Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights Volume 4 by Richard F. Burton

Husayn, inherited all the defects and few of the merits of their sire: Hasan was a pauvre diable, whose chief characteristic was addiction to marriage, and by poetical justice one of his wives murdered him. Husayn was of stronger mould, but he fought against the impossible; for his rival was Mu’awiyah, the Cavour of the Age, the longest-headed man in Arabia, and against Yazid, who, like Italy of the present day, flourished and prospered by the artificial game which the far-seeing politician, his father, had bequeathed to his house–the Ommiade. The fourth of this dynasty, ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, “the Father of Flies,” and his successor, Al-Walid, were happy in being served thoroughly and unscrupulously by Al-Hajjaj, the ablest of Lieutenants. whose specialty it was to take in hand a revolted province, such as Al-Hijaz, Al-Irak, or Khorasan, and to slaughter it into submission; besides deaths in battle he is computed to have slain 120,000 men. He was an unflinching preacher of the Divine Right of Kings and would observe that the Lord says, “Obey Allah and ye can” (conditional), but as regards royal government “Hearing and obeying” (absolute); ergo, all opposition was to be cut down and uprooted. However, despite his most brilliant qualities, his learning, his high and knightly sense of honour, his insight and his foresight (e.g. in building Wasit), he won an immortality of infamy: he was hated by his contemporaries, he is the subject of silly tale and offensive legend (e.g., that he was born without anus, which required opening with instruments, and he was suckled by Satan’s orders on blood), and he is still execrated as the tyrant, per excellentiam, and the oppressor of the Holy Family– the children and grand-children of the Apostle.

The traditional hatred of Al-Hajjaj was envenomed by the accession of the Abbasides and this dynasty, the better to distinguish itself from the Ommiades, affected love for the Holy Family, especially Ali and his descendants, and a fanatical hatred against their oppressors. The following table from Ibn Khaldun (Introduct. xxii.) shows that the Caliphs were cousins, which may account for their venomous family feud.

[First Version]

[Second Version]

‘Abd Manaf, father of Hashim and Abd Shams Hashim, father of Abd al-Muttalib
Abd al-Muttalib, father of Al-Abbas, Abdullah, and Abu Talib Al-Abbas, father of Abdullah
Abdullah, father of Ali
Ali, father of Mohammed
Mohammed, father of Al-Saffah (1st Abbaside) Abdullah, father of Mohammed
Mohammed, father of Fatimah, who married Ali (son of Abu Talib)
Fatimah, mother of Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn Abu Talib, father of Ali
Abd Shams, father of Umayyah
Umayyah, father of Harb and Abu ‘l-Aus Harb, father of Abu Sufyan
Abu Sufyan, father of Mu’awiyah (1st Ommaide) Abu ‘l-Aus, father of Al-Hakim
Al-Hakim, father of Marwan

[FN#44] [The word here translated “invited guest” reads in the MS. “Mad’ur.” In this form it is no dictionary word, but under the root “D’r” I find in the Muhit: “wa ‘l-‘amatu takulu fulanun da’irun ya’ni ghalizun jafin” = the common people say such a one is “daiir,” i.e., rude, churlish. “Mad’ur” may be a synonym and rendered accordingly: as though thou wert a boor or clown.–ST]

[FN#45] A neat specimen of the figure anachronism. Al-Hajjaj died in A.H. 95 (= AD 714), and Cairo was built in A.H. 358 (= AD 968).

[FN#46] Perfectly true in the present day. The city was famed for intelligence and sanguinary fanaticism; and no stranger in disguise could pass through it without detection. This ended with the massacre of 1840, which brought a new era into the Moslem East. The men are, as a rule, fine-looking, but they seem to be all show: we had a corps of them in the old Bash-Buzuks, who, after a month or two in camp, seemed to have passed suddenly from youth into old age.

[FN#47] In text, “Yasta’amiluna al-Mrd,” which may have a number of meanings, e.g. “work frowardness” (Maradd), or “work the fruit of the tree Arak” (Maradd = wild capparis) and so forth. I have chosen the word mainly because “Murd” rhymes to “Burd.” The people of Al-Yaman are still deep in the Sotadic Zone and practice; this they owe partly to a long colonization of the “‘Ajam,” or Persians. See my Terminal Essay, “Pederasty,” p. 178.

[FN#48] “Burd,” plur. of “Burdah” = mantle or woolen plaid of striped stuff: vol. vii. 95. They are still woven in Arabia, but they are mostly white.

[FN#49] So in Tabari (vol. III. 127) Al Hajjaj sees a man of haughty mien (Abd al-Rahman bin Abdullah), and exclaims, “Regarde comme il est orgueilleux: par Dieu, j’aurais envie de lui couper la tete!”

[FN#50] [The phrase is Koranic (viii. 24): “Wa ‘lamu anna ‘llaha yahulu bayna ‘l-mari wa kalbi-hi,” which Rodwell translates: Know that God cometh in between man and his own heart.–ST]

[FN#51] “Yathrib,” the classical name ‘{Greek}, one of the multifarious titles of what is called in full “Madinat al-Nabi,” City of the Prophet, and vulgarly, Al-Madinah, the City. “Tayyibah,” the good, sweet, or lawful: “Al-Munawwarah” = the enlightened, i.e. by the light of The Faith and the column of (odylic) flame supposed to be based upon the Prophet’s tomb. For more, see my Pilgrimage, ii. 162. I may note how ridiculously the story-teller displays ignorance in Al-Hajjaj, who knew the Moslem’s Holy Land by heart.

[FN#52] In text “Taawil,” = the commentary or explanation of Moslem Holy Writ: “Tanzil” = coming down, revelation of the Koran: “Tahrim” = rendering any action “haram” or unlawful, and “Tahil” = the converse, making word or deed canonically legal. Those are well known theological terms.

[FN#53] The Banu Ghalib, whose eponymous forefather was Ghalib, son of Fihr, the well known ancestor of Mohammed.

[FN#54] In text “Hasab wa Nasab.” It is told of Al-Mu’izz bi Dini’llah, first Fatimate Caliph raised to the throne of Egypt, that he came forward to the elective assembly and drew his sword half way out of the scabbard and exclaimed “Haza Nasabi” (this is my genealogy); and then cast handfuls of gold amongst the crowd, crying, “Haza Hasabi” (such is my title to reign). This is as good as the traditional saying of Napoleon the Great at his first assuming the iron crown–“God gave her to me; woe for whoso toucheth her” (the crown).

[FN#55] [In MS. “takhs-u,” a curious word of venerable yet green old age, used in the active form with both transitive and intransitive meaning: to drive away (a dog, etc.), and to be driven away. In the Koran (xxiii. 110) we find the imper. “ikhsau” = be ye driven away, an in two other places (ii. 61, vii. 166), the nomen agentis “khasi” = “scouted” occurs, as applied to the apes into which the Sabbath-breaking Jews were transformed. In the popular language of the present day it has become equivalent with “khaba,” to be disappointed, and may here be translated: thou wilt fail ignominiously.–ST]

[FN#56] Scott introduces (p. 262), “the tyrant, struck with his magnanimity, became calm, and commanding the executioner to release the youth, said, For the present I forbear, and will not kill thee unless thy answers to my further questions shall deserve it. They then entered on the following dialogue: Hyjuawje hoping to entrap him in discourse.”

[FN#57] See the dialogue on this subject between Al-Hajjaj and Yahya ibn Yamar in Ibn Khallikan, iv. 60.

[FN#58] Surah xxxiii. (The Confederates), v. 40, which ends, “And Allah knoweth all things.”

[FN#59] Surah lix. (The Emigration), v. 40: the full quotation would be, “The spoil, taken from the townsfolk and assigned by Allah to His Apostle, belongeth to Allah and to the Apostle and to his kindred and to the orphan and to the poor and to the wayfarer, that naught thereof may circulate among such only of you as be rich. What the Apostle hath given you, take. What he hath refused you, refuse. And fear ye Allah, for Allah is sure in punishing.”

[FN#60] The House of Hashim, great-grandfather to the Prophet.

[FN#61] Ibn Khallikan (vol. i. 354) warns us that “Al-Tai” means belonging to the Tai which is a famous tribe. This relative adjective is of irregular formation; analogy would require it to be Taii; but the formation of relative adjectives admits some variations; thus from dahr (time) is derived duhri (temporal) and from sahl (a plain), suhli (plain, level). The author might also have told us that there is always a reason for such irregularities; thus “Dahri” (from Dahr) would mean a Mundanist, one who believes in this world and not the next or another.

[FN#62] The “Banu Thakif” was a noble tribe sprung from Iyad (Ibn Khallikan i. 358-363); but the ignorant and fanatic scribe uses every means, fair and foul, to defame Al-Hajjaj. It was a great race and a well known, living about Taif in the Highlands East of Meccah, where they exist to the present day. Mr. Doughty (loc. cit. ii. 174) mentions a kindred of the Juhaynah Badawin called El-Thegif (Thakif) of whom the Medinites say, “Allah ya’alan Thegif Kuddam takuf” (God damn the Thegif ere thou stand still). They are called “Yahud” (Jews), probably meaning pre-Islamitic Arabs, and are despised accordingly.

[FN#63] In Arab. “Jady” = the Zodiacal sign Capricorn.

[FN#64] We find similar facetia in Mullah Jami (Garden viii.). When a sheep leapt out of the stream, her tail happened to be raised, and a woolcarder said laughing:–“I have seen thy parts genital.” She turned her head and replied, “O miserable, for many a year I have seen thee mother-naked yet never laughed I.” This alludes to the practice of such artisans who on account of the heat in their workshops and the fibre adhering to their clothes work in naturalibus. See p. 178, the Beharistan (Abode of Spring). Printed by the Kamashastra Society for Private Subscribers only. Benares, 1887.

[FN#65] This passage is not Koranic, and, according to Prof. Houdas, the word “Muhkaman” is never found in the Holy Volume. [The passage is not a literal quotation, but it evidently alludes to Koran iii. 5: “Huwa’llazi anzala ‘alayka ‘l-kitaba minhu ayatun muh-kamatun” = He it is who sent down to thee the book, some of whose signs (or versets) are confirmed. The singular “muhkamatun” is applied (xlvii.) to “Saratun,” a chapter, and in both places the meaning of “confirmed” is “not abrogated by later revelations.” Hence the sequel of my first quotation these portions are called “the mother (i.e. groundwork) of the book,” and the learned Sayyid is not far from the mark after all.–ST]

[FN#66] Surah ii. (The Cow) v. 56, the verse beginning, “Allah! there be no God but He; … His Throne overreacheth the Heavens and the Hearth,” etc.

[FN#67] Surah lxxiii. (The Bee) v. 92, ending with, “And he forbiddeth frowardness and wrong-doing and oppression; and He warneth you that haply may ye be warned.”

