Tales from the Arabian Nights and Scheherazade

I just finished reading Tales from the Arabian Nights. I had always thought it was Tales from the Arabian Knights, but not so. Odd that I should be reading this book, but I was listening to KBYU-FM radio one day last year, and the DJ related the story of Scheherazade. Apparently, a king married a woman, and she was unfaithful to him, so the king killed her. That colored his feelings for all women, so every woman that he married from then on, he killed. The fear of marrying the king was rampant through the kingdom, but one woman offered herself for the cause. Despite protestations by her family, she went ahead with it.


On their wedding night, this woman, Scheherazade, began telling stories to her new husband. He was intrigued, so she continued through 1001 nights of storytelling, and by the end of it, the king was thoroughly infatuated with his new wife and allowed her to live. The tales in this book are just a few of the stories she told, and they have come down to us to enjoy and are used in many references. The story about the lamp that contained a genie is perhaps the most popular. Another popular one is about a magic carpet that can carry people wherever they want to go. Sometimes in our use these two stories are combined. Sinbad the Sailor is also fairly popular.


The stories often mentioned Allah, the god of the Muslim people. There were also references to Kings Saul, David, and Solomon and his great wealth, as well as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.


These tales were mentioned on KBYU-FM because Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) wrote a 45-minute symphony about these tales. There are four sections:


I. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship  Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo – Tranquillo (E minor – E major)


II. The Kalandar Prince  Lento – Andantino – Allegro molto – Vivace scherzando – Moderato assai – Allegro molto ed animato (B minor)


III. The Young Prince and The Young Princess  Andantino quasi allegretto – Pochissimo più mosso – Come prima – Pochissimo più animato (G major)


IV. Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman  Allegro molto – Lento – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso – Tempo come I (E minor – E major)