and got from them introductions to all the best people, including the Countess Orford and Mlle. de la Ramee (Ouida). We then find him in Paris, in London, in Egypt, where he acquired that knowledge of the East which helped him later when he ill.u.s.trated The Arabian Nights. Finally he settled at Trieste. "That wonderful man, Sir Richard Burton, with the eyes of a tiger and the voice of an angel," writes Miss Letchford, "loved my brother, for he found something more in him than in others--he found a mind that could understand his own, and he often said that Mr. Albert Letchford was about the only man that he was pleased to see--the only one who never jarred on his nerves. To him did Sir Richard, proud and arrogant to most people, open his soul, and from his lips would come forth such enchanting conversation--such a wonderful flow of words and so marvellous in sound that often I have closed my eyes and listened to him, fancying, thus--that some wonderful learned angel had descended from Heaven unto Earth."

Among the friends of the Burtons was the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who with her husband became one of Letchford's best patrons. The princess won Sir Richard's heart by her intelligence, her beauty and grace; and "his conversation was never so brilliant, and his witticisms were never so sparkling as in her presence." One day another princess--a foolish, vain woman--after making a number of insipid remarks, shook hands with Sir Richard, lifting high her arm and elbow in the fas.h.i.+on which was then just coming into vogue, but which has now lost acceptance. [605] Sir Richard, while giving her his right hand, quietly with his left put down her arm and elbow. The princess turned scarlet, but she never after practised "the high shake." Miss Letchford sums up Lady Burton as "a most beautiful and charming woman, with many lovely ideas, but many foolish ones." Unfortunately she was guided entirely by her confessor, a man of small mental calibre. One of the confessor's ideas was to convert Sir Richard by dropping small charms into his pockets. Sir Richard got quite used to finding these little images about him; but they invariably made their way out of the window into the garden. One of Lady Burton's little failings was the fear lest anybody should come to the house in order to steal, and the servants had special commands to admit none who did not look "a perfect gentleman or lady,"

with the result that one day they slammed the door in the face of the Archduke Louis Salvator, simply because he did not happen to have a card with him. After that Lady Burton's orders were less strict.

Mr. Letchford's paintings include views of the neighbourhood, a portrait of Burton which was exhibited in the Stanley Gallery, and a full-length portrait of Burton fencing, [606] but he is best known by his series of ill.u.s.trations to The Arabian Nights.

164. To Dr. Tuckey.

On April 24th we find Burton writing to thank Dr. Charles Tuckey for the gift of a copy of his Psycho-Therapeutics. "An old pupil of Dr.

Elliotson," [607] he says, "I am always interested in these researches, and welcome the appearance of any addition to our scanty knowledge of an illimitable field. Suggestion (what a miserable name!) perfectly explains the stigmata of St. Francis and others without preter-natural a.s.sistance, and the curative effect of a dose of Koran (a verset written upon a sc.r.a.p of paper, and given like a pill of p.q.). I would note that the "Indian Prince" [608] was no less a personage than Ranjit Singh, Rajah of the Punjab, that the burial of the Fakir was attested by his German surgeon-general, and that a friend and I followed Colonel Boileau's example in personally investigating the subject of vivi-sepulture. In p. 10: The throngs of pilgrims to Mecca never think of curing anything but their 'souls,' and the pilgrimage is often fatal to their bodies. I cannot but take exception to such terms as 'psychology,' holding the soul (an old Egyptian creation unknown to the early Hebrews) to be the ego of man, what differentiates him from all other men, in fact, like the 'mind,' not a thing but a state or condition of things. I rejoice to see Braid [609] duly honoured and think that perhaps a word might be said of 'Electro-biology,' a term ridiculous as 'suggestion' and more so. But Professor Yankee Stone certainly produced all the phenomena you allude to by concentrating the patient's sight upon his 'Electro-magnetic disc'--a humbug of copper and zinc, united, too. It was a sore trial to Dr. Elliotson, who having been persecuted for many years wished to make trial in his turn of a little persecuting--a disposition not unusual." [610]

165. To Mr. Kirby 15th May 1889.

In a letter to Mr. W. F. Kirby, 15th May 1889, Burton, after referring to a translation of the Kalevala, [611] upon which Mr. Kirby was then engaged, says: "We shall not be in England this year. I cannot remove myself so far from my books, and beside, I want a summer in Austria, probably at Closen or some place north of Vienna. We had a long ten months' holiday and must make up for time lost. The Scented Garden is very hard work, and I have to pay big sums to copyists and so forth.

Yet it will, I think, repay the reader. What a national disgrace is this revival of Puritanism with its rampant cant and ign.o.ble hypocrisy! I would most willingly fight about it, but I don't see my way." Writing again on 6th November (1889) he says, "I like very much your idea of visiting Sweden in the interests of the Kalevala. Perhaps you might date the Preface from that part of the world. The Natural History of The Nights would be highly interesting. Have you heard that Pickering and Chatto, of Haymarket, London, are going to print 100 (photogravure) ill.u.s.trations of the Nights? When last in London I called on them. On Friday week, 15th November, we start upon our winter's trip. From here to Brindisi, await the P. and O., then to Malta (ten days), Tunis (month), Tripoli and Algiers, where I hope at last to see the very last of The Scented Garden."