[FN#68] Surah (Meccah) xcix. vv. 7 and 8: in text “Mithkala Zarratin,” which Mr. Rodwell (p. 28) englishes “an atom’s weight of good,” and adds in a foot-note, “Lit. a single ant.” Prof. Houdas would render it, Quiconque aura fait la valeur d’un mitskal de millet en fait de bien; but I hardly think that “Zarrah” can mean “Durrah” = millet. [“Mithkal” in this context is explained by the commentators by “Wazn” = weight, this being the original meaning of the word which is a nomen instrumenti of the form “Mif’al,” denoting “that by which the gravity of bodies is ascertained.” Later on it became the well-known technical term for a particular weight. “Zarrah,” according to some glossarists, is the noun of unity of “Zarr,” the young ones of the any, an antlet, which is said to weigh the twelfth part of a “Kitmir” = pedicle of the date0fruit, or the hundredth part of a grain of barley, or to have no weight at all. Hence “Mukhkh al-Zarr,” the brains of the antlet, means a thing that does not exist or is impossible to be found. According to others, “Zarrah” is a particle of al-Haba, i.e. of the motes that are seen dancing in the sunlight, called “Sonnenstaubchen” in German, and “atomo solare” in Italian. Koran xxi. 48 and xxxi. 15 we find the expression “Mithkala Habbatin min Khardalin” = of the weight of a mustard-seed, used in a similar sense with the present quotation.–ST]

[FN#69] Surah lxx. 38, Mr. Rodwell (p. 60) translates, “Is it that every man of them would fain enter the Garden of Delights?”

[FN#70] Surah xxxix. 54: they sinned by becoming apostates from Al-Islam. The verset ends, “Verily all sins doth Allah forgive: aye, Gracious, and Merciful is He.”

[FN#71] Surah ii. 159; the quotation in the MS. is cut short.

[FN#72] Surah ii. 107; the end of the verse is, “Yet both are readers of the Book. So with like words say they (the pagan Arabs) who have no knowledge.”

[FN#73] Surah li. (The Scattering), v. 56.

[FN#74] Surah ii. v. 30.

[FN#75] Surah xl. (The Believer), v. 78. In the text it is fragmentary. I do not see why Mr. Rodwell founds upon this verset a charge against the Prophet of ignorance concerning Jewish history: Mohammed seems to have followed the Talmud and tradition rather than the Holy Writ of the Hebrews.

[FN#76] Surah (The Believers) lxiv. 108.

[FN#77] Surah xxxv. (The Creator or the Angels), v. 31: The sentence concludes in v. 32, “Who of His bounty hath placed us in a Mansion that shall abide for ever, therein no evil shall reach us, and therein no weariness shall touch us.”

[FN#78] Surah (“Sad”) lix. 54; Iblis, like Satan in the Book of Job, is engaged in dialogue with the Almighty. I may here note that Scott (p. 265) has partially translated these Koranic quotations, but he has given only one reference.

[FN#79] In text “Ana min ahli zalika,” of which the vulgar equivalent would be “Kizi” (for “Kazalika,” “Kaza”) = so (it is)!

[FN#80] i.e. On an empty stomach, to “open the spittle” is = to break the fast. Sir Wm. Gull in his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons deposed that after severe labor he found a bunch of dried raisins as efficacious a “pick-me up” as a glass of stimulants. The value of dried grapes to the Alpinist is well known.

[FN#81] Arab. “Al-Kadid” = jerked (charqui = chaire cuite) meat-flesh smoked, or (mostly) sun-dried.

[FN#82] I have noticed (i. 345) one of the blunders in our last unfortunate occupation of Egypt where our soldiers died uselessly of dysenteric disease because they were rationed with heating beef instead of digestible mutton.

[FN#83] Arab. “Al-Marham al-akbar.”

[FN#84] [In the text: “Al-Kisrat al-yabisah ‘ala ‘l-Rik fa-innaha tukhlik jami’a ma ‘ala fum al-madah min al-balgham,” of which I cannot make anything but: a slice of dry bread (kisrah = piece of bread) on the spittle (i.e. to break the fast), for it absorbs (lit. uses up, fourth form of “khalik” = to be worn out) all that there may be of phlegm on the mouth of the stomach. Can it be that the dish “Khushk-nan” (Pers. = dry bread) is meant, of which the village clown in one of Spitta Bey’s tales, when he was treated to it by Harun al-Rashid thought it must be the “Hammam,” because he has heard his grandmother say, that the Hammam (bath) is the most delightful thing in the world? ST]

[FN#85] The stomach has two mouths, oesophagic above (which is here alluded to) and pyloric below.

[FN#86] Arab. “‘Irk al-Unsa” = chordae testiculorum, in Engl. simply the cord.

[FN#87] The “‘Ajuz” is a woman who ceases to have her monthly period: the idea is engrained in the Eastern mind and I cannot but believe in it seeing the old-young faces of men who have “married their grandmothers” for money or folly, and what not.

[FN#88] Arab. “Al-‘Akik,” vol. iii. 179: it is a tradition of the Prophet that the best of bezels for a signet-ring is the carnelian, and such are still the theory and practice of the Moslem East.

[FN#89] Arab. “Tuhal;” in text “Tayhal.” Mr. Doughty (Arabia Deserta, i. 547) writes the word “Tahal” and translates it “ague-cake,” i.e. the throbbing enlarged spleen, left after fevers, especially those of Al-Hijaz and Khaybar. [The form “Tayhal” with a plural “Tawahil” for the usual “Tihal” = spleen is quoted by Dozy from the valuable Vocabulary published by Schiaparelli, 1871, after an old MS. of the end of the xiii. century. It has the same relation to the verb “tayhal” = he suffered from the spleen, which “Tihal” bears the same verb “tuhil,” used passively in the same sense. The name of the disease is “Tuhal.”–ST]

[FN#90] In text “Kasalah” = a shock of corn, assemblage of sheaves. It may be a clerical error for “Kasabah” = stalk, haulm, straw.

[FN#91] Of course the conversation drifts into matters sexual and inter-sexual: in a similar story, “Tawad dud,” the learned slave girl, “hangs her head down for shame and confusion” (vol. v. 225); but the young Sayyid speaks out bravely as becomes a male masculant.

[FN#92] [In the text: “Allati lau nazarat ila ‘l-sama la-a’shab (fourth form of ‘ashab with the affirmative ‘la’) al-Safa (pl. of Safat), wa lau nazarat ila ‘l-arz la amtar taghru ha (read thaghru-ha) Luluan lam yuskab wa riku-ha min al-Zulal a’zab (for a’zab min al-Zulal),” which I would translate: Who if she look upon the heavens, the very rocks cover themselves with verdure, and an she look upon the earth, her lips rain unpierced pearls (words of virgin eloquence) and the dews of whose mouth are sweeter than the purest water. – ST.]

[FN#93] These lines have often occurred before: see index (vol. x. 395) “Wa lau anunaha li ‘l-Mushrikin,” etc. I have therefore borrowed from Mr. Payne, vol. viii. 78, whose version is admirable.

[FN#94] For the Jahin-hell, see vol. viii. 111.

[FN#95] For the Seven Ages of womankind (on the Irish model) see vol. ix. 175. Some form of these verses is known throughout the Moslem East to prince and peasant. They usually begin:–

From the tenth to the twentieth year * To the gaze a charm doth appear;

and end with:–

From sixty to three score ten * On all befal Allah’s malison.

[FN#96] [Here I suppose the word “kal” has been dropped after “bi ‘l-shi’r,” and it should be: He (the youth) replied, that was our common sire, Adam, etc.–ST.]

[FN#97] “Habil” and “Kabil” are the Arab. equivalent of Abel and Cain. Neither are named in the Koran (Surah v. “The Table,” vv. 30-35), which borrows dialogue between the brothers derived from the Targum (Jeirus. on Gen. iv. 8) and makes the raven show the mode of burial to Cain, not to Adam, as related by the Jews. Rodwell’s Koran, p. 543.

[FN#98] Sit venia verbo: I have the less hesitation in making Adam anticipate the widow Malone from a profound conviction that some Hibernian antiquary, like Vallancey who found the Irish tongue in the Punic language of Plautus, shall distinctly prove that our first forefather spoke Keltic.

[FN#99] In text “Rih,” wind, gust (of temper), pride, rage. Amongst the Badawin it is the name given to rheumatism (gout being unknown), and all obscure aching diseases by no means confined to flatulence or distension. [The MS. has: “ila an kata-ka ‘l-‘amal al-rabih,” which gives no sense whatever. Sir Richard reads: “katala-ka ‘l-‘amal al-rih,” and thus arrives at the above translation. I would simply drop a dot on the first letter of “kata-ka,” reading “fata-ka,” when the meaning of the line as it stands, would be: until the work that is profitable passed away from thee, i.e., until thou ceasedst to do good. The word “rabih” is not found in Dictionaries, but it is evidently an intensive of “rabih” (tijarah rabihah = a profitable traffic) and its root occurs in the Koran, ii. 15: “Fa-ma rabihat Tijaratuhum” = but their traffic has not been gainful.–ST.]

[FN#100] Arab. “Badrah”: see vol. iv. 281. [According to Kamus, “Badrah is a purse of one thousand or ten thousand dirhams, or of seven thousand dinars. As lower down it is called “Badrat Zahab,” a purse of gold, I would take it here in the third sense.–ST]

[FN#101] In text “Zardiya,” for “Zardiyyah” = a small mail coat, a light helmet.

[FN#102] Arab. “‘Ind ‘uzzati ‘s-sinini” = lit. the thorny shrubs of ground bare of pasture.

[FN#103] This is another form of “inverted speech,” meaning the clean contrary; see vols. ii. 265; vi. 262; and vii. 179.

[FN#104] In text “Lam yakthir Khayrak”; this phrase (pronounced “Kattir Khayrak”) is the Egyptian (and Moslem) equivalent for our “thank you.” Vols. iv. 6; v. 171. Scott (p. 267) make Al-Hajjaj end with, “Cursed is he who doth not requite a sincere adviser, declareth our sacred Koran.”

[FN#105] In the W.M. MS. this tale is followed by the “History of Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir’s daughter Rose-in-hood,” for which see vol. v. 32 et seq. Then comes the long romance “Mazin of Khorasan,” which is a replica of “Hasan of Bassorah and the King’s daughter of the Jinn” (vol. vii. 7). I have noted (vol. x. 75) that this story shows us the process of transition from the Persian original to the Arabic copy. “Mazin” is also the P.N. of an Arab tribe: De Sacy, Chrest. i. 406.

[FN#106] MS. vol. v. pp. 92-94: Scott, vol. vi. 343: Gauttier, vi. 376. The story is a replica of the Mock Caliph (vol. iv. 130) and the Tale of the First Lunatic (Suppl. vol. iv.); but I have retained it on account of the peculiar freshness and naivete of treatment which distinguishes it, also as a specimen of how extensively editors and scriveners can vary the same subject.

[FN#107] In text “Natar” (watching) for “Nataf” (indigestion, disgust).

[FN#108] Here again we have the formula “Kala ‘l-Rawi”=the reciter saith, showing the purpose of the MS. See Terminal Essay, p. 144.

[FN#109] It were well to remind the reader that “Khalifah” (never written “Khalif”) is=a viceregent or vicar, i.e. of the Prophet of Allah, not of Allah himself, a sense which was especially deprecated by the Caliph Abubakr as “vicar” supposes l’absence du chef; or Dieu est present partout et a tout instant. Ibn Khal. ii. 496.

