Sinbad the Sailor
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Sinbad the Sailor (also spelled "Sindbad", from Persian سندباد, Sand-baad) is the name of a legendary story of Persian origin about a sailor during the Abbasid Caliphate who has numerous fantastic adventures during his voyages throughout the seas east of Africa and south of Asia. The collection of tales which make up the Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor is tale 133 in Volume 6 of Sir Richard Burton's translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights[1]. This remains the classic translation in English (famed as much for Burton's footnotes as for the tales themselves), but modern readers are perhaps more familiar with abridged versions produced for a more juvenile audience. The stories are based partly on real experiences of sailors around the Indian Ocean, partly on ancient poetry (including even Homer's Odyssey), and partly upon Indian and Persian collections of mirabilia. No universally accepted etymology of Sinbad's name has yet been advanced.
[edit] The tales
[edit] The setting - Sinbad the Porter and Sinbad the Sailor
The Arabian Nights, the collection of stories in which the cycle of Sinbad is found, takes the form of tales told by the beautiful maiden Scheherazade over a period of a thousand and one nights. Each tale must so capture the interest of the King Sharyar that he will wish to hear it continued the next evening, for he has sworn to wed a virgin each night and have her executed the next morning, so convinced is he that a woman of good virtue cannot be found. At the close of the 536th night Scheherazade gives the setting for the tales of Sinbad: in the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter (one who carries goods for others in the market and throughout the city) pauses to rest on a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant's house, where he complains to Allah about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears, and sends for the porter, and it is found they are both named Sinbad. The rich Sinbad tells the poor Sinbad that he became wealthy, "by Fortune and Fate," in the course of seven wondrous voyages, which he will now proceed to relate.
[edit] The First Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
After dissipating the wealths left him by his father, Sinbad goes to sea to repair his fortune. He sets ashore on what appears to be an island, but this island proves to be a gigantic fish on which trees have taken root. The fish dives into the depths, the ship departs without Sinbad, and Sinbad saves his life only by the chance of a passing barrel sent by the grace of Allah. He is washed ashore on an island, where the king befriends him and appoints him harbour-master. One day Sinbad's own ship arrives in port, he reclaims his goods - still in the ship's hold - the king makes him rich presents, and he returns to Baghdad where he resumes a life of ease and pleasure. With the ending of the tale Sinbad the sailor makes Sinbad the porter a gift of a hundred gold pieces, and bids him return the next day to hear...
[edit] The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
On the second day of Sinbad's tale-telling - but the 549th night of Sheherezade's, for she has been breaking her tale each morning in order to tease the interest of the homicidal king - Sinbad the sailor tells how he grew restless of his life of leisure, and set to sea again, "possessed with the thought of travelling about the world of men and seeing their cities and islands." Accidentally abandoned by his shipmates, he finds himself stranded in an inaccessible valley of giant snakes and even more gigantic birds, the rocs, which prey upon them. The floor of the valley is carpeted with diamonds, and merchants harvest these by throwing huge chunks of meat into the valley which the birds then carry back to their nests, where the men drive them away and collect the diamonds stuck to the meat. The wily Sinbad straps one of the pieces of meat to his back and is carried back to the nest along with a large sack full of precious gems. Rescued from the nest by the merchants, he returns to Baghdad with a fortune in diamonds, seeing many marvels along the way.
[edit] The Third Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
Restless for travel and adventure, Sinbad sets sail again from Basra. But by ill chance he and his companions are cast up on an island where they are captured by "a huge creature in the likeness of a man, black of colour, ... with eyes like coals of fire and eye-teeth like boar's tusks and a vast big gape like the mouth of a well. Moreover, he had long loose lips like camel's, hanging down upon his breast and ears like two Jarms falling over his shoulder-blades and the nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion." This monster begins eating the crew, beginning with the Master, who is the fattest. (Burton notes that the giant "is distinctly Polyphemus").
Sinbad hatches a plan to blind the giant with the red-hot iron spits with which the monster has been kebabing the ship's company, and so he and the remaining men escape. After further adventures (including a gigantic python from which Sinbad escapes thanks to his quick wits), he returns to Baghdad, wealthier than ever, where "I gave alms and largesse and clad the widow and the orphan, by way of thanksgiving for my happy return, and fell to feasting and making merry with my companions and intimates and forgot, while eating well and drinking well and dressing well, everything that had befallen me and all the perils and hardships I had suffered."
[edit] The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
Impelled by restlessness Sinbad takes to the seas again, and, as usual, is shipwrecked. The naked savages amongst whom he finds himself feed his companions a herb which robs them of their reason, (Burton theorises that this might be bhang), prior to fattening them for the table. Sinbad refuses to eat the madness-inducing plant, and, when the cannibals have lost interest in him, escapes. A party of itinerant pepper-gatherers transports him to their own island, where their king befriends him and gives him a beautiful and wealthy wife.
