166 Remarks on the Alif Leilah. [March, 



Then said the king, ' O physician, there is nothing written upon these ;' 

 and the physician replied, ( Turn over more still;' so he turned over three 

 more, and there had but a short space elapsed before the drugs penetrated 

 his system at one time and on the instant, for the book was poisoned, and 

 forthwith the king began to be convulsed, and cried out, and said, ' The 

 poison has penetrated me/ and the head of the physician Dooban began 

 to repeat extemporaneously, 



' They issued savage mandates, but not long 



Survived they in their cruelty, for lo ! 



'Twas but a little, and the mandate was not. 



Had they done justice, justice were done them — 



But they did ill, and evil was their portion ; 



And fortune turned against them, strongly armed 



With acts of woe and trouble. Thus they passed hence, 



And the mute eloquence of their condition 



Repeated to them, "This is your reward. — 



Blame not the retribution!" ' 



(So goes the tale) ; so when the physician's head finished its speech, the 

 king fell down on the instant a dead corpse." 



The above extract will give some idea of the literal style of a tale 

 so popular under Galland's paraphrase, but expressed in the Macan 

 MS. (as will be observed on comparison) much more in detail, and 

 more graphically. 



There remains now but to allude to Mons De Schlegel's remain- 

 ing assertion, that the more voluminous the edition of the thousand 

 and one nights the worse will it be. The best reply to this will be 

 the citation of a new tale forming part of the recital of the fourth 

 night in the Macan MS. It offers a fair occasion for the formation 

 of a judgment on Mons. De S.'s sweeping assertion, for it has never 

 been found save in this voluminous edition, and is now translated of 

 course for the first time. 



The Story of the King Sundabad. 

 " It is said that there was a king among the kings of Fars, who was fond 

 of sport, and of exercise, and of hunting, and of trapping game, and he had 

 always a certain hawk near him, which he let not be separated from him 

 by night nor by day ; and all night long he had it sitting on his hand, and 

 whenever he rose up to hunt he took the bird with him. And he made 

 for it a cup of gold hung round its neck, to give it to drink out of. Now 

 it fell out as the king was sitting, behold the chief falconer began to say, 

 ' Oh ! king of the age, these are the days for going forth to hunt.' Then 

 the king ordered that they should set forth, and took the hawk on his 

 hand ; and they journeyed till they arrived at an open plain, and they 