[FN#110] This tale, founded on popular belief in tribadism, has already been told in vol. vii. 130: in the W.M. MS. it occupies 23 pages (pp. 95- 118). Scott (vi. 343) has “Mesroor retired and brought in Ali Ibn Munsoor Damuskkee, who related to the Caliph a foolish narrative (!) of two lovers of Bussorah, each of whom was coy when the other wished to be kind.” The respectable Britisher evidently cared not to “read between the lines.”

[FN#111] In pop. parlance “Let us be off.”

[FN#112] Arab. “Al-Afak” plur. of Ufk, “elegant” (as the grammarians say) for the world, the universe.

[FN#113] [In MS. “Rankah” or “Ranakah,” probably for “Raunakah,” which usually means “troubled,”; speaking of water, but which, according to Schiaparelli’s Vocabulista, has also the meaning of “Raunak”=amenitas. As however “Ranakah” taken as fem. of “Ranak” shares with Raunakah the signification of “troubled,” it may perhaps also be a parallel form to the latter in the second sense.–ST.]

[FN#114] The text has “Martabat Saltanah” (for Sultaniyah) which may mean a royal Divan. The “Martabah” is a mattress varying in size and thickness, stuffed with cotton and covered with cloths of various colours and the latter mostly original and admirable of figuration but now supplanted by the wretched printed calicoes of civilisation. It is placed upon the ground and garnished with cushions which are usually of length equally the width of the mattress and of a height measuring about half of that breadth. When the “Martabah” is placed upon its “Mastabah” (bench of masonry or timber) or upon its “Sarir” (a framework of “jarid” or midribs of the palm), it becomes the Diwan=divan.

[FN#115] In text “Bi-iza-huma;” lit. vis-a-vis to the twain.

[FN#116] These have occurred vol. i. 176: I quote Mr. Payne (i. 156).

[FN#117] In text “Hanna-kumu ‘llah:” see “Hanian,” vol. ii. 5.

[FN#118] This is usually a sign of grief, a symbolic act which dates from the days of the Heb. patriarchs (Gen. xxxvii. 29-34); but here it is the mark of strong excitement. The hand is placed within the collar and a strong pull tears the light stuff all down the breast. Economical men do this in a way which makes darning easy.

[FN#119] [The MS. is very indistinct in this place, but by supplying “‘an” after “ghibta” and reading “‘ayni” for “‘anni,” I have no doubt the words are: Wa in ghibta ‘an ‘ayni fa-ma ghibta ‘an kalbi=and if thou art absent from my eyes, yet thou are not absent from my heart. The metre is Tawil and the line has occurred elsewhere in The Nights.–ST.]

[FN#120] I have already noted that “Hilal” is the crescent (waxing or waning) for the first and last two or three nights: during the rest of the lunar month the lesser light is called “Kamar.”

[FN#121] The sense is that of Coleridge.–

To be beloved is all I need;
And whom I love I love indeed.

[FN#122] There is something wrong in the text. I cannot help again drawing the reader’s attention to the skilful portraiture of the model Moslem Minister, the unfortunate Ja’afar. He is never described in the third person; but the simple dialogue always sets him off as a wise, conciliatory, benevolent, loveable and man-loving character, whose constant object is to temper the harshness and headstrong errors of a despotic master as the Caliph is represented to be by way of showing his kingliness. See vol. i., 102. [The MS. is certainly wrong here, but perhaps it can be righted a little. It has: “Kad yakun Z R H ahad fi Mal jazil wa harab al-Maz’un,” etc., where Sir Richard reads “zarra-hu”=he harmed, and Mazghun=the hated one, i.e. enemy. I have a strong suspicion that in the original from which our scribe copied, the two words were “zamin” and “al-Mazmun.” Zamin in the Arabic character would be {Arabic characters} The loop for the “m,” if made small, is easily overlooked; the curve of the “n,” if badly traced, can as easily be mistaken for “r” and a big dot inside the “n” might appear like a blotted “h”. Mazmun would become “Maz’un” by simply turning the “m” loop upwards instead of downwards, an error the converse of which is so frequently committed in printed texts. Curiously enough the same error occurs p. 192 of the MS., where we shall find “na’ ‘al” with two ‘Ayns instead of “na’mal” with ‘Ayn and Mim. If this conjecture is correct the sense would be: Haply he may have stood security for someone for much money, and the person for whom security was given, took to flight, etc. For “zamin” with the acc. see Ibn Jubair ed. by Wright, 77, 2. I may say on this occasion, that my impression of the Montague MS. is, that it is a blundering copy of a valuable though perhaps indistinctly written original.–ST.]

[FN#123] In text “‘Aurat”=nakedness: see vol. vi. 30.

[FN#124] In Arab. “‘Urrah”: see Fatimah the Dung in vol. x. 1.

[FN#125] [In the MS. “bi-Wujuh al Fanijat al-Milah.” The translator conjectures “al-fatihat,” which he refers to “Wujuh.” I read it “al-Ghanijat,” in apposition with al-Milah, and render: the faces of the coquettish, the fair. See index under “Ghunj.”–ST.]

[FN#126] In text “Ballat,” the name still given to the limestone slabs cut in the Torah quarries South of Cairo. The word is classical, we find in Ibn Khaldun (vol. i. p. 21, Fr. Trans.) a chief surnomme el-Balt (le pave), a cause de sa fermete et de sa force de caractere.

[FN#127] In text “Usburu”=be ye patient, the cry addressed to passengers by the Grandee’s body-guard.

[FN#128] The “young person” here begins a tissue of impertinences which are supposed to show her high degree and her condescension in mating with the jeweller. This is still “pretty Fanny’s way” amongst Moslems.

[FN#129] A “swear” peculiarly feminine, and never to be used by men.

[FN#130] In text “‘Ala-Akli:” the whole passage is doubtful. [I would read, and translate the passage as follows: “Ma tastahli ‘ala haza illa shay la tazann-hu allazi (for “allati,” see Suppl. iv. 197) kayyamtini (2nd fem. sing.) min ‘ala akli wa ana zanantu innahu man yujab la-hu al-kiyam; thumma iltifatat illayya wa kalat hakaza sirtu ana la-ghazarat al-thiyab al-wasikhat min al-fakr fa-hal ma ghasalta wajhak?”=Thou deservest not for this but a thing thou doest not fancy, thou who madest me rise from before my food, while I thought he was one to whom rising up is due. Then she turned towards me, saying, “Am I then in this manner (i.e. like thyself) a bundle of clothes all dirty from poverty, and hast thou therefore (“fa” indicating the effect of a cause) not washed thy face?” Or to put it in more intelligible English: “Am I then like thyself a heap of rags that thou shouldst come to me with unwashed face?”–ST.]

[FN#131] Of the respect due to food Lane (M. E. chapt. xiii.) tells the following tale: “Two servants were sitting at the door of their master’s house, eating their dinner, when they observed a Mameluke Bey with several of his officers, riding along the streets towards them. One of these servants rose, from respect to the Grandee, who regarding him with indignation, exclaimed, Which is the more worthy of respect, the bread which is before thee or myself? Without awaiting a reply, he made, it is said, a well-understood signal with his hand; and the unintending offender was beheaded on the spot.” I may add that the hero of the story is said to have been the celebrated “Daftardar” whose facetious cruelties have still a wide fame in the Nile Valley.

[FN#132] I would read (for “Sirtu ansa”=I have become) “Sirt’ anta”=thou hast become.

[FN#133] In text “Mukh;” lit.=brain, marrow.

[FN#134] [In Ar. “Wa zand mujauhar fi-hi Asawir min al-Zahab al-ahmar,” which may mean: and a fore-arm (became manifest), ornamented with jewels, on which were bracelets of red gold.–ST.]

[FN#135] For this famous type of madman see Suppl. Vol. vi.

[FN#136] [Ar. “Ghurrat,” which may be bright looks, charms, in general, or according to
Bocthor, fore-locks. The more usual plural of “Ghurrah” is “Ghurar.”–ST.]

[FN#137] In the text “Darajah”=an instant; also a degree (of the Zodiac). We still find this division of time in China and Japan, where they divide the twenty-four hours into twelve periods, each of which is marked by a quasi-Zodiacal sign: e.g.–

Midnight until 2 a.m. is represented by the Rat. 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. is represented by the Ox. 4 a.m. until 6 a.m. is represented by the Tiger. 6 a.m. until 8 a.m. is represented by the Hare. 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. is represented by the Dragon. 10 a.m. until noon is represented by the Serpent. Noon until 2 p.m. is represented by the Horse. 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. is represented by the Ram. 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. is represented by the Ape. 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. is represented by the Cock. 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. is represented by the Hog. 10 p.m. until midnight is represented by the Fox.

See p. 27 Edit. ii. of C. B. Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan, a most important contribution to Eastern folklore.

[“Darajah” is, however, also used for any short space of time; according to Lane It is=4 minutes (i.e. the 24 hours or 1,440 minutes of the astronomical day divided into 360 degrees of 4 minutes each), and Bocthor gives it as an equivalent for our instant or moment.–ST.]

[FN#138] The young fool vaunts his intersexual powers, apparently unknowing that nothing can be more fatal to love than fulfilling the desires of a woman who, once accustomed to this high diet, revolts against any reduction of it. He appears to have been a polisson by his own tale told to the Caliph and this alone would secure the contempt of a high-bred and high-spirited girl.

[FN#139] The “nosebag”; vol. ii. 52, etc. The Badawiyah (Badawi woman) generally prefers a red colour, in opposition to the white and black of civilisation; and she of the Arabian Desert generally disdains to use anything of the kind.

[FN#140] This ablution of the whole body he was bound to perform after having had carnal knowledge of a woman, and before washing he was in a state of ceremonial impurity. For “Ghusl,” or complete ablution, see vol. v. 80.

[FN#141] “The Heart of the Koran,” chap. xxxvi. see vol. iv. 50.

[FN#142] The Mandil apparently had been left in the shop by the black slave-girl. Women usually carry such articles with them when “on the loose,” and in default of water and washing they are used to wipe away the results of car. cop.

[FN#143] In Arab. “Shakk.” The criminal was hung up by the heels, and the executioner, armed with a huge chopper, began to hew him down from the fork till he reached the neck, when, by a dextrous turn of the blade, he left the head attached to one half of the body. This punishment was long used in Persia and abolished, they say, by Fath Ali Shah, on the occasion when an offender so treated abused the royal mother and women relatives until the knife had reached his vitals. “Kata’ al-‘Arba’,” or cutting off the four members, equivalent to our “quartering,” was also a popular penalty.

[FN#144] In text “Ghibtu ‘an al-Dunya,” a popular phrase, meaning simply I fainted.

[FN#145] This was done to staunch the blood: see the salt-wench in vol. i. 341.

[FN#146] This couplet has repeatedly occurred: in the preceding volume, Night cdv. (Suppl. iv. 172); and in The Nights (proper), vol. vi. 246. Here I have quoted Lane (A.N. iii. 220), who has not offered a word of comment or of explanation concerning a somewhat difficult couplet.

[FN#147] The plur. masc. for the sing. fem.: see vol. vii. 140.

[FN#148] He speaks after the recognised conventional fashion, as if reporting the camp-shift of a Badawi tribe.

