Quoth the Wazir's daughter to her, "What aileth thee, O Princess, to be thus straitened in breast and sorrowful of thought?" Whereupon Miriam recalled the greatness of the delights that were past and recited these two couplets,

"I will bear in patience estrangement of friend * And on cheeks rail tears that like torrents wend: Haply Allah will solace my sorrow, for He * Neath the ribs of unease maketh ease at end."

Said the Wazir's daughter, "O Princess, let not thy breast be straitened, but come with me straightway to the lattice; for there is with us in the stable[FN#556] a comely young man, slender of shape and sweet of speech, and meseemeth he is a parted lover." Miriam asked, "And by what sign knowest thou that he is a parted lover?"; and she answered, "O Queen, I know it by his improvising odes and verses all watches of the night and tides of the day." Quoth the Princess in herself, "If what the Wazir's daughter says be true, these are assuredly the traits of the baffled, the wretched Ali Nur al-Din. Would I knew if indeed he be the youth of whom she speaketh." At this thought, love-longing and distraction of passion redoubled on her and she rose at once and walking with the maiden to the lattice, looked down upon the stables, where she saw her love and lord Nur al-Din and fixing her eyes steadfastly upon him, knew him with the bestest knowledge of love, albeit he was sick, of the greatness of his affection for her and of the fire of passion, and the anguish of separation and yearning and distraction. Sore upon him was emaciation and he was improvising and saying,

"My heart is a thrall; my tears ne'er abate * And their rains the railing of clouds amate; 'Twixt my weeping and watching and wanting love; * And whining and pining for dearest mate. Ah my burning heat, my desire, my lowe! * For the plagues that torture my heart are eight; And five upon five are in suite of them; * So stand and listen to all I state: Mem'ry, madding thoughts, moaning languishment, * Stress of longing love, plight disconsolate; In travail, affliction and strangerhood, * And annoy and joy when on her I wait. Fail me patience and stay for engrossing care * And sorrows my suffering soul regrate. On my heart the possession of passion grows * O who ask of what fire in my heart's create, Why my tears in vitals should kindle flame, * Burning heart with ardours insatiate, Know, I'm drowned in Deluge[FN#557] of tears and my soul * From Laza-lowe fares to Hawiyah-goal."[FN#558]

When the Princess Miriam beheld Nur al-Din and heard his loquence and verse and speech, she made certain that it was indeed her lord Nur al-Din; but she concealed her case from the Wazir's daughter and said to her, "By the virtue of the Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, I thought not thou knewest of my sadness!" Then she arose forthright and withdrawing from the window, returned to her own place, whilst the Wazir's daughter went to her own occupations. The Princess awaited patiently awhile, then returned to the window and sat there, gazing upon her beloved Nur al-Din and delighting her eyes with his beauty and inner and outer grace. And indeed, she saw that he was like unto moon at full on fourteenth night; but he was ever sighing with tears never drying, for that he recalled whatso he had been abying. So he recited these couplets,

"I hope for Union with my love which I may ne'er obtain * At all, but bitterness of life is all the gain I gain: My tears are likest to the main for ebb and flow of tide; * But when I meet the blamer-wight to staunch my tears I'm fain. Woe to the wretch who garred us part by spelling of his spells;[FN#559] * Could I but hend his tongue in hand I'd cut his tongue in twain: Yet will I never blame the days for whatso deed they did * Mingling with merest, purest gall the cup they made me drain! To whom shall I address myself; and whom but you shall seek * A heart left hostage in your Court, by you a captive ta'en? Who shall avenge my wrongs on you,[FN#560] tyrant despotical * Whose tyranny but grows the more, the more I dare complain? I made him regnant of my soul that he the reign assain * But me he wasted wasting too the soul I gave to reign. Ho thou, the Fawn, whom I so lief erst gathered to my breast * Enow of severance tasted I to own its might and main, Thou'rt he whose favours joined in one all beauties known to man, * Yet I thereon have wasted all my Patience' fair domain. I entertained him in my heart whereto he brought unrest * But I am satisfied that I such guest could entertain. My tears for ever flow and flood, likest the surging sea * And would I wot the track to take that I thereto attain. Yet sore I fear that I shall die in depths of my chagrin * And must despair for evermore to win the wish I'd win."

