Discovery of a Manuscript by Soliman Haraïri Containing Fifty Very Short Fables, Titled Ḥikam wa-Amthāl [Maxims and Proverbs]

Abstract

The Bibliothèque universitaire des langues et civilisations (BULAC) in Paris holds numerous unpublished manuscripts by the Tunisian intellectual Soliman Haraïri (1824-1877). Among them, we have discovered a short work titled Ḥikam wa-Amthāl, which can be translated as Maxims and Proverbs. It consists of fifty very short fables. The aim of this note is to present an edition of this manuscript and to demonstrate that forty-six of these fables are translated from a collection titled Cent fables de quatre vers chacune (One Hundred Fables of Four Verses Each), composed by Charles-Louis Mollevaut and published in 1821. We will explore the objectives of this translation, the strategies employed in selecting and translating the fables, as well as the origin of the four fables not derived from Mollevaut’s collection, which replace fables rejected by the translator.