[FN#149] See vol. i. 25 for the parallel of these lines.

[FN#150] The text inserts here, “Saith the Reciter of this adventure and right joyous history strange as rare,” etc.

[FN#151] Scott, in the “Story of the Sultan, the Dirveshe, and the Barber’s son” (vi. 348), calls the King “Rammaud.” The tale is magical and Rosicrucian, laid somewhat upon the lines of “The Physician Duban”; i.45.

[FN#152] This is the custom among Eastern Moslems: the barber, after his operations are over, presents his hand-mirror for the patient to see whether all be satisfactory, saying at the same time “Na’iman”=may it be pleasurable to thee! The customer answers “Allah bring thee pleasure,” places the fee upon the looking-glass and returns it to the shaver. For “Na’iman” see vol. ii. 5.

[FN#153] The least that honest Figaro expected to witness was an attempt upon the boy’s chastity.

[FN#154] In text “Tazaghzagha,” gen.=he spoke hesitatingly, he scoffed. [I read the words in the text: “Tazaghghara fihi.” The Kamus gives “Zaghara-hu”=he seized it by force, he took hold of him with violence, and this present fifth form, although not given in the Dictionaries, has doubtlessly the same meaning. Popularly we may render it: he pitched into him.–ST]

[FN#155] In the text “Kazanat” (plur. of “Kazan”), afterwards written “Kazat” (a clerical error?). They are opposed to the “Kawalib”=moulds. [See note to p. 17.–ST.]

[FN#156] “Akhraja min Kulahi-hi (Kulah?) busah.”

[FN#157] “Akhaza min-ha ‘ala ma’ lakati ‘l-Hilal shay misl al-Jinnah.” [I have no doubt that “Kulah” is meant for “Kulah,” a Dervish’s cap. “Busah” puzzles me. I am inclined to take it for a reed used as a case or sheath, as we shall see p. 263 of the MS. Prince Yusuf uses a “Kasabah” or reed to enclose a letter in it. “Mi’lakat (popular corruption for ‘Mil’akat’) al-Hilal” may be the spoon or hollow part of an ear-picker, Hilal being given by Bocthor as equivalent for “cure-oreille.” Lastly for “al-Jinnah” I would read “al-Habbah”=grain. The article before the word may indicate that a particular grain is meant perhaps “al-Habbat al-halwah”=anise seed, or that it stands for “al-Hubbah,” according to Lempriere (A Tour to Marocco, London 1791, p. 383) a powder employed by the ladies of Marocco to produce embonpoint.–ST.]

[FN#158] So even in our day Mustafa bin Ism’ail who succeeded “General Khayru ‘l-Din” as Prime Minister to “His Highness Mohammed al-Sadik, Bey of Tunis,” began life as apprentice to a barber, became the varlet of an officer, rose to high dignity and received decorations from most of the European powers.

[FN#159] In text “Wijak,” a stove, a portable hearth.

[FN#160] In the text: [“Wa sara kulla-ma tastari nafsuhu yak’ad kuddama ‘l-Darwish,” which I would translate: and each time his heart chose (8th form of “Sarw”) he used to sit before the Darwaysh, etc.–ST.]

[FN#161] In text “Darin” for “Zarin”=what is powdered, collyrium.

[FN#162] The King failed because his “Niyat” or intention was not pure; that is, he worked for wealth, and not, as the Darwaysh had done, for the good of his brother man.

[FN#163] For the importance attached to this sign of sovereignty see in my Pilgrimage (ii. 218-19) the trouble caused by the loss of the Prophet’s seal-ring (Khatim) at Al-Madinah.

[FN#164] The text is somewhat doubtful–“Min kuddam-ak.” [Perhaps it means only “from before thee,” i.e. in thy presence, without letting him out of sight and thereby giving him a chance of escape.–ST.]

[FN#165] This especially is on the lines of “The Physician Duban”; vol. i. 45.

[FN#166] In text “Wa min-hum man faha,” evidently an error of the scribe for “Man nafahu.” Scott (vi. 351), after the fashion of the “Improver-school,” ends the tale, which is somewhat tail-less, after this fashion, “At the same instant, the Sultan and his courtiers found themselves assaulted by invisible agents, who, tearing off their robes, whipped them with scourges till the blood flowed in streams from their lacerated backs. At length the punishment ceased, but the mortification of the Sultan did not end here, for all the gold which the Dirveshe had transmuted returned to its original metals. Thus, by his unjust credulity, was a weak Prince punished for his ungrateful folly. The barber and his son also were not to be found, so that the sultan could gain no intelligence of the Dirveshe, and he and his courtiers became the laughing-stock of the populace for years after their merited chastisement.” Is nothing to be left for the reader’s imagination?

[FN#167] See under the same name the story in my Suppl. vol. i. 162; where the genealogy and biography of the story is given. I have translated the W.M. version because it adds a few items of interest. A marginal note of Scott’s (in the W.M. MS. v. 196) says that the “Tale is similar to Lesson iv. in the Tirrea Bede.” See note at the end of this History.

[FN#168] For the Badawi tent, see vol. vii. 109.

[FN#169] In text “Birkah”=a fountain-basin, lake, pond, reservoir. The Bresl. Edit. has “Sardab”=a souterrain.

[FN#170] Arab. “Jummayz”: see vol. iii. 302. In the Bresl. Edit. it is a “tall tree,” and in the European versions always a “pear-tree,” which is not found in Badawi-land.

[FN#171] “Adi” in Egyptian (not Arabic) is=that man, the (man) here; “Adini” (in the text) is=Here am I, me voici. Spitta Bey (loc. cit. iv. 20, etc.)

[FN#172] Arab. “Ma’murah.” In the Bresl. Edit. “the place is full of Jinns and Marids.” I have said that this supernatural agency, ever at hand and ever credible to Easterns, makes this the most satisfactory version of the world-wide tale.

[FN#173] The planet Mars.

[FN#174] The Asiatics have a very contemptible opinion of the Russians, especially of the females, whom they believe to be void of common modesty. Our early European voyagers have expressed the same idea.–Scott.

[FN#175] i.e. having enjoyed the woman.–R.F.B.

[FN#176] The reader will doubtless recollect the resemblance which the plot of this lesson bears to Pope’s January and May, and to one of Fontaine’s Tales. Eenaiut Olla acknowledges his having borrowed it from the Brahmins, from whom it may have travelled through some voyage to Europe many centuries past, or probably having been translated in Arabic or Persian, been brought by some crusader, as were many Asiatic romances, which have served as the groundwork of many of our old stories and poems.–Scott.

[FN#177] In Scott (vi. 352) “Adventures of Aleefa and Eusuff.” This long and somewhat longsome history is by another pen, which is distinguished from the ordinary text by constant attempts at fine writing, patches of Saj’a or prose-rhyme and profuse poetry, mostly doggerel. I recommend it to the student as typically Arabian with its preponderance of verse over prose, its threadbare patches made to look meaner by the purpureus pannus; its immoderate repetition and its utter disregard of order and sequence. For the rest it is unedited and it strikes me as a sketch of adventure calculated to charm the Fellah-audience of a coffee-house, whose delight would be brightened by the normal accompaniment of a tambourine or a Rababah, the one-stringed viol.

[FN#178] This P. N. has occurred in vol. vi. 8, where I have warned readers that it must not be confounded with the title “Maharaj”=Great Rajah. Scott (vi. 352) writes “Mherejaun,” and Gauttier (vi. 380) “Myr-djyhan” (Mir Jahan=Lord Life).

[FN#179] I need not inform the civilised reader that this “feeling conception” is unknown except in tales.

[FN#180] i.e. “The Slim-waisted.” Scott (vi. 352) persistently corrupts the name to “Aleefa,” and Gauttier (vi. 380) follows suit with “Alifa.”

[FN#181] In text “Al-Istikhraj,” i.e. making “elegant extracts.”

[FN#182] These lines are the merest doggerel of a strolling Rawi, like all the pieces d’occasion in this MS.

[FN#183] Which are still worse: two couplets rhyme in ani, and one in ali, which is not lawful.

[FN#184] In text “Dayr Nashshabah,” a fancy name.

[FN#185] So in text: the name is unknown to me; its lit. meaning would be, “of high-breasted Virgins.”

[FN#186] In text “Al-Jay’a” which is a well-omened stone like the ‘Akik=carnelian. The Arabs still retain our mediaeval superstitions concerning precious stones, and of these fancies I will quote a few. The ruby appeases thirst, strengthens cardiac action and averts plague and “thunderbolts.” The diamond heals diseases, and is a specific against epilepsy or the “possession” by evil spirits: this is also the specialty of the emerald, which, moreover, cures ophthalmia and the stings of scorpions and bites of venomous reptiles, blinding them if placed before their eyes. The turquoise is peculiarly auspicious, abating fascination, strengthening the sight, and, if worn in a ring, increasing the milk of nursing mothers: hence the blue beads hung as necklaces to cattle. The topaz (being yellow) is a prophylactic against jaundice and bilious diseases. The bloodstone when shown to men in rage causes their wrath to depart: it arrests hemorrhage, heals toothache, preserves from bad luck, and is a pledge of long life and happiness. The “cat’s-eye” nullifies Al-Ayn=malign influence by the look, and worn in battle makes the wearer invisible to his foe. This is but a “fist-full out of a donkey-load,” as the Persians say: the subject is a favourite with Eastern writers.

[FN#187] Or white lead: in the text it is “Sapidaj,” corresponding with the “Isfidaj” of vol. vi. 126.

[FN#188] In the text “Bashkhanah”; corr. of the Pers. “Peshkhanah”=state-tents sent forward on the march.

[FN#189] This phrase, twice repeated, is the regular formula of the Rawi or professional reciter; he most unjustifiably, however, neglects the “Inshallah.”

[FN#190] The revetment of the old wells in Arabia is mostly of dry masonry.

[FN#191] [Ar. “Tawanis,” with a long final to rhyme with “Kawadis,” instead of the usual “Tawanis,” pl. of “Taunas,” which Dozy (Suppl. s.v.) identifies with the Greek in the sense of cable.–ST.]

[FN#192] In Arab. “Hajarata ‘l-Bahraman.”

[FN#193] In text “Zamaku-ha.”

[FN#194] I can see little pertinence in this couplet: but that is not a sine qua non amongst Arabs. Perhaps, however, the Princess understands that she is in a gorgeous prison and relieves her heart by a cunning hint.

[FN#195] I again omit “Saith the Reciter of this marvellous relation,” a formula which occurs with unpleasant reiteration.

[FN#196] i.e. she cried “Astaghfiru ‘llah” (which strangers usually pronounce “Astaffira ‘llah”); a pious exclamation, humbling oneself before the Creator, and used in a score of different senses, which are not to be found in the dictionaries.

[FN#197] In vol. viii. 183, there are two couplets of which the first is here repeated.

[FN#198] [Here the translator seems to read “Khams Ghaffar,”=five pardoners,where however, grammar requires a plural after “khams.” I take “khams” to be a clerical error for “Khamr”=wine, and read the next word “‘ukar,” which is another name for wine, but is also used adjectively together with the former, as in the Breslau Edition iv. 6 “al-Khamr al-‘ukar”=choice wine.–ST.]

