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Rose and Cypress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2021

Kemp Malone*
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University

Extract

The romantic tale of Gul o Sanaubar ‘Rose and Cypress’ is one of the traductions de l'Hindoustani which Garcin de Tassy printed in 1876. In his avertissement the translator explains :

j'ai réuni dans ce volume quelques-unes de mes traductions .... de récits .... publiés anciennement et depuis longtemps épuisés.... Je n'ai reproduit ni les textes, ni les préfaces, ni les notes d'érudition qui accompagnaient les premières éditions de quelques-unes de ces traductions.....

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1928

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References

1 It takes up pp. 425-480 in the volume, Allegories, Récits Poétiques et Chants Populaires, traduits de l'Arabe, du Persan, de l'Hindoustani et du Turc, par M. [J.H.S.V.] Garcin de Tassy, Paris, 1876 (2d ed.; no 1st ed. is known to me).

2 This edition is mentioned on p. 480 of Garcin de Tassy's volume, in the following terms: cette histoire [of Gui Sanaubar] a été imprimée par le serviteur des savante Hidâyat Ali d'Islâm-abad, en 1845 de Jésus-Christ, à l'imprimerie Masbari, par les soins du munschi Abdulhallm Sâbib.

3 Ed. cit. p. 426; the Hindu writer goes on to dedicate his version to Baba Gur-charan, whom be praises in prose and verse.

4 First ed., London, 1904. My copy is an American reprint of 1925.

5 Liver des Mille Nuits et une Nuit, vol. XV, pp. 7-91, Paris, 1904. The trans-lator does not explain where he got the story, nor does he give his authority for including it in the 1001 Nights. In the illustrated edition of his work, however, (vol VIII, Paris, 1912), we learn that he drew the tale from a Hindu MS. And his version in fact agrees more closely with Gardn de Tsasy than with Lang.

6 Transcaucasia, Sketches of the Nations and Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian, by Baron von Haxthausen, London 1854. A German edition of this work appeared in 1856, under the title Transhaukasia. The English edition was translated from the German MS. of the author by J. E. T. Our story appears in cap. XI, Armenian Legends, and is given the title Solomon's Garden and its Mysteries. It is very short, taking up only pp. 363-367 of the volume. The author tells us that it waa told to him by a native Armenian named Peter Neu, and that it is originally a Persian tale. Professor G. L. Kittredge ([Harvard] Stud, and Notes in Philol. amd Lit., VIII, 250 note) gives a summary of von Haxthausens version of our tale.

7 [Harvard] Studies and notes in Philol. and Lit., VIII, 149 ff.

8 Ed. cit., p. 195; cf. also p. 196 note, and pp. 260 f.

9 Kittredge, ed.cit.,p. 188, note 1; see also p. 274. For a brief treatment of the loathly lover theme, see M. Bloomfield, Trans. P., LIV, 167.

10 Kittredge, loc. cit.

11 Kittredge, ed. cit., pp. 178 f.

12 Kittredge ed. cit., p. 187.

13 Kittredge, ed cit., p. 167. A similar quest in Hindu story is pointed out by M. Bloomfield, Trans. A. P., LIV, 159.

14 Kittredge, ed. cit., pp. 246 ff.

15 J. W. Gibb (translator). The History of the Forty Vesirs. The Thirty-Fourth Vezir's Story, pp. 331-332. According to Gibb, the Forty Vesirs can be traced back to the first half of the fifteenth century (p. viii). The individual stories presumably antedate the collection; their exact age can hardly be determined.-The collection is Turkish.

16 Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 247.

17 Caste Romanorum, ed. H. Oesterley, pp. 355-356.

18 H. Oesterley, ed. cit., p. 356, 11. 14-16.

19 For messing by twos, see Stud, in Philol., XXII, 181 f. and Eng. Stud., LXI, 333 f.

20 Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 248

21 Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 158, ll 14-15

22 Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 222 tOD.

23 See Kittredge, ed. cit., pp. 222 f.

24 On the point see Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 233, note 5.

25 The account of the exposure given in variant K is illuminating. I quote from P. Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Calts, p. 267. The hero (who tells his own story to the quester) has just caught his wife and her lover together. He continues, “I had no further patience, but rushed on ready to strike him through with my hunting spear, but the moment my wife caught sight of me, she flung the magic rod at me, and I found myself, in the twinkling of an eye, changed to a horse. I did not lose my memory, but rushed on the villain to trample out his life. However, he had got up into a tree before I could reach him. I had neither the power nor the will to trample or strike my wife. So the guilty pair escaped for the time.” Here we find the exposure, the attack on the lover in the wife's presence, and the (emphasized) failure to attack the wife, all traits characteristic of the corresponding incident in G, and all in marked contrast to both the transformation scene and the attack on the lover as we find these in M.

26 See PM LA, XXXIX (1924), 488 f.

27 Kittredge, ed. cit., p. 156, ll 22-30.

28 See Kittredge, ed. cit., pp. 182 f.