Papyri.info

sign in



open in editor
Canonical URI: http://papyri.info/apis/chicago.apis.8241

Catalog Record: chicago.apis.8241 [xml]

Title A volume that contained selected tales from "The Book of the Tales of a Thousand Nights"
Summary As originally presented, the manuscript contained a blank flyleaf of "Alf Lailah" and the first folio, consisting of the title page and the first page of text. The chonological order of the six entries seems to be: The Alf Lailah or "Thousand Nights" fragment, Scattered phrases on pages 2 and 3, Outline drawing of the figure of a man on page 2, A second group of scattered phrases in different hands on page 2, Rough draft of a letter on page 1, Formulas of legal testimony dated Safar 266 A.H. / October 879 A.D. written on the margins of all 4 pages.
Citations
Inv. Id OIM 17618 (I)
Support/Dimensions paper ; 24.2 cm x 13.0 cm
Condition Two joined folios of light brown paper of fine texture, partly discolored and considerably damaged with much of the lower half of both folios lost. There are six distinct entries written in different scripts and with overlapping inks.
Lines On recto: 5 lines in Arabic; on verso: 6 lines in Arabic
Recto/Verso Source of description: On recto and verso: tales
Hands The script is a light, but well-schooled book hand used at the time for smaller Qur'ans and occasionally for other valued works of a religious and linguistic character. On the surface, it bears a resemblance to the so-called kufic-naskhi of the third century A.H. in the angularity of letters associated with the kufic script and the cursiveness of letters credited to the naskhi script. On the other hand, the script bears a marked resemblance to the Christian Arabic writing of the same century evolving in the Asiatic provinces and influenced by the Syriac script, especially in the tendency to give vertical strokes a bit of the wave that is found in the Syriac script. Upon closer analysis of the letters' forms, this script finds no close parallel in either the Islamic or Christian book hand now extant. This is not surprising given the very old date of this manuscript. Diacritical points are used sparingly except in the first few lines. When a letter calls for two or three points, these are neither consistently grouped together, nor are they accurately placed above or below the letter. The vertical stroke of the alef and the l are written downward, regardless of the letters' position in the word.
Origin Syria
More from Syria
Language Arabic
Date Early IIIrd century A.H. / Early IXth century A.D.
More from the period between 800 CE and 825 CE
Note (general) Location: Oriental Institute
Note (general) Pub. status: Published: recto and verso
Subjects Literature; Literary; paper
Associated Names Dinazad; Shirazad
License Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License.

APIS Translation (English)

OIM 17618, recto (page 3): (1) A book (2) of tales from a (3) Thousand Nights. There is neither strength (4) nor power except in God the (5) Highest, the Mightiest. OIM 17618, verso (page 4): (1) In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. (2) NIGHT (3) And when it was the following night (4) said Dinazad, "O my Delectable One, if you are (5) not asleep, relate to me the tale (6) which you promised me and quote striking examples of the (7) excellencies and shortcomings, the cunning and stupidity (8) the generosity and avarice, and the courage and cowardice (9) that are in man, instinctive or acquired (10) or pertain to his distinctive characteristics or to courtly manners, Syrian (11) or Bedouin. (12) [And Shirazad related to her a ta]le of elegant beauty (13) [of So-and-So the ? and] his [f]ame (or [c]raft) (14) [ sh]e becomes more worthy than they who are (or do) not (15) [ or] else more crafty (or malicious) than they. (16) [ (traces only at the end of the line)]