Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Add MS 7882

Record Id:

032-003689084

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-003689084

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100106213782.0x000001

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 7882

Title:

Hikayet-i arba'in subh u mesa - حكايت اربعين صبح و مسا

Scope & Content:

This volume contains an Ottoman Turkish translation of the well-known tale entitled in Arabic

Ḥikāyat arbaᶜīn ṣubḥ wa masāᵓ,by Aḥmad Maṣrī. The story is also commonly known as The Story of the Forty Viziers (Hikayet-i Kırk Vezir or Kırk Vezir Hikayesi). It is an expansion of an old Indian tale, the Persian version of which is called Kitāb-i Sindbād or Sindbād-nāmah. The main narrative is the same in both: a young prince, falsely accused by his stepmother, is under a death sentence. He is defended in turn by the king's Vezirs (seven in the original work, forty in the expanded version), who, in the morning of as many days, endeavor to allay the king's wrath with appropriate tales, while in the evening of each day, the queen strives, by similar means, to hasten the prince's demise.

The groundwork is used as a convenient frame for the insertion of tales of the most varied character and origin, many of which have no perceptible bearing on the supposed object of the narrator.

The original Ottoman Turkish version purports to be a translation of the Arabic original, which appears to be lost. The translator, who calls himself Ahmet Mısri in the present copy as well as in those found in Vienna, Leipzig and Saint Petersburg, is also known in other copies by his mahlas, Şeyhzade.

In the preface, after praising the reigning sovereign, Sultan Murat İbn-i Mehmet İbn-i Bayezit Han (Murat II, 824-855 AH/1421-1455 CE), he says that the fittest gifts to be presented to His Majesty were books of wisdom. 'For that reason, I, Ahmet Mısri, made for the Sultan of the age a neat copy of the book entitled Hikayet-i arba'in subh u mesa and translated it from the Arabic into the Turkish tongue, so that the Padişah of the world might read with ease the graceful thoughts and phrases, the rhymes and assonances, the pertinent tales and apt quotations, etc., of my book.'

Copies of the Forty Vezirs vary considerably with regard to the subjects and the arrangement of the tales. In both respects, the present manuscript agrees with Bernhauer's translation, but its text is rather fuller, and some of the tales are different. The following shows the eighty tales it compromises by day:

1st day: The Sultan of Egypt and Şeyh Şihabeddin (f 12); The well-educated prince and the spoiled prince (f 20r)

2nd day: The merchant and the parrot (f 24v); the half-witted prince and his tutor (f 26v)

3rd day: The three princes put on trial by their father (f 29r); the illegitimate prince healed by coarse diet (f 39r)

4th day: Moses and Uj İbn-i Anak (f 42v); Hızır and the sham Sufi (f 45v)

5th day: Samson and his wife (Delile) (f 48v); the potter's fair son and the Maghribi (f 51v)

6th day: The tailor and his wife (f 55r); the illegitimate son of the merchant's wife and a robber (f 58r)

7th day: The wise and foolish Vezirs (f 62r); Sultan Alauddin's visit to the madhouse (f 65v)

8th day: The merchant who mated the girl he enslaved with an ape (f 68r); the three princes and the jewel casket (f 70v)

9th day: The hermit and the thief (f 73r); the three princes and their father's enigmatic will (f 74v)

10th day: The crafty woman and the merchant (f 78r); the king and the truthful shepherd (f 81v)

11th day: The tailor prince and the stingy merchant (f 85r); the merchant's legacy and his two prodigal sons

12th day: The king and the Vezir's handsome son (f 92r); the hermit Barsisa and the princess (f 95v)

13th day: Ayas and the Dervish (f 100r); the king and the invisible turban (f 103r)

14th day: The prince under an evil star and his two sons (f 105r); the king who had two good sons and a wicked one (f 112v)

15th day: The tailor's wife and the cotton carder (f 166r); the hashish eater (f 118r)

16th day: Halit and the monk (f 120v); Abu Ali Sina and the mice (f 125r)

17th day: The ploughman and the treasure (f 127r); the king's clever favourite and the Subaşi (f 129v)

18th day: Harut and Marut (f 131r); the widow's lazy son and the musician (f 133v)

19th day: The princess in love with the page (f 137r); the prince who died of a bone on the heart (f 140r)

20th day: Aydin Bey and the Dervish (f 142v); Sultan Mahmud and Hasan Meymendi (f 145v)

21st day: Hannas, the son of Iblis (f 148v); the youth who was one of the forty sharpers in Baghdad (f 151r)

22nd day: Sultan Mahmud and the bold beggar (f 154v); the cobbler and the princess (f 157r)

23rd day: Hasan Basri and the Kaysar of Rum (f 162v); the gardener, his son, and the ass (f 166r)

24th day: The king and the poisoned lancet (f 167v); the weeping Turkish peasants (f 167v)

25th day: The queen who hid her lover in a chest (f 173r); Seyit Ruknudin and the Aptal a-hawking (f 175r)