Too late Sinbad learns of a peculiar custom of the land: on the death of one marriage partner, the other is entombed alive with his or her spouse, both in their finest clothes and most costly jewels. Sinbad's wife falls ill and dies soon after, leaving Sinbad trapped in an underground cavern, a communal tomb, with a jug of water and seven pieces of bread. Just as these meagre supplies are almost exhausted, another couple - the husband dead, the wife alive - are dropped into the cavern. Sinbad bludgeons the wife to death and takes her rations.
Such episodes continue; soon he has a sizable store of bread and water, as well as the gold and gems from the corpses, but is still unable to escape, until one day a wild animal shows him a passage to the outside, high above the sea. From here a passing ship rescues him and carries him back to Baghdad, where he gives alms to the poor and resumes his life of pleasure. (Burton's footnote comments: "This tale is evidently taken from the escape of Aristomenes the Messenian from the pit into which he had been thrown, a fox being his guide. The Arabs in an early day were eager students of Greek literature.")
[edit] The Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
"When I had been awhile on shore after my fourth voyage; and when, in my comfort and pleasures and merry-makingsinvad is so funney he come s ato baghdad wiht a sorrry look in his face countries and islands." Soon at sea once more, while passing a desert island Sinbad's crew spots a gigantic egg that Sinbad recognizes as belonging to a roc. Out of curiosity the ship's passengers disembark to view the egg only to end up breaking it and having the chick inside as a meal. Sinbad immediately recognizes the folly of their behavior and orders all back aboard ship.
However, the infuriated parent rocs soon catch up with the vessel and destroy it by dropping giant boulders they have carried in their talons. Shipwrecked yet again, Sinbad is enslaved by the Old Man of the Sea, who rides on his shoulders with his legs twisted round Sinbad's neck and will not let go, riding him both day and night until Sinbad would welcome death. (Burton's footnote discusses possible originals for the old man - the orang-utan, the Greek triton - and favours the African custom of riding on slaves in this way).
Eventually, using a stratagem that seems hardly in keeping with Islam - he makes wine and tricks the Old Man into drinking some, then he kills him after he'd fallen off - Sinbad escapes. A ship carries him to the City of the Apes, a place whose inhabitants spend each night in boats off-shore, while their town is abandoned to man-eating apes. Yet through the apes Sinbad recoups his fortune, and so eventually finds a ship which takes him home once more to Baghdad.
[edit] The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
"My soul yearned for travel and traffic." Sinbad is shipwrecked yet again, this time on an island whose rivers are filled with precious stones and whose streams flow with ambergris. Yet there is no food to be had anywhere, and Sinbad's companions die of starvation until only he is left. By his wits he escapes, and finds the city of the king of Serendib (Ceylon, Sri Lanka), "diamonds are in its rivers and pearls are in its valleys." The king marvels at what Sinbad tells him of the great Haroun al-Rashid, and asks that he take a present back to Baghdad on his behalf, a cup carved from a single ruby, with other gifts including a bed made from the skin of the serpent that swallowed the elephant ("and whoso sitteth upon it never sickeneth"), and "a hundred thousand miskals of Indian lign-aloesa," and a slave-girl "like a shining moon". And so Sinbad returns to Baghdad, where the Caliph wonders greatly at the reports Sinbad gives of the land of Ceylon.
[edit] The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
The ever-restless Sinbad sets sail once more, with the usual result. Cast up on a desolate shore, Sinbad makes a raft and floats down a nearby river to a great city. Here the chief of the merchants weds Sinbad to his daughter, names him his heir, and conveniently dies. The inhabitants of this city are transformed once a month into birds, and Sinbad has one of the bird-people carry him to the uppermost reaches of the sky, where he hears the angels glorifying God, "whereat I wondered and exclaimed, "Praised be Allah! Extolled be the perfection of Allah!" But no sooner are the words out than there comes fire from heaven which all but consumes the bird-men. The bird-people are angry with Sinbad and set him down on a mountain-top, where he meets two youths who are the servants of Allah and who give him a golden staff; returning to the city, Sinbad learns from his wife that the bird-men are devils, although she and her father are not of their number. And so, at his wife's suggestion, Sinbad sells all his possessions and returns with her to Baghdad, where at last he resolves to live quietly in the enjoyment of his wealth, and to seek no more adventures. to the baghdad adventure
(Burton includes a variant of the seventh tale, in which Sinbad is asked by Haroun al-Rashid to carry a return gift to the king of Serendip. Sinbad replies, "By Allah the Omnipotent, O my lord, I have taken a loathing to wayfare, and when I hear the words 'Voyage' or 'Travel,' my limbs tremble." He then tells the Caliph of his misfortunate voyages; Haroun agrees that with such a history "thou dost only right never even to talk of travel". Nevertheless, a command of the Caliph is not to be gainsayed, and Sinbad sets forth on this, his uniquely diplomatic voyage. The king of Serendip is well pleased with the Caliph's gifts (which include, inter alia, the food tray of King Solomon) and showers Sinbad with his favour. On the return voyage the usual catastrophe strikes: Sinbad is captured and sold into slavery. His master sets him to shooting elephants with a bow and arrow, which he does until the king of the elephants carries him off to the elephants' graveyard. Sinbad's master is so pleased with the huge quantities of ivory in the graveyard that he sets Sinbad free, and Sinbad returns to Baghdad, rich with ivory and gold. "Here I went in to the Caliph and, after saluting him and kissing hands, informed him of all that had befallen me; whereupon he rejoiced in my safety and thanked Almighty Allah; and he bade my story be written in letters of gold. I then entered my house and met my family and brethren: and such is the end of the history that happened to me during my seven voyages. Praise be to Allah, the One, the Creator, the Maker of all things in Heaven and Earth!").
