I
GENERAL PLAN OF EASTERN ROMANCES--THE "TUTI NAMA," OR PARROT-BOOK--THE
FRAME-STORY--TALES: THE STOLEN IMAGES--THE WOMAN CARVED OUT OF WOOD--THE
MAN WHOSE MARE WAS KICKED BY A MERCHANT'S HORSE.
Oriental romances are usually constructed on the plan of a number of
tales connected by a general or leading story running throughout, like
the slender thread that holds a necklace of pearls together--a familiar
example of which is the _Book of the Thousand and One Nights_, commonly
known amongst us under the title of _Arabian Nights Entertainments_. In
some the subordinate tales are represented as being told by one or more
individuals to serve a particular object, by the moral, or warning,
which they are supposed to convey; as in the case of the _Book of
Sindibad_, in which a prince is falsely accused by one of his father's
ladies, and defended by the king's seven vazirs, or counsellors, who
each in turn relate to the king two stories, the purport of which being
to warn him to put no faith in the accusations of women, to which the
lady replies by stories representing the wickedness and perfidy of men;
and that of the _Bakhtyar Nama_, in which a youth, falsely accused of
having violated the royal harem, obtains for himself a respite from
death during ten days by relating to the king each day a story designed
to caution him against precipitation in matters of importance.
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