[FN#199] I understand this as the cupbearer who delights the five senses.

[FN#200] In the original we have, “Saith the Sayer of this delectable narrative, the strange and seld-seen (and presently we will return to the relation full and complete with its sense suitable and its style admirable), anent what befel and betided of Destinies predestinate and the will of the Lord preordinate which He decreed and determined to His creatures.” I have omitted it for uniformity’s sake.

[FN#201] Meaning “The easy-tempered.” Scott (vi. 354) writes “Sohul.”

[FN#202] In text “Litam”=the mouth-band for man: ii. 31, etc. The “Mutalathsimin” in North Africa are the races, like the Tawarik, whose males wear this face-swathe of cloth.

[FN#203] “Drowned in her blood,” says the text which to us appears hyperbole run mad. So when King Omar (vol. ii. 123) violently rapes the unfortunate Princess Abrizah “the blood runs down the calves of her legs.” This is not ignorance, but that systematic exaggeration which is held necessary to impressionise an Oriental audience.

[FN#204] For this allusion see vol. v. 191.

[FN#205] This physical sign of delight in beauty is not recognised in the literature of Europe, and The Nights usually attributes it to old women.

[FN#206] In text “Hima”=the private and guarded lands of a Badawi tribe; viii. 102.

[FN#207] In text “Daylaki.”

[FN#208] A small compact white turband and distinctive sign of the True Believers: see vol. viii. 8.

[FN#209] [The words in the text seem to be: “wa Talattuf Alfazak wa Ma’anik al-hisan”=and for the pleasingness of thy sayings and meanings so fine and fair.–ST.]

[FN#210] [The Arabic seems here to contain a pun, the consonantic outline of “Tasht”=”basin” being the same as of “tashshat”=she was raining, sprinkling.–ST.]

[FN#211] In Arab. “Ya Warid”: see vol. iii. 56.

[FN#212] The growing beard and whisker being compared with black letters on a white ground.

[FN#213] In the text these seven couplets form one quotation, although the first three rhyme in —-aru and the second four in- -iru.

[FN#214] This “diapedesis” of bloodstained tears is frequently mentioned in The Nights; and the “Bloody Sweat” is well-known by name. The disease is rare and few have seen it whilst it has a certain quasi-supernatural sound from the “Agony and bloody sweat” in the Garden of Gethsemane. But the exudation of blood from the skin was described by Theophrastus and Aristotle and lastly by Lucan in these lines:–

–Sic omnia membra
Emisere simul rutilum pro sanguine virus. Sanguis erant lachrymae, etc.

Of Charles IX. of France Mezaray declares “Le sang lui rejaillait par las pores et tous les conduits de son corps,” but the superstitious Protestant holds this to be a “judgment.” The same historian also mentions the phenomenon in a governor condemned to die; and Lombard in the case of a general after losing a battle and a nun seized by banditti–blood oozed from every pore. See Dr. Millingen’s “Curiosities of Medical Experience,” p. 485, London, Bentley, 1839.

[FN#215] [I read this line: “Fi Hayyi-kum Taflatun hama ‘l-Fawadu bi-ha (Basit)” and translate: In your clan there is a maiden of whom my heart is enamoured. In the beginning of the next line the metre requires “tazakkarat,” which therefore refers to “Aghsun,” not to the speaker: “the branches remember (and by imitating her movements show that they remember) the time when she bent aside, and her bending, graceful beyond compare, taught me that her eyes kept watch over the rose of her cheek and knew how to protect it from him who might wish to cull it.” This little gem of a Mawwal makes me regret that so many of the snatches of poetry in this MS. are almost hopelessly corrupted.–ST.]

[FN#216] In the text “Sima’a,” lit. hearing, applied idiomatically to the ecstasy of Darwayshes when listening to esoteric poetry.

[FN#217] The birds mentioned in the text are the “Kumri” (turtle-dove), the “Shabaytar” [also called “Samaytar” and “Abu al-‘Ayzar”=the father of the brisk one, a long-necked water bird of the heron kind.–ST.], the Shuhrur (in MS. Suhrur)=a blackbird [the Christians in Syria call St. Paul “Shuhrur al-Kanisah,” the blackbird of the Church, on account of his eloquence.–ST.], the “Karawan,” crane or curlew (Charadrius aedicnemus) vol. vi. 1; the “Hazar;” nightingale or bird of a thousand songs, vol. v. 48; the “Hamam,” ruffed pigeon, culver, vol. v. 49; the “Kata,” or sandgrouse, vols. i. 131, iv. 111, etc.; and the “Samman” or quail, Suppl. vol. vi.

[FN#218] The “Sa’ah,” I may here remark, is the German Stunde, our old “Stound,” somewhat indefinite but meaning to the good Moslem the spaces between prayer times. The classical terms, Al-Zuha (undurn-hour, or before noon) and Maghrib=set of sun, become in Badawi speech Al-Ghaylah=siesta-time and Ghaybat al-Shams. (Doughty, index.)

[FN#219] For the beautiful song of the lute, referred to here, see vol. viii. 281.

[FN#220] Alluding to the “Takht Raml,” table of sand, geomantic table?

[FN#221] As before noted, her love enables her to deal in a somewhat of prophetic strain.

[FN#222] This scene may sound absurd; but it is admirable for its materialism. How often do youthful lovers find an all-sufficient pastime in dressing themselves up and playing the game of mutual admiration. It is well nigh worthy of that “silliest and best of love-stories”–Henrietta Temple.

[FN#223] The text bluntly says “Wa Nikah,” which can mean nothing else.

[FN#224] Scott calls him “Yiah”: vi. 354.

[FN#225] Arab. “Akhbaru-hu,” alluding to the lord Yahya.

[FN#226] Here I presume a “Kala” (quoth he) is omitted; for the next sentence seems appropriate to Yusuf.

[FN#227] In Arab. “Tastaghis”=lit. crying out “Wa Ghausah”–Ho, to my aid!

[FN#228] The “Zug” or draught which gave him rheumatism–not a romantic complaint for a young lover. See vol. ii. 9. But his power of sudden invention is somewhat enviable, and lying is to him, in Hindustani phrase, “easy as drinking water.”

[FN#229] Who evidently ignored or had forgotten the little matter of the concubine, so that incident was introduced by the story-teller for mere wantonness.

[FN#230] In text “Mazbuh”=slaughtered for food.

[FN#231] i.e. “I suffer from an acute attack of rheumatism”–a complaint common in even the hottest climates.

[FN#232] Needless to say that amongst Moslems, as amongst Christians, the Israelite medicine-man has always been a favourite, despite an injunction in the “Dinim” (Religious Considerations) of the famous Andalusian Yusuf Caro. This most fanatical work, much studied at Tiberias and Safet (where a printing-press was established in the xvith century) decides that a Jewish doctor called to attend a Goi (Gentile) too poor to pay him is bound to poison his patient–if he safely can.

[FN#233] Lit. “The-Bull-(Taur for Thaur or Saur)numbered-and-for-battle-day-lengthened.” In p.30 this charger is called, “The-bull-that-spurneth-danger-on-battle-day.” See vol. vi. 270 for a similar compound name, The-Ghul-who-eateth-man-we-pray-Allah-for-safety.

[FN#234] In text “Al-Jariyah radih,” the latter word being repeated in p.282, where it is Radih a P.N. [Here also I would take it for a P.N., for if it were adjective to “al-Jariyah” it should have the article.–ST.]

[FN#235] The “Radif,” or back-rider, is common in Arabia, esp. on dromedaries when going to the Razzia: usually the crupper-man loads the matchlock and his comrade fires it.

[FN#236] The text has “thirty,” evidently a clerical error.

[FN#237] Arab. “Sakhtur” for “Shakhtur,” vol. vii. 362.

[FN#238] Doggerel fit only for the coffee-house.

[FN#239] In text “Ta’ayyun”=influence, especially by the “‘Ayn,” or (Evil) Eye.

[FN#240] I have somewhat abridged the confession of the Princess, who carefully repeats every word known to the reader. This iteration is no objection in the case of a coffee-house audience to whom the tale is told bit by bit, but it is evidently unsuited for reading.

[FN#241] In text “Irham turham:” this is one of the few passive verbs still used in popular parlance.

[FN#242] This formula will be in future suppressed.

[FN#243] I spare my readers the full formula:–“Yusuf took it and brake the seal (fazza-hu) and read it and comprehended its contents and purport and significance: and, after perusing it,” etc. These forms, decies repetita, may go down with an Eastern audience, but would be intolerable in a Western volume. The absence of padding, however, reduces the story almost to a patchwork of doggerel rhymes, for neither I nor any man can “make a silk purse from a suille ear.”

[FN#244] Here again in full we have:–“He mounted the she-camel and fared and ceased not faring until he drew near to the Palace of Al-Hayfa, where he dismounted and concealed his dromedary within the same cave. Then he swam the stream until he had reached the Castle and here he landed and appeared before Al-Hayfa,” etc.

[FN#245] “‘Tis dogged as does it” was the equivalent expression of our British Aristotle; the late Charles Darwin.

[FN#246] Arab. “Jannat al-Khuld”=the Eternal Garden: vol. ix. 214.

[FN#247] [I read: Wa inni la-ar’akum wa ar’a widada-kum, wa-hakki-kumu antum a’azzu ‘l-Wara ‘andi=And I make much of you and of your love; by your rights (upon me, formula of swearing), you are to me the dearest of mankind.–ST.]

[FN#248] In text: “He swam the stream and bestrode his she-camel.”

[FN#249] In text “Then she folded the letter and after sealing it,” etc.

[FN#250] Not “her hands” after Christian fashion.

[FN#251] In text, “Ahyaf,” alluding to Al-Hayfa.

[FN#252] Arab. “Al-Kawa’ib,” also P. N. of the river.

[FN#253] This is moralising with a witness, and all it means is “handsome is that handsome does.”

[FN#254] In text “‘Arsh” = the Ninth Heaven; vol. v.167.

[FN#255] The Shi’ah doctrine is here somewhat exaggerated.

[FN#256] “Them” for “her,” as has often occurred.

[FN#257] In the original “entrusted to her the missive:” whereas the letter is delivered afterwards.

[FN#258] The cloud (which contains rain) is always typical of liberality and generous dealing.

[FN#259] The Koranic chapt. No. xx., revealed at Meccah and recounting the (apocryphal) history of Moses.

[FN#260] The “broken” (wall) to the North of the Ka’abah: Pilgrimage iii. 165.

[FN#261] i.e. “Delight of the Age:” see vol. ii. 81.

[FN#262] In the text written “Imriyyu ‘l-Kays”: for this pre-Islamitic poet see Term. Essay, p. 223. “The Man of Al-Kays” or worshipper of the Priapus-idol was a marking figure in Arabian History. The word occurs, with those of Aera, Dusares (Theos Ares), Martabu, Allat and Manat in the Nabathaean (Arabian) epigraphs brought by Mr. Doughty from Arabia Deserta (vol. i. pp. 180-184).

[FN#263] In text “Zakka,” which means primarily a bird feeding her young.

[FN#264] In the text “months and years,” the latter seeming de trop.