26th day: The fair prince and the enamoured Aptal (f 177v); the king's favourite who ate garlic (f 182r)

27th day: The merchant's son and the magic mirror (f 185v); Lokman thrown into a pit (f 191r)

28th day: Dellet el-Muhtale and her two husbands (f 195r); the old man who praised his ass' wisdom (f 200r)

29th day: The water-carrier, Umyan, who gave a camel to his son's teacher and found a treasure (f 202r); the king and the formidable-looking recruit (f 206r)

30th day: The woodcutter and the shrew (f 207v); Moses in search of a wiser man than himself (f 210v)

31st day: The silk-merchant's wife who sent her husband up a tree and dallied with her lover in his sight (f 214v); the merchant who played chess with the Frank (f 215r)

32nd day: Keykubad and his devout wife (f 218r); the fleas complaining of men before Soloman (f 220r)

33rd day: Abraham, Ishmael and the Devil (f 222v); the bragging Horasani put to shame by his son (f 224r)

34th day: The Arab who offered a goat for sale (f 226v); the devotee who broke his jar (f 228r)

35th day: The carpenter who surprised his wife with her lover (f 230r); the merchant who shut up his son in his warehouse (f 232r)

36th day: The blind man who found Harun er-Reşit's jewel-casket (f 235r); the four sons changed to animals for disobeying their father's order (f 237r)

37th day: The youth who went after a fair maid and found himself in Hell (f 238r); the two rival Kadılar of Cairo (f 240v)

38th day: The dervish and the youth who slew the forty robbers (f 242v); the king changed into a parrot

39th day: The Persian merchant who kept his wife and his dog in chains (f 249v); Noah, the deluge, and the ark (f 251r)

40th day: The Sultan of Egypt and the discontented wives (f 253v); the Sultan of Egypt who, after fleeing before the rebels, recovered his kingdom (f 254v)

There are numerous glosses in Italian and Greek found in between the lines and in the margins, as well as the transcription of several words and phrases. These are likely due to François de Dombay.

The manuscript was likely copied in the 17th century CE.

Collection Area:

Oriental Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-003689084", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 7882: Hikayet-i arba'in subh u mesa - حكايت اربعين صبح و مسا" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-003689084

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-003689084

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

1 text, 261 ff

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Greek, Modern
Italian
Turkish, Ottoman

Scripts:

Arabic
Greek
Latin

Start Date:

1600

End Date:

1699

Date Range:

17th century

Calendar:

Gregorian

Era:

Access:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials : Paper

Foliation : European, 261 ff

Dimensions : 260 mm x 165 mm

Script : Nesih (main text)

Custodial History:

Formerly manuscript no. 797 in the Rich Collection.

On the cover of the manuscript is the Ex Libris of François de Dombay, who has also written his name on the fly-leaf, with the date 1792.

Source of Acquisition:

Acquired from Claudius Rich.

Information About Copies:

For other copies, see the Catalogues of Paris, nos. 378-79, 388-92; Uri, p. 305, no. 17; Dresden, nos. 149, 245; Leipzig, no. 330; Krafft, p. 53 (six copies); Leiden, no. 501; Uppsala, no. 111; Lund, no. 5; Saint Petersburg, nos. 579-582; Vienna, no. 430; Rosen, Marsigli Collection, p. 21, no. 3548; and Gibb's preface, p. 10.

Finding Aids:

See Rieu, Catalogue of Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 216-219.

Publications:

Tarih-i Kırk Vezir (Dersaadet: Matbaa-yı Ahmet Kâmil, 1325 [1909]). Other copies were also produced in Istanbul in 1283 AH (1866-67 CE) and 1285 AH (1868-69 CE). For more information on these, see Journal asiatique, 6e série, Art. XI, p. 484; and XIV, p. 87.

The introduction and the tales of the first twenty days, edited by H. N. Belletête, were printed posthumously: Ahmet-i Misri, Contes turcs en langue turque, extraits du livre intitulé, Les quarante viziers, edited by Belletête, Henri Nicolas (Paris: de l'Imprimerie impériale, 1812).

An incomplete French translation, by Pétis de la Croix, will be found in the Panthéon Littéraire, Contes orientaux, pp. 301-367.

A German version of the whole work, from a Dresden manuscript, was published by Behrnauer: Die vierzig Veziere oder weisen Meister, edited by Behrnauer, Walter Friedrich Adolf (Leipzig: Teubner, 1851).

A more complete translation is that of E. J. W. Gibb, which comprises no less than 112 tales collected from all available sources: Gibb, E. J. W., The history of the vezirs or the story of the forty morns and eves (London: Redway, 1886).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Ottoman Empire, Africa/Asia/Europe

Related Material:

Other copies of the same text can be found in Or 7322, Or 7323, Add MS 5968, and Stowe Or 20.

For more information on the Persian recensions of the same text, see Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. 748; and Coulston, the Book of Sindibad (1884).

Related Archive Descriptions:

Add MS 5968
Or 7322
Or 7323
Stowe Or 20