The Arabian Nights II (51 page)

Then they married Marjana to As'ad and sent her back to her kingdom, charging her not to interrupt her correspondence with them. Then they married Amjad to Bustana, Bahram's daughter, and they all went to the City of Ebony. When they arrived, Qamar al-Zaman saw his father-in-law, King Armanus, privately, and related to him all that had happened to him and how he had been reunited with his two sons, and the king rejoiced and congratulated him on his safe return. Then King Ghaiur went in to his daughter Queen Budur and greeted her and satisfied his yearning for her. He stayed in the City of Ebony
for a whole month, then returned with his troops to his country, taking his daughter and his grandson Amjad with him, and as soon as he settled down in his kingdom, he seated Amjad to govern in his place. Meanwhile, Qamar al-Zaman seated his son As'ad to govern in his place in the city of his grandfather Armanus, who was pleased with him. Then Qamar al-Zaman prepared himself and journeyed with his father King Shahraman to the Khalidan Islands. When they arrived, the city was decorated, and the drums continued to beat for an entire month, in celebration of the happy event, and Qamar al-Zaman ruled in place of his father until they were overtaken by the sunderer of companies and destroyer of delights.

Acknowledgments

My thanks are to Robert Merrill, Patty Peltekos, Julia Reidhead, and Vonnie Rosendahl for their generous help with the manuscript; to Anna Karvellas for her fine supervision of virtually every stage of production; and to Dia Azzawi for his illustrations.

Praise for
The Arabian Nights II

“[Haddawy's] versions of such charismatic classics as ‘Sindbad the Sailor' and ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves' are crisp, vivid, and utterly enthralling, illuminating the many wonders that have been concealed for too long by less faithful editions.”

—Sandra Gilbert, University of California at Davis

“As in his earlier volume, the translation is lucid, elegant, and readable. . . . One is struck again by the charm, intelligence, and resourcefulness of the character Marjana in ‘Ali Baba' and the existentialist aspect of Sindbad's restlessness.”

—J. M. Badawi, London
Times Literary Supplement

“It is a great pleasure to read these classic stories in Haddawy's vigorous and swift-moving prose, in which we find neither the discreet omissions nor the flamboyant elaborations of earlier translations.”

—M. H. Abrams, Cornell University

“With fidelity to scholarship and purity of vernacular English, as in his translation of the earliest reliable manuscript of
The Arabian Nights
, Haddawy has now made delightfully available the endlessly popular later tales of Sindbad, Ali Baba, and Aladdin, as well as the early Qamar al-Zaman tales with their inserted pungent verses of yearning and fulfillment. Old pleasures, new delights.”

—Carl Woodring

“A beautiful translation, elegant and clean. [Haddawy's] touch is impeccable, and he has caught the spirit as well as the letter of the texts.”

—Hayden White

Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University

“Haddawy's translation is easily the clearest, most fluent and most readable I have met. . . . What is delightful and memorable about all these tales is the immediacy of their created worlds. . . . [Haddawy's translation] has style, it has elegance, it has precision.”

—A. S. Byatt, London
Sunday Times

“Haddawy's latest
Arabian Nights
is a worthy successor to the first volume—lucid, fluent, both scholarly and passionate.”

—Paul Theroux

“Beautifully crafted translations of those familiar and wonderful tales ... which virtually define the
Nights
for most readers.”

—Jerome W. Clinton, Princeton University

“As in his masterly prior translations from
The Arabian Nights
, Husain Haddawy gives us these four great tales in a swift, plain style which unites the homely and wondrous.”

—Richard Wilbur

Also Translated by
HUSAIN HADDAWY

T
HE
A
RABIAN
N
IGHTS

Husain Haddawy is professor of English at the University of Nevada at Reno. He was born and brought up in Baghdad.

From the critically acclaimed translator of
The Arabian Nights
comes a volume of the four most popular later stories: “Sindbad the Sailor,” “ 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” “ 'Ala al-Din (Aladdin) and the Magic Lamp,” and “Qamar al-Zaman.” Readers will discover in each a world of high flamboyance and startling beauty, humor and magic, and lessons of loyalty and love's endurance.

Arabian Nights

Copyright © 1995 by Husain Haddawy

All rights reserved

First published as a Norton paperback 1996

Cover and interior illustrations reproduced by
permission of Dia Azzawi.

Composition by ComCom.
Book design by Jacques Chazaud.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Arabian nights. English. Selections
The Arabian nights II : Sindbad and other popular stories /
translated by Husain Haddawy
p. cm.
1. Haddawy. Husain.
PJ7715.AIH33    1995
398.22—dc20      95-1664

ISBN 0-393-03815-7

ISBN 978-0-393-31517-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-324-00038-9 (e-book)

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