[FN#265] Or “Yathrib” = Al-Madinah; vol. iv. 114.

[FN#266] Scott (vi. 358 et seqq.) who makes Ali bin Ibrahim, “a faithful eunuch,” renders the passage, “by some accident the eunuch’s turban unfortunately falling off; the precious stones (N.B. the lovers’ gift) which, with a summary of the adventures (!) of Eusuff and Aleefa, and his own embassy to Sind, were wrapped in the folds, tumbled upon the floor,”

[FN#267] i.e. “Drawer-out of Descriptions.”

[FN#268] i.e. a Refuser, a Forbidder.

[FN#269] i.e. both could not be seen at the same time.

[FN#270] [The MS. has T Kh D H, which the translator reads “takhuz-hu.” I suspect that either the second or eighth form of “ahad” is meant, in the sense that thou comest to an agreement (Ittihad) with him.–ST.]

[FN#271] In the MS. v. 327, we find four hemistichs which evidently belong to Al-Mihrjan; these are:–

Hadet come to court her in fairer guise * I had given Al-Hayfa in bestest style;
But in mode like this hast thou wrought me wrong * And made Envy gibe me with jeering smile.”

Also I have been compelled to change the next sentence, which in the original is, “And hardly had King Al-Mihrjan ended his words,” etc.

[FN#272] In this doggerel, “Kurud” (apes) occurs as a rhyme twice in three couplets.

[FN#273] “Upon the poll of his head” (‘ala hamati-hi) says the Arabian author, and instantly stultifies the words.

[FN#274] Arab. “Haudaj” = a camel-litter: the word, often corrupted to Hadaj, is now applied to a rude pack-saddle, a wooden frame of mimosa-timber set upon a “witr” or pad of old tent-cloth, stuffed with grass and girt with a single cord. Vol. viii. 235, Burckhardt gives “Maksar,” and Doughty (i. 437) “Muksir” as the modern Badawi term for the crates or litters in which are carried the Shaykhly housewives.

[FN#275] In text “Sunnah” = the practice, etc., of the Prophet: vol. v. 36, 167.

[FN#276] This, as the sequel shows, is the far-famed Musician, Ibrahim of Mosul: vol. vii. 113.

[FN#277] In the text King of Al-Sin=China, and in p. 360 of MS. Yusuf is made “King of China and Sind,” which would be much like “King of Germany and Brentford.”

[FN#278] This is the full formula repeated in the case of all the ten blessed damsels. I have spared the patience of my readers.

[FN#279] This formula of the cup and lute is decies repetita, justifying abbreviation.

[FN#280] i.e. The Beginner, the Originator.

[FN#281] The Zephyr, or rather the cool north breeze of upper Arabia, vol. viii. 62.

[FN#282] The “Full Moon”; plur. Budur: vols. iii., 228, iv., 249.

[FN#283] “Dann” = amphora, Gr. {Greek} short for {Greek} = having two handles.

[FN#284] “The large-hipped,” a form of Radih.

[FN#285] In text “Minba’ada-hu” making Jesus of later date than Imr al-Kays.

[FN#286] i.e. “The Delight”: also a P.N. of one of the Heavens: vols. iii. 19; iv. 143.

[FN#287] i.e. Joy, Contentment.

[FN#288] In text “La khuzibat Ayday al-Firak,” meaning, “may separation never ornament herself in sign of gladness at the prospect of our parting.” For the Khazib-dye see vol. iii. 105.

[FN#289] i.e. “Bloom or the Tribe.” “Zahrat”=a blossom especially yellow and commonly applied to orange-flower. In line 10 of the same page the careless scribe calls the girl “Jauharat (Gem) of the Tribe.”

[FN#290] For this Hell, see vol. viii. 111.

[FN#291] “Core” or “Life-blood of Hearts.”

[FN#292] Presently explained.

[FN#293] In text “Afrakh al-Jinn,” lit.=Chicks of the Jinns, a mere vulgarism: see “Farkh ‘Akrab,” vol. iv. 46.

[FN#294] “Ibraa” = deliverance from captivity, etc. Ya = i, and Mim = m, composing the word “Ibrahim.” The guttural is concealed in the Hamzah of Ibraa, a good illustration of Dr. Steingass’s valuable remarks in Terminal Essay, pp. 235, 236.

[FN#295] “Kalim” = one who speaks with another, a familiar. Moses’ title is Kalimu’llah on account of the Oral Law and certain conversations at Mount Sinai.

[FN#296] In text “Istifa” = choice, selection: hence Mustafa = the Chosen Prophet, Mohammcd; vols i. 7; ii. 40.

[FN#297] In text “Jazr” = cutting, strengthening, flow (of tide).

[FN#298] In the text “Nafishah” Pers. “Nafah,” derived, I presume, from “Naf” = belly or testicle, the part which in the musk-deer was supposed to store up the perfume.

[FN#299] For ‘Nahavand,” the celebrated site in Al-Irak where the Persians sustained their final defeat at the hands of the Arabs A.H. 21. It is also one of the many musical measures, like the Ispahani, the Rasti, the Rayhani, the Busalik, the Nava, etc., borrowed from the conquered ‘Ajami.

[FN#300] This second half of the story is laid upon the lines of “The Man of Al-Yaman and his six Slave-girls”: vol. iv. 245.

[FN#301] This history again belongs to the class termed “Abtar = tailless. In the text we find for all termination, “After this he (Yusuf) invited Mohammed ibn Ibrahim to lie that night in the palace.” Scott (vi. 364) ends after his own fashion:–“They (the ten girls) recited extempore verses before the caliph, but the subject of each was so expressive of their wish to return to their beloved sovereign, and delivered in so affecting a manner, that Mamoon, though delighted with their wit and beauty, sacrificed his own pleasure to their feelings, and sent them back to Eusuff by the officer who carried the edict, confirming him in his dominions, where the prince of Sind and the fair Aleefa continued long, amid a nnmerous progeny, to live the protectors of their happy subjects.”

[FN#302] This tale is headless as the last is tailless. We must suppose that soon after Mohammed ibn Ibrahim had quitted the Caliph, taking away the ten charmers, Al-Maamun felt his “breast straitened” and called for a story upon one of his Rawis named Ibn Ahyam. This name is repeated in the text and cannot be a clerical error for Ibn Ibrahim.

[FN#303] Scott (vi. 366) “Adventures of the Three Princes, sons of the Sultan of China.”

[FN#304] In the text “‘Ajam,” for which see vol. i. 2, 120. Al-Irak, I may observe, was the head-quarters of the extensive and dangerous Kh rijite heresy; and like Syria has ever a bad name amongst orthodox Moslems.

[FN#305] In the Arab. “Salkh,” meaning also a peculiar form of circumcision, for which see Pilgrimage iii. 80-81. The Jew’s condition was of course a trick, presenting an impossibility and intended as a mere pretext for murdering an enemy to his faith. Throughout the Eastern world this idea prevails, and both Sir Moses Montefiore and M. Cremieux were utterly at fault and certainly knew it when they declared that Europe was teaching it to Asia. Every Israelite community is bound in self-defence, when the murder of a Christian child or adult is charged upon any of its members, to court the most searching enquiry and to abate the scandal with all its might.

[FN#306] The text has “F¡ K¡b,” which Scott (vol. vi. 367) renders “a mat.” [According to the Muh¡t “K¡b” is a small thick mat used to produce shade, pl. “Kiy b” and “Aky b.” The same authority says the word is of Persian origin, but this seems an error, unless it be related to “Keb” with the Y majh£l, which in the Appendix to the Burh ni K ti’ is given as synonymous with “Pech,” twist, fold. Under “Bard¡”==papyrus the Muh¡t mentions that this is the material from which the mats known by the name of “Aky b” are made.–ST.]

[FN#307] The text has here “Wasayah,” probably a clerical error for “wa Miah” (spelt M yah”), and a hundred pair of pigeons.– ST.]

[FN#308] Showing utter ignorance of the Jewish rite which must always be performed by the Mohel, an official of the Synagogue duly appointed by the Sheliach==legatus; and within eight days after birth. The rite consists of three operations. Milah==the cut; Priah==tearing the foreskin and Mess¡zah==applying styptics to the wound. The latter process has become a matter of controversy and the Israelite community of Paris, headed by the Chief Rabbi, M. Zadoc Kahin, has lately assembled to discuss the question. For the difference between Jewish and Moslem circumcision see vol. v. 209.

[FN#309] The Jewish quarter (H rah), which the Israelites themselves call “Hazer,”==a court-yard, an enclosure. In Mayer’s valuable “Conversations-lexicon” the Italian word is derived from the Talmudic “Ghet”==divorce, separation (as parting the Hebrews from the rest of the population) and the Rev. S. R. Melli, Chief Rabbi of Trieste, has kindly informed me that the word is Chaldaic.

[FN#310] [Ar. “Sarm£jah,” from Persian “Sar-m£zah,” a kind of hose or gaiter worn over a boot.–ST.]

[FN#311] [Arab. “Yastan¡t,” aor. to the preter. “istanat,” which has been explained, supra, p. 24.–ST.]

[FN#312] The bed would be made of a carpet or thin mattress strewn upon the stucco flooring of the terrace-roof. But the ignorant scribe overlooks the fact that by Mosaic law every Jewish house must have a parapet for the “Sakf” (flat roof), a precaution neglected by Al-Islam.

[FN#313] Good old classical English. In the “Breeches Bible” (A.D. 1586) we read, “But a certaine woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech’s head and broke his brain-panne” Judges ix. 33).

[FN#314] [The words “‘Irz,” protection, in the preceding sentence, “Hurmah” and “Shat r h” explain each other mutually. The formula “f¡ ‘irzak” (vulg. “arzak”), I place myself under thy protection, implies an appeal to one’s honour (“‘Irz”). Therefore the youth says: “Inna h zih Hurmah lam ‘alay-h Shat rah,” i.e. “Truly this one is a woman” (in the emphatic sense of a sacred or forbidden object; “this woman” would be “h zih al-Hurmah”), “I must not act vilely or rashly towards her,” both vileness and rashness belonging to the many significations of “Shat rah,” which is most usually “cleverness.” –ST.]

[FN#315] In the text “Sind,” still confounding this tale with the preceding.

[FN#316] In text “Intih ba ‘l furas,” lit.==the snatching of opportunities, a jingle with “Kanas.”

[FN#317] [Compare with this episode the viith of Spitta Bey’s Tales: Histoire du Prince qui apprit un mtier.–ST.]

[FN#318] i.e. enables a man to conceal the pressure of impecuniosity.

[FN#319] In text “Al-S dah wa al-Khat y t.”

[FN#320] Subaudi, “that hath not been pierced.” “The first night,” which is often so portentous a matter in England and upon the Continent (not of North America), is rarely treated as important by Orientals. A long theoretical familiarity with the worship of Venus

Leaves not much mystery for the nuptial night.

