Essay
The Perfumed Garden
الروض العاطر
Cheikh Nefzaoui · 1410
Synopsis
An introduction and twenty-one chapters review what a man is supposed to know: what makes a man desirable and what makes a woman desirable, the positions and the manner, the dangers to health, the dozens of names that Arabic gives to the sexes, sterility, the signs of pregnancy, remedies and aphrodisiacs. Learned advice alternates with amusing stories, that of the jester Bahloul or that of Musaylima and Sajah, and with considerations of medicine.
Context
The book long circulated in manuscript; its reputation in the Arab world was compared to that of the Thousand and One Nights. An anonymous French officer, who signed himself “le baron R.”, made the first translation; the BnF holds a manuscript translation from 1848. Isidore Liseux printed a revised version in 1886, which Richard Burton translated into English the same year. René Khawam produced a new translation in 1976, and Jim Colville the first English translation made from the Arabic in 1999.
Who it is for
A classic text of Arabic erotology, explicit and direct, to be reserved for an informed audience; the old translations circulate freely.
Prizes and reception
It became a world classic of its genre thanks to its French and English translations of 1886, constantly reprinted since.