When Miriam heard the verses of Nur al-Din the loving-hearted, the parted; they kindled in her vitals a fire of desire, and while her eyes ran over with tears, she recited these two couplets,

"I longed for him I love; but, when we met, * I was amazed nor tongue nor eyes I found. I had got ready volumes of reproach; * But when we met, could syllable no sound."

When Nur al-Din heard the voice of Princess Miriam, he knew it and wept bitter tears, saying, "By Allah, this is the chanting of the Lady Miriam."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.



End of Volume 8.



Arabian Nights, Volume 8 Footnotes



[FN#1] Ironice; we are safe as long as we are defended by such a brave.

[FN#2] Blue, azure. This is hardly the place for a protest, but I must not neglect the opportunity of cautioning my readers against rendering Bahr al-Azrak ("Blue River") by "Blue Nile." No Arab ever knew it by that name or thereby equalled it with the White Nile. The term was a pure invention of Abyssinian Bruce who was well aware of the unfact he was propagating, but his inordinate vanity and self-esteem, contrasting so curiously with many noble qualities, especially courage and self-reliance, tempted him to this and many other a traveller's tale.

[FN#3] This is orthodox Moslem doctrine and it does something for the dignity of human nature which has been so unwisely depreciated and degraded by Christianity. The contrast of Moslem dignity and Christian abasement in the East is patent to every unblind traveller.

[FN#4] Here ends vol. iii. of the Mac. Edit.

[FN#5] This famous tale is a sister prose-poem to the "Arabian Odyssey" Sindbad the Seaman; only the Bassorite's travels are in Jinn-land and Japan. It has points of resemblance in "fundamental outline" with the Persian Romance of the Fairy Hasan Bn and King Bahrm-i-Gr. See also the Kath (s.s.) and the two sons of the Asra My; the Tartar "Sidhi Kr" (Tales of a Vampire or Enchanted Corpse) translated by Mr. W. J. Thoms (the Father of "Folk-lore" in 1846,) in "Lays and Legends of various Nations"; the Persian Bahr-i-Dnish (Prime of Lore). Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales"; Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days" and Mrs. F. A. Steel's "Tale of the King and his Seven Sons," with notes by Lieutenant (now Captain) R. C. Temple (Folk-lore of the Panjab, Indian Antiquary of March, 1882).

[FN#6] In the Mac. Edit. (vol. iv. i.) the merchant has two sons who became one a brazier ("dealer in copper-wares" says Lane iii. 385) and the other a goldsmith. The Bresl. Edit. (v. 264) mentions only one son, Hasan, the hero of the story which is entitled, "Tale of Hasan al-Basri and the Isles of Wk Wk."

[FN#7] Arab. "Shsh Abyaz:" this distinctive sign of the True Believer was adopted by the Persian to conceal his being a fire-worshipper, Magian or "Guebre." The latter word was introduced from the French by Lord Byron and it is certainly far superior to Moore's "Gheber."

[FN#8] Persians being always a suspected folk.

[FN#9] Arab. "Al-Bdikah" afterwards used (Night dcclxxix) in the sense of crucible or melting-pot, in modern parlance a pipe-bowl; and also written "Btakah," an Arab distortion of the Persian "Btah."

[FN#10] Arab. "Sindn" or "Sindiyn" (Dozy). "Sandn," anvil; "Sindn," big, strong (Steingass).

[FN#11] Arab. "Kimiya," (see vol. i. 305) properly the substance which transmutes metals, the "philosopher's stone" which, by the by, is not a stone; and comes from {Greek letters}, a fluid, a wet drug, as opposed to Iksir (Al-) {Greek letters} a dry drug. Those who care to see how it is still studied will consult my History of Sindh (chapt. vii) and my experience which pointed only to the use made of it in base coinage. Hence in mod. tongue Kimiywi, an alchemist, means a coiner, a smasher. The reader must not suppose that the transmutation of metals is a dead study: I calculate that there are about one hundred workers in London alone.

[FN#12] Arab. "Al-Kir," a bellows also = Kr, a furnace. For the full meaning of this sentence, see my "Book of the Sword," p. 119.

[FN#13] Lit. "bade him lean upon it with the shears" (Al-Kz).

[FN#14] There are many kinds of Kohls (Hindos. Surm and Kajjal) used in medicine and magic. See Herklots, p. 227.