Such lore has been carefully cultivated by the “young person” with the able assistance of the ancient dames of the household, of her juvenile companions and co-evals and especially of the slave-girls. Moreover not a few Moslems, even Egyptians, the most lecherous and salacious of men, in all ranks of life from prince to peasant take a pride in respecting the maiden for a few nights after the wedding-feast extending, perhaps to a whole week and sometimes more. A brutal haste is looked upon as “low”; and, as sensible men, they provoke by fondling and toying Nature to speak ere proceeding to the final and critical act. In England it is very different. I have heard of brides over thirty years old who had not the slightest suspicion concerning what complaisance was expected of them: out of mauvaise honte, the besetting sin of the respectable classes, neither mother nor father would venture to enlighten the elderly innocents. For a delicate girl to find a man introducing himself into her bedroom and her bed, the shock must be severe and the contact of hirsute breast and hairy limbs with a satiny skin is a strangeness which must often breed loathing and disgust. Too frequently also, instead of showing the utmost regard for virginal modesty and innocence (alias ignorance), the bridegroom will not put a check upon his passions and precipitates matters with the rage of the bull, ruentis in venerem. Even after he hears “the cry” which, as the Arabs say, “must be cried,” he has no mercy: the newly made woman lies quivering with mental agitation and physical pain, which not a few describe as resembling the tearing out of a back-tooth, and yet he insists upon repeating the operation, never supposing in his stupidity, that time must pass before the patient can have any sensation of pleasure and before the glories and delights of the sensual orgasm bathe her soul in bliss. Hence complaints, dissatisfaction, disgust, mainly caused by the man’s fault, and hence not unfrequently a permanent distaste for the act of carnal congress. All women are by no means equally capable of such enjoyment, and not a few have become mothers of many children without ever being or becoming thoroughly reconciled to it. Especially in the case of highly nervous temperaments–and these seem to be increasing in the United States and notably in New England–the fear of nine months’ pains and penalties makes the sex averse to the “deed of kind.” The first child is perhaps welcomed, the second is an unpleasant prospect and there is a firm resolve not to conceive a third. But such conjugal chastity is incompatible, except in the case of “married saints,” with a bon mnage. The husband, scandalised and offended by the rejection and refusal of the wife, will seek a substitute more complaisant; and the spouse also may “by the decree of Destiny” happen to meet the right man, the man for whom and for whom only every woman will sweep the floor. And then adieu to prudence and virtue, honour and fair fame. For, I repeat, it is the universal custom of civilised and Christian Europeans to plant their womankind upon a pedestal exposed as butts to every possible temptation: and, if they fall, as must often be expected, to assail them with obloquy and contempt for succumbing to trials imposed upon them by the stronger and less sensitive sex. Far more sensible and practical, by the side of these high idealists, shows the Moslem who guards his jewel with jealous care and who, if his “honour,” despite every precaution, insist upon disgracing him, draws the sabre and cuts her down with the general approbation and applause of society.

[FN#321] [Arab. “‘Al ghayri tar¡k,” which I would translate “out of the way,” like the Persian “b¡-R h.”–ST.]

[FN#322] In text “Kababj¡” (for Kababji) seller of Kab bs, mutton or kid grilled in small squares and skewered: see vol. vi. 225.

[FN#323] In text “Sujj dah;” vol. vi. 193.

[FN#324] In text “Faddah” all through.

[FN#325] In text “Kirsh” (==piastre) a word before explained. See Lane (M.E.) Appendix B.

[FN#326] In Arab. “Sam r;” from the Pers. “Sumar”==a reed, a rush.

[FN#327] In Arab. “D¡w n:” vols. vii. 340; ix. 108.

[FN#328] Scott has (vol. vi. 373), “The desired articles were furnished, and the Sultan setting to work, in a few days finished a mat, in which he ingeniously contrived to plait in flowery characters, known only to himself and his vizier, the account of his situation.”

[FN#329] In Arab. “Ghir rah” (plur. “Ghar ¡r”)==a sack. In Ibn Khall. (iv. pp. 90, 104) it is a large sack for grain and the especial name of a tax on corn.

[FN#330] In the text “Mohammed ibn Ibrahim,” another confusion with the last tale. This story is followed in the MS. by (1) “The History of the First Brave,” (2) “The History of the Second Brave,” and “The Tale of the Noodle and his Asses,” which I have omitted because too feeble for insertion.

[FN#331] Scott (vi.375) “Story of the Good Vizier unjustly imprisoned.” Gauttier (vi. 394) Histoire du bon Vizier injustement emprisonne.

[FN#332] This detail has no significance, though perhaps its object may be to affect the circumstantial, a favourite manoeuvre with the Rawi. [It may mean that the prisoner had to pass through seven gates before reaching it, to indicate its formidable strength and the hopelessness of all escape, except perhaps by a seven-warded, or as the Arabs would say, a seven-pinned key of gold. In the modern tale mentioned on p. 174 the kidnapped Prince and his Wazir are made to pass “through one door after the other until seven doors were passed,” to emphasize the utter seclusion of their hiding place.–ST.]

[FN#333] i.e. the mats and mattresses, rugs and carpets, pillows and cushions which compose the chairs, tables and beds of a well-to-do Eastern lodging.

[FN#334] The pretext was natural. Pious Moslems often make such vows and sometimes oblige themselves to feed the street dogs with good bread.

[FN#335] In text “Min hakk haza ‘l-Kalam sahih.”

[FN#336] In text “Kaik” and “Kaik-ji,” the well-known caique of the Bosphorus, a term which bears a curious family resemblance to the “Kayak” of the Eskimos.

[FN#337] Here coffee is mentioned without tobacco, whereas in more modern days the two are intimately connected. And the reason is purely hygienic. Smoking increases the pulsations without strengthening them, and depresses the heart-action with a calming and soothing effect. Coffee, like alcohol, affects the circulation in the reverse way by exciting it through the nervous system; and not a few authorities advise habitual smokers to end the day and prepare for rest with a glass of spirits and water. It is to be desired that the ignorants who write about “that filthy tobacco” would take the trouble to observe its effects on a large scale, and not base the strongest and extremest opinions, as is the wont of the Anglo-Saxon Halb-bildung, upon the narrowest and shakiest of bases. In Egypt, India and other parts of the Eastern world they will find nicotiana used by men, women and children, of all ranks and ages; and the study of these millions would greatly modify the results of observing a few hundreds at home. But, as in the case of opium-eating, populus vult decipi, the philanthrope does not want to know the truth, indeed he shrinks from it and loathes it. All he cares for is his own especial “fad.”

[FN#338] Arab. “Finjal” systematically repeated for “Finjan” pronounced in Egypt “Fingan” see vol. viii. 200. [The plural “Fanajil,” pronounced “Fanagil,” occurs in Spitta Bey’s Contes Arabes Modernes, p. 92, and in his Grammar, p. 26, the same author states that the forms “Fingan” and “Fingal” are used promiscuously.–ST.]

[FN#339] For the “Khaznah” (Khazinah) or 10,000 kis each = 5, see vols. ii. 84; iii. 278.

[FN#340] A euphuism meaning some disaster. The text contains a favourite incident in folklore; the first instance, I believe, being that of Polycrates of Samos according to Herodotus (lib. iii. 41-42). The theory is supported after a fashion by experience amongst all versed in that melancholy wisdom the “knowledge of the world.” As Syr Cauline the knight philosophically says:–

Everye white will have its blacke, And everye sweete its sowre: etc.

[FN#341] Thus making the food impure and unfit for a religious Moslem to eat. Scott (vi. 378) has “when a huge rat running from his hole leaped into the dish which was placed upon the floor.” He is probably thinking of the East Indian “bandycoot.”

[FN#342] In text this tale concludes, “It is ended and this (next) is the History of the Barber.”

[FN#343] A dandy, a macaroni, from the Turk. Chelebi, see vol i 22. Here the word is thoroughly Arabised. In old Turk. it means, a Prince of the blood; in mod. times a gentleman, Greek or European.

[FN#344] In the text “ézbasha” or “Uzbasha,” a vile Egyptianism for Yuzbashi-head of a hundred (men) centurion, captain.

[FN#345] Scil. the household, the Harem, etc. As usual, the masc. is used for the fem.

[FN#346] [Ar. “Al-Rashakah,” a word is not found in the common lexicons. In Dozy and “Engelmann’s Glossary of Spanish and Portuguese words derived from the Arabic,” it is said to be a fork with three prongs, here probably a hat-stand in the shape of such a fork.–ST.]

[FN#347] In text “Sha’il” copyist’s error for “Shaghil,” act. part. of “Shughl” = business, affairs. [Here it stands probably for the fuller “Shughl shaghil,” an urgent business.–ST.]

[FN#348] In text “Ya ‘Ars, ya Mu’arras”: vol. i. 338.

[FN#349] In Syria most houses have a rain cistern or tank into which the terrace-roof drains and which looks from above like a well with a cover. The water must have been low when the lover hid himself in the reservoir.

[FN#350] [In the MS. “Min Hakk la-hu Asl an ‘and-na huna Rajil,” a thoroughly popular phrase. “Min Hakk” and “min Hakkan,” where in the adverbial meaning of Hakkan its grammatical form as an accusative is so far forgotten that it allows itself to be governed by the preposition “min,” is rendered by Bocthor “tout de bon,” “serieusement.” “Asl” = root has here the meaning of foundation in fact. The literal translation of the passage would therefore be: “Forsooth, is there any truth in it that a man is here in our house?” “Min Hakk” has occurred page 183, where the text, quoted in the note, may perhaps be translated: “Of a truth, is this saying soothfast?”–ST.]

[FN#351] [The MS. has: “Ya Gharati a-Zay ma huna Rajil;” “Ya Gharati” will recur presently, p. 195, along with “ya Musibati” = Oh my calamity! I take it therefore to be an exclamation of distress from “Gharat” = invasion, with its incidents of devastation, rapine and ruin. It would be the natural outcry of the women left helpless in an unprotected camp when invaded by a hostile tribe. In “a-Zay ma” the latter particle is not the negative, but the pronoun, giving to “a-Zay” = “in what manner,” “how ?” the more emphatical sense of “how ever?” In the same sense we find it again, infra, Night 754, “a-Zay ma tafutni” = how canst thou quit me? I would therefore render: “Woe me I am undone, how ever should there be a man here?” or something to that purpose.–ST.]

[FN#352] In Persian he would be called “Pari-stricken,”–smitten by the Fairies.

[FN#353] A quarter-staff (vols. i, 234; viii. 186) opp. to the “Dabbus,” or club-stick of the Badawin, the Caffres’ “Knob- kerry,” which is also called by the Arabs “Kana,” pron. “Gana.”

[FN#354] Scott’s “Story of the Lady of Cairo and her four Gallants” (vol. vi. 380): Gauttier, Histoire d’ une Dame du Caire et de ses Galans (vi. 400). This tale has travelled over the Eastern world. See in my vol. vi. 172 “The Lady and her Five Suitors,” and the “Story of the Merchant’s Wife and her Suitors” in Scott’s “Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters” (Cadell, London, 1800), which is in fact a garbled version of the former, introduced into the rpertoire of “The Seven Waz¡rs.” I translate the W. M. version of the tale because it is the most primitive known to me; and I shall point out the portions where it lacks finish.

[FN#355] This title does not appear till p. 463 (vol. v.) of the MS., and it re-appears in vol. vi. 8.

