We may also compare the two renderings of that exquisite and tender little poem “Azizeh’s Tomb"[FN#462] which will be found in the “Tale of Aziz and Azizeh.”
Payne Burton
I passed by a ruined tomb in the I past by a broken
tomb amid
midst of a garden way, Upon a garth
right sheen, Whereon
whose letterless stone seven on seven
blooms of Nu’aman
blood-red anemones lay. glowed
with cramoisie.
“Who sleeps in this unmarked Quoth I, “Who
sleepeth in this
grave?” I said, and the
tomb?” Quoth answering
earth, “Bend low; For a
earth, “Before a lover
lover lies here and waits for Hades-tombed
bend reverently.”
the Resurrection Day.”
“God keep thee, O victim of Quoth I, “May
Allah help thee,
love!” I cried, “and bring
O thou slain of love, And
thee to dwell In the highest grant
thee home in heaven
of all the heavens of Paradise, and
Paradise-height to see!
I pray!
“How wretched are lovers all, “Hapless
are lovers all e’en
even in the sepulchre, tombed
in their tombs,
For their very tombs are Where
amid living folk the
covered with ruin and decay! dust
weighs heavily!
“Lo! if I might, I would plant “Fain
would I plant a garden
thee a garden round about, blooming
round thy grave
and with my streaming tears And
water every flower with
the thirst of its flowers tear-drops
flowing
allay!”
free!"[FN#463]
136. The Summing Up.
The reader will notice from these citations:
(1) That, as we have already said, and as Burton himself partly admitted, Burton’s translation is largely a paraphrase of Payne’s. This is particularly noticeable in the latter half of the Nights. He takes hundreds—nay thousands—of sentences and phrases from Payne, often without altering a single word.[FN#464] If it be urged that Burton was quite capable of translating the Nights without drawing upon the work of another, we must say that we deeply regret that he allowed the opportunity to pass, for he had a certain rugged strength of style, as the best passages in his Mecca and other books show. In order to ensure originality he ought to have translated every sentence before looking to see how Payne put it, but the temptation was too great for a very busy man—a man with a hundred irons in the fire—and he fell.[FN#465]
(2) That, where there are differences, Payne’s translation is invariably the clearer, finer and more stately of the two. Payne is concise, Burton diffuse.[FN#466]