[FN#15] Arab. "Sabikah" = bar, lamina, from "Sabk" = melting, smelting: the lump in the crucible would be hammered out into an ingot in order to conceal the operation

[FN#16] i.e. 375.

[FN#17] Such report has cost many a life: the suspicion was and is still deadly as heresy in a "new Christian" under the Inquisition.

[FN#18] Here there is a double entendre: openly it means, "Few men recognise as they should the bond of bread and salt:" the other sense would be (and that accounts for the smile), "What the deuce do I care for the bond?"

[FN#19] Arab. "Kabbt" in the Bresl. Edit. "Ka'abn ": Lane (iii. 519) reads "Ka'b plur. of Ka'ab a cup."

[FN#20] A most palpable sneer. But Hasan is purposely represented as a "softy" till aroused and energized by the magic of Love.

[FN#21] Arab. "Al-iksir" (see Night dcclxxix, supra p. 9): the Greek word which has returned from a trip to Arabia and reappeared in Europe as "Elixir."

[FN#22] "Awk" plur. of "Ukiyah," the well-known "oke," or "ocque," a weight varying from 1 to 2 lbs. In Morocco it is pronounced "Wukiyah," and = the Spanish ounce (p. 279 Rudimentos del Arabe Vulgar, etc., by Fr. Jos de Lorchundi, Madrid, Rivadencyra, 1872).

[FN#23] These lines have occurred in vol. iv. 267, where references to other places are given. I quote Lane by way of variety. In the text they are supposed to have been written by the Persian, a hint that Hasan would never be seen again.

[FN#24] i.e. a superfetation of iniquity.

[FN#25] Arab. "Kurbn" = offering, oblation to be brought to the priest's house or to the altar of the tribal God Yahveh, Jehovah (Levit. ii, 2-3 etc.). Amongst the Maronites Kurban is the host (-wafer) and amongst the Turks 'Id al-Kurban (sacrifice-feast) is the Greater Bayram, the time of Pilgrimage.

[FN#26] Nr = fire, being feminine, like the names of the other "elements."

[FN#27] The Egyptian Kurbj of hippopotamus-hide (Burkh. Nubia, pp. 62,282) or elephant-hide (Turner ii. 365). Hence the Fr. Cravache (as Cravat is from Croat).

[FN#28] In Mac. Edit. "Bahriyah": in Bresl. Edit. "Nawtiyah." See vol. vi. 242, for , navita, nauta.

[FN#29] In Bresl. Edit. (iv. 285) "Y Khwjah," for which see vol. vi. 46.

[FN#30] Arab. "Tabl" (vulg. baz) = a kettle-drum about half a foot broad held in the left hand and beaten with a stick or leathern thong. Lane refers to his description (M.E. ii. chapt. v.) of the Dervish's drum of tinned copper with parchment face, and renders Zakhmah or Zukhmah (strap, stirrup-leather) by "plectrum," which gives a wrong idea. The Bresl. Edit. ignores the strap.

[FN#31] The "Spartivento" of Italy, mostly a tall headland which divides the clouds. The most remarkable feature of the kind is the Dalmatian Island, Pelagosa.

[FN#32] The "Rocs" (Al-Arkhkh) in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 290). The Rakham = aquiline vulture.

[FN#33] Lane here quotes a similar incident in the romance "Sayf Z al-Yazan," so called from the hero, whose son, Misr, is sewn up in a camel's hide by Bahrm, a treacherous Magian, and is carried by the Rukhs to a mountain-top.

[FN#34] These lines occurred in Night xxvi. vol. i. 275: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#35] Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.

[FN#36] i.e. If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt charge me therewith on the Judgment-day.

[FN#37] Arab. "Al-Alwn," plur. of laun (colour). The latter in Egyptian Arabic means a "dish of meat." See Burckhardt No. 279. I repeat that the great traveller's "Arabic Proverbs" wants republishing for two reasons. First he had not sufficient command of English to translate with the necessary laconism and assonance: secondly in his day British Philistinism was too rampant to permit a literal translation. Consequently the book falls short of what the Oriental student requires; and I have prepared it for my friend Mr. Quaritch.