Here the tales of Sinbad the Sailor conclude with King Shahryar well pleased with Sheherazade's telling, and with no further mention of Sinbad the Porter.
[edit] Sinbad's name
Burton's note on the origins of Sinbad reads:
Lane (vol. iii. 1) calls our old friend "Es-Sindibád of the Sea," and Benfey derives the name from the Sanskrit "Siddhapati"=lord of sages. [...] [S]ome look upon it as a mere corruption of "Bidpai" (Bidyápati). The derivation offered by Hole (Remarks on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, by Richard Hole, LL.D. London, Cadell, 1797) from the Persian ábád (a region) is impossible. It is, however, not a little curious that this purely Persian word ([meaning] "a habitation") should be found in Indian names as early as Alexanders’ day, e.g. the "Dachina bades" of the Periplus is "Dakhsin-ábád," the Sanskr. being "Dakshinapatha."
Other interesting but inconclusive parallels include the fact that "Sind" (or "Sindh") is the ancient name for the Indus river and for the region of modern Pakistan at the mouth of the river; and that Persian "baad" means "wind". These lines of speculation remain unproven, and Burton's summary still stands: "The etymology (in Heb. Sandabar and in Greek Syntipas) is still uncertain, although the term often occurs in Arab stories."
In Greek language, Sinbad is known as Sevah ("sailor") the Sailor, because of a mistranslation of the tale's title.
[edit] Adaptations
Many films, television series, animated cartoons, and novels have been made, based on the tales of Sinbad the Sailor. However, here he is mostly not a merchant who happens to stumble into adventures, but as a dashing dare-devil adventure-seeker. These include:
- Sinbad the Sailor (1935) - animated short
- Sinbad (1936)
- Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936)
- Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
- Son of Sinbad (1955)
- The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
- Adventures of Sinbad (1962)
- Captain Sindbad (1963)
- Sinbad Jr. (1965)
- The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
- Arabian Nights Sinbad no Boken (1975) - an anime TV series by Nippon Animation
- Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
- Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)
- Sinbad (1992)
- The Adventures of Sinbad (1996-98)
- Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists (2000)
- Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
There is a Disney theme park ride based on the stories at Tokyo DisneySea featuring stylized, cartoony versions of the characters and stories.
[edit] Appearances in other literary works
- In The Count of Monte Cristo, "Sinbad the Sailor" is but one of many pseudonyms used by Edmond Dantes.
- Sinbad appears in the comic book series Fables written by Bill Willingham.
- Sinbad appears as the teenaged Alsind in the comic book series Arak, Son of Thunder—which takes place in the 9th century AD—written by Roy Thomas.
[edit] Appearances in scientific works
- Copeland CS, Mann VH, Morales ME, Kalinna BH, Brindley PJ. "The Sinbad retrotransposon from the genome of the human blood fluke, Schistosoma mansoni, and the distribution of related Pao-like elements." BMC Evol Biol. 2005 Feb 23;5(1):20. PMID: 15725362
- Marcelli A, Burattini E, Mencuccini C, Calvani P, Nucara A, Lupi S, Sanchez Del Rio M. "SINBAD, a brilliant IR source from the DAPhiNE storage ring." J Synchrotron Radiat. 1998 May 1;5(Pt 3):575-7. Epub 1998 May 1. PMID: 15263583
- Favorov OV, Ryder D. "SINBAD: a neocortical mechanism for discovering environmental variables and regularities hidden in sensory input." Biol Cybern. 2004 Mar;90(3):191-202. Epub 2004 Mar 12. PMID: 15052482 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