[FN#356] i.e. in her haste: the text has “Kharrat.” The Persians who rhetorically exaggerate everything say “rising and sinking like the dust of the road.” [I doubt whether “Kharrat” could have the meaning given to it in the translation. The word in the MS. has no Tashd¡d and I think the careless scribe meant it for “Kharajat,” she went out.–ST.]

[FN#357] I read “N s malmum¡n=assembled men, a crowd of people.”- -ST.]

[FN#358] “Rajul Khw j :” see vol. vi. 46, etc. For “Sh hbandar”=king of the port, a harbourmaster, whose post I have compared with our “Consul,” see vol. iv. 29. It is often, however, applied to Government officials who superintend trade and levy duties at inland marts.

[FN#359] Arab. “Khim r,” a veil or rather a covering for the back of the head. This was the especial whorishness with which Shahrazad taxes the Goodwife: she had been too prodigal of her charms, for the occiput and the “back hair” should not be displayed even to the moon.

[FN#360] These four become five in the more finished tale–the King, the Wazir, the Kazi, the Wali or Chief of Police and the Carpenter. Moreover each one is dressed in different costume, gowns yellow, blue, red and patched with headgear equally absurd.

[FN#361] In text “Turt£r”=the Badawi’s bonnet: vol. ii. 143. Mr. Doughty (i. 160) found at Al-Khuraybah the figure of an ancient Arab wearing a close tunic to the knee and bearing on poll a coif. At Al-‘Ula he was shown an ancient image of a man’s head cut in sandstone: upon the crown was a low pointed bonnet. “Long caps” are also noticed in i. 562; and we are told that they were “worn in outlandish guise in Arabia.”

[FN#362] In text “Emb rah” (pron. ‘M rah); pop. for Al-b rihah=the last part of the preceding day or night, yesterday. The vulgar Egyptian uses it as if it were a corruption of the Pers. “in b r”=this time. The Arab Badawin pronounce it El-beyrih (with their exaggerated “Im lah”) and use it not only for “yesterday,” but also for the past afternoon.

[FN#363] This device is far inferior in comic effect to the carpenter’s press or cabinet of five compartments, and it lacks the ludicrous catastrophe in which all the lovers make water upon one another’s heads.

[FN#364] Scott (vi. 386) “The Cauzee’s story:” Gauttier (vi. 406) does not translate it.

[FN#365] In the text the message is delivered verbatim: this iteration is well fitted for oral work, with its changes of tone and play of face, and varied “gag”; but it is most annoying for the more critical reader.

[FN#366] Arab. “Lukmah”=a balled mouthful: vols. i. 261, vii. 367.

[FN#367] The “Mift h” (prop. “Miftah”) or key used throughout the Moslem East is a bit of wood, 7 14 inches long, and provided with 4 10 small iron pins which correspond with an equal number of holes in the “Dabbah” or wooden bolt. If one of these teeth be withdrawn the lock will not open. Lane (M.E. Introduction) has a sketch of the “Miftah” and “Dabbah.”

[FN#368] In text “Ayoh” which is here, I hold, a corruption of “I (or Ayy) h£”=”yes indeed he.” [I take “aywah” (as I would read the word) to be a different spelling for “aywa”=yes indeed, which according to Spitta Bey, Gr. p. 168 is a contraction of “Ay (I) wa’ll hi,” yes by Allah. “What? thy lover?” asks the husband, and she emphatically affirms the fact, to frighten the concealed tailor–ST.]

[FN#369] In the Arab. “Al-Ashkhakh,” plur. of “Shakhkh” and literally “the stales” meaning either dejection. [I read: “bi ‘l-Shakh kh,” the usual modern word for urine. “‘Alayya Shakh kh” is: I want to make water. See Dozy Suppl. s.v.-ST.]

[FN#370] In text “Ah£ ma’¡”–pure Fellah speech.

[FN#371] In the Arab. “laklaka-h “–an onomatopoeia.

[FN#372] In text “Il an yas¡r Karmu-hu.” Karm originally means cutting a slip of skin from the camel’s nose by way of mark, in lieu of the normal branding.

[FN#373] In text “Yazghaz-h f¡ shikkati-ha,” the verb being probably a clerical error for “Yazaghzagh,” from “Zaghzagha,”=he opened a skin bag.

[FN#374] This is the far-famed balcony-scene in “Fanny” (of Ernest Feydeau translated into English and printed by Vizetelly and Co.) that phenomenal specimen of morbid and unmasculine French (or rather Parisian) sentiment, which contrasts so powerfully with the healthy and manly tone of The Nights. Here also the story conveys a moral lesson and, contrary to custom, the husband has the best of the affair. To prove that my judgment is not too severe, let me quote the following passages from a well-known and popular French novelist, translated by an English littrateur and published by a respectable London firm.

In “A Ladies’ Man:” by Guy de Maupassant, we read:–

Page 62.–And the conversation, descending from elevated theories concerning love, strayed into the flowery garden of polished blackguardism. It was the moment of clever, double meanings; veils raised by words, as petticoats are lifted by the wind; tricks of language, cleverly disguised audacities; sentences which reveal nude images in covered phrases, which cause the vision of all that may not be said to flit rapidly before the eyes of the mind, and allow well-bred people the enjoyment of a kind of subtle and mysterious love, a species of impure mental contact, due to the simultaneous evocations of secret, shameful and longed-for pleasures.

Page 166.–George and Madeleine amused themselves with watching all these couples, the woman in summer toilette and the man darkly outlined beside her. It was a huge flood of lovers flowing towards the Bois, beneath the starry and heated sky. No sound was heard save the dull rumble of wheels. They kept passing by, two by two in each vehicle, leaning back on the seat, clasped one against the other, lost in dreams of desire, quivering with the anticipation of coming caresses. The warm shadow seemed full of kisses. A sense of spreading lust rendered the air heavier and more suffocating. All the couples, intoxicated with the same idea, the same ardour, shed a fever about them.

Page 187–As soon as she was alone with George, she clasped him in her arms, exclaiming: “Oh! my darling Pretty-boy, I love you more and more every day.”

The cab conveying them rocked like a ship.

“It is not so nice as our own room,” said she.

He answered; “Oh, no.” But he was thinking of Madame Waller.

Page 198.–He kissed her neck, her eyes, her lips with eagerness, without her being able to avoid his furious caresses, and whilst repulsing him, whilst shrinking from his mouth, she, despite herself, returned his kisses. All at once she ceased to struggle, and, vanquished, resigned, allowed him to undress her. One by one he neatly and rapidly stripped off the different articles of clothing with the light fingers of a lady’s maid. She had snatched her bodice from his hands to hide her face in it, and remained standing amidst the garments fallen at her feet. He seized her in his arms and bore her towards the couch. Then she murmured in his ear in a broken voice, “I swear to you, I swear to you, that I have never had a lover.”

And he thought, “That is all the same to me.”

[FN#375] In text “Ant’ amilta maskhar (for maskharah) matah (for mat),” idiomatical Fellah-tongue.

[FN#376] Scott (Appendix vol. vi. 460) simply called this tale “The Syrian.” In M. Clouston’s “Book of Noodles” (pp. 193 194) we find a man who is searching for three greater simpletons than his wife, calling himself “Saw ye ever my like?” It is quoted from Campbell’s “Popular Tales of the West Highlands” (ii. 385 387), but it lacks the canopic wit of the Arabo-Egyptian. I may note anent the anecdote of the Gabies (p. 201), who proposed, in order to make the tall bride on horseback enter the low village-gate, either to cut off her head or the legs of her steed, that precisely the same tale is told by the biting wits of Damascus concerning the boobies of Halb£n. “Halb £n,” as these villagers call their ancient hamlet, is justly supposed to be the Helbon whose wine is mentioned by Ezekiel in the traffic of Damascus, although others less reasonably identify it with Halab=Aleppo.

[FN#377] In text “La’bat Shaw ribu-hu”=lit. his mustachios played.

[FN#378] For the “Wak lah,” or caravanserai, see vol. i. 266.

[FN#379] In text “Kab£t,” plur. Kab b¡t:

Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, In his snowy camise and his shaggy capote? “Childe Harold,” Canto II.

And here I cannot but notice the pitiful contrast (on the centenary of the poet’s nativity, Jan. 22nd, ’88) between the land of his birth and that of his death. The gallant Greeks honoured his memory with wreaths and panegyrics and laudatory articles, declaring that they will never forget the anniversaries of his nativity and his decease. The British Pharisee and Philistine, true to his miserable creed, ignored all the “real Lord Byron”–his generosity, his devotion to his friends, his boundless charity, and his enthusiasm for humanity. They exhaled their venom by carping at Byron’s poetry (which was and is to Europe a greater boon than Shakespeare’s), by condemning his morality (in its dirty sexual sense) and in prophesying for him speedy oblivion. Have these men no shame in presence of the noble panegyric dedicated by the Prince of German poets, Goethe, to his brother bard whom he welcomed as a prophet? Can they not blush before Heine (the great German of the future), before Flaubert, Alfred de Musset, Lamartine, Leopardi and a host of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese notables? Whilst England will not forgive Byron for having separated from his unsympathetic wife, the Literary society of Moscow celebrated his centenary with all honour; and Prof. Nicholas Storojenko delivered a speech which has found an echo

further west
Than his sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”

He rightly remarked that Byron’s deadly sin in the eyes of the Georgian-English people was his Cosmopolitanism. He was the poetical representative of the Sturm und Drang period of
the xixth century. He reflected, in his life and works, the wrath of noble minds at the collapse of the cause of freedom and the reactionary tendency of the century. Even in the distant regions of Monte Video Byron’s hundredth birthday was not forgotten, and Don Luis Desteffanio’s lecture was welcomed by literary society.

[FN#380] He cried out thinking of the mystical meaning of such name. So {Greek}, would mean in Suf¡ language–Learn from thyself what is thy Lord;–corresponding after a manner with the Christian “looking up through Nature to Nature’s God.”

[FN#381] The phrase prob. means so drunk that his circulation had apparently stopped.

[FN#382] This is the article usually worn by the professional buffoon. The cap of the “Sutar¡” or jester of the Arnaut (Albanian) regiments–who is one of their professional braves–is usually a felt cone garnished with foxes’ brushes.

[FN#383] In Arab. “Sabbal alayhim (for Alayhinna, the usual masc. pro fem.) Al-Satt r”=lit. the Veiler let down a curtain upon them.

[FN#384] The barber being a surgeon and ever ready to bleed a madman.

[FN#385] i.e. Can play off equally well the soft-brained and the hard-headed.

[FN#386] i.e. a deputy (governor, etc.); in old days the governor of Constantinople; in these times a lieutenant-colonel, etc.

[FN#387] Which, as has been said, is the cab of Modern Egypt, like the gondola and the caique. The heroine of the tale is a Nilotic version of “Aurora Floyd.”

[FN#388] In text “Rafaka” and infr (p. 11) “Zafaka.”

[FN#389] [In text “Misla ‘l-Kal m,” which I venture to suggest is another clerical blunder for: “misla ‘l-Kil b”=as the dogs do.– ST.]

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights Volume 4 by Richard F. BurtonWith Notes Anthropological And Explanatory (page 8)