[FN#38] i.e. Lofty, high-builded. See Night dcclxviii. vol. vii. p. 347. In the Bresl. Edit. Al-Masid (as in Al-Kazwini): in the Mac. Edit. Al-Mashid

[FN#39] Arab. "Munkati" here = cut off from the rest of the world. Applied to a man, and a popular term of abuse in Al-Hijz, it means one cut off from the blessings of Allah and the benefits of mankind; a pauvre sire. (Pilgrimage ii. 22.)

[FN#40] Arab. "Baras au Juzm," the two common forms of leprosy. See vol. iv. 51. Popular superstition in Syria holds that coition during the menses breeds the Juzm, Da al-Kabir (Great Evil) or Da al-Fil (Elephantine Evil), i.e. Elephantiasis and that the days between the beginning of the flow (Sabil) to that of coition shows the age when the progeny will be attacked; for instance if it take place on the first day, the disease will appear in the tenth year, on the fourth the fortieth and so on. The only diseases really dreaded by the Badawin are leprosy and small-pox. Coition during the menses is forbidden by all Eastern faiths under the severest penalties. Al-Mas'di relates how a man thus begotten became a determined enemy of Ali; and the ancient Jews attributed the magical powers of Joshua Nazarenus to this accident of his birth, the popular idea being that sorcerers are thus impurely engendered.

[FN#41] By adoption - See vol. iii. 151. This sudden affection (not love) suggests the "Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance!" of the Anti-Jacobin. But it is true to Eastern nature; and nothing can be more charming than this fast friendship between the Princess and Hasan.

[FN#42] En tout bien et en tout honneur, be it understood.

[FN#43] He had done nothing of the kind; but the feminine mind is prone to exaggeration. Also Hasan had told them a fib, to prejudice them against the Persian.

[FN#44] These nervous movements have been reduced to a system in the Turk. "Ihtiljnmeh" = Book of palpitations, prognosticating from the subsultus tendinum and other involuntary movements of the body from head to foot; according to Ja'afar the Just, Daniel the Prophet, Alexander the Great; the Sages of Persia and the Wise Men of Greece. In England we attend chiefly to the eye and ear.

[FN#45] Revenge, amongst the Arabs, is a sacred duty; and, in their state of civilization, society could not be kept together without it. So the slaughter of a villain is held to be a sacrifice to Allah, who amongst Christians claims for Himself the monopoly of vengeance.

[FN#46] Arab. "Zindik." See vol. v. 230.

[FN#47] Lane translates this "put for him the remaining food and water;" but Ai-Akhar (Mac. Edit.) evidently refers to the Najib (dromedary).

[FN#48] We can hardly see the heroism of the deed, but it must be remembered that Bahram was a wicked sorcerer, whom it was every good Moslem's bounden duty to slay. Compare the treatment of witches in England two centuries ago.

[FN#49] The mother in Arab tales is ma mre, now becoming somewhat ridiculous in France on account of the over use of that venerable personage.

[FN#50] The forbidden closet occurs also in Sayf Z al-Yazan, who enters it and finds the bird-girls. Trbutien ii, 208 says, "Il est assez remarquable qu'il existe en Allemagne une tradition peu prs semblable, et qui a fourni le sujet d'un des contes de Musaeus, entitul, le voile enlev." Here Hasan is artfully left alone in a large palace without other companions but his thoughts and the reader is left to divine the train of ideas which drove him to open the door.

[FN#51] Arab. "Buhayrah" (Bresl. Edit. "Bahrah"), the tank or cistern in the Hosh (court-yard) of an Eastern house. Here, however, it is a rain-cistern on the flat roof of the palace (See Night dcccviii).

[FN#52] This description of the view is one of the most gorgeous in The Nights.

[FN#53] Here again are the "Swan-maidens" (See vol. v. 346) "one of the primitive myths, the common heritage of the whole Aryan (Iranian) race." In Persia Bahram-i-Gr when carried off by the Div Sapid seizes the Peri's dove-coat: in Santhli folk-lore Torica, the Goatherd, steals the garment doffed by one of the daughters of the sun; and hence the twelve birds of Russian Story. To the same cycle belong the Seal-tales of the Faroe Islands (Thorpe's Northern Mythology) and the wise women or mermaids of Shetland (Hibbert). Wayland the smith captures a wife by seizing a mermaid's raiment and so did Sir Hagn by annexing the wardrobe of a Danubian water-nymph. Lettsom, the translator, mixes up this swan-raiment with that of the Valkyries or Choosers of the Slain. In real life stealing women's clothes is an old trick and has often induced them, after having been seen naked, to offer their persons spontaneously. Of this I knew two cases in India, where the theft is justified by divine example. The blue god Krishna, a barbarous and grotesque Hindu Apollo, robbed the raiment of the pretty Goplis (cowherdesses) who were bathing in the Arjun River and carried them to the top of a Kunduna tree; nor would he restore them till he had reviewed the naked girls and taken one of them to wife. See also Imr al-Kays (of the Mu'allakah) with "Onaiza" at the port of Daratjuljul (Clouston's Arabian Poetry, p.4). A critic has complained of my tracing the origin of the Swan-maiden legend to the physical resemblance between the bird and a high-bred girl (vol. v. 346). I should have explained my theory which is shortly, that we must seek a material basis for all so-called supernaturalisms, and that anthropomorphism satisfactorily explains the Swan-maiden, as it does the angel and the devil. There is much to say on the subject; but this is not the place for long discussion.

[FN#54] Arab. "Nafs Ammrah," corresponding with our canting term "The Flesh." Nafs al-Ntikah is the intellectual soul or function; Nafs al-Ghazabiyah = the animal function and Nafs al Shahwniyah = the vegetative property.

[FN#55] The lines occur in vol. ii. 331: I have quoted Mr. Payne. Here they are singularly out of place.

[FN#56] Not the "green gown" of Anglo-India i.e. a white ball-dress with blades of grass sticking to it in consequence of a "fall backwards."

[FN#57] These lines occur in vol. i. 219: I have borrowed from Torrens (p. 219).

[FN#58] The appearance of which ends the fast and begins the Lesser Festival. See vol. i. 84.

[FN#59] See note, vol. i. 84, for notices of the large navel; much appreciated by Easterns.

[FN#60] Arab. "Sh'ir Al-Walahn" = the love-distraught poet; Lane has "a distracted poet." My learned friend Professor Aloys Sprenger has consulted, upon the subject of Al-Walahn the well-known Professor of Arabic at Halle, Dr. Thorbeck, who remarks that the word (here as further on) must be an adjective, mad, love-distraught, not a "lakab" or poetical cognomen. He generally finds it written Al-Sh'ir al-Walahn (the love-demented poet) not Al-Walahn al-Sh'ir = Walahn the Poet. Note this burst of song after the sweet youth falls in love: it explains the cause of verse-quotation in The Nights, poetry being the natural language of love and battle.

[FN#61] "Them" as usual for "her."

[FN#62] Here Lane proposes a transposition, for "Wa-huw (and he) fi'l-hubbi," to read "Fi 'l-hubbi wa huwa (wa-hwa);" but the latter is given in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#63] For the pun in "Sabr"=aloe or patience. See vol. i. 138. In Herr Landberg (i. 93) we find a misunderstanding of the couplet—

"Aw'kibu s-sabri (Kla ba'azuhum) Mahmdah: Kultu, 'khshi an takhirrini.'"

"The effects of patience" (or aloes) quoth one "are praiseworthy!" Quoth I, "Much I fear lest it make me stool." Mahmdah is not only un laxatif, but a slang name for a confection of aloes.

[FN#64] Arab. "Akna fid-ka." Fid = ransom, self-sacrifice and Fid'an = instead of. The phrase, which everywhere occurs in The Nights, means, "I would give my life to save thine "

[FN#65] Thus accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in prescribing a fib.

[FN#66] i.e. the 25,000 Amazons who in the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 308) are all made to be the King's Bant" = daughters or protges. The Amazons of Dahome (see my "Mission") who may now number 5,000 are all officially wives of the King and are called by the lieges "our mothers."

[FN#67] The tale-teller has made up his mind about the damsel; although in this part of the story she is the chief and eldest sister and subsequently she appears as the youngest daughter of the supreme Jinn King. The mystification is artfully explained by the extraordinary likeness of the two sisters. (See Night dcccxi.)

[FN#68] This is a reminiscence of the old-fashioned "marriage by capture," of which many traces survive, even among the civilised who wholly ignore their origin.

[FN#69] Meaning her companions and suite.

[FN#70] Arab. "'Abah" vulg. "'Abyah." See vol. ii. 133.

[FN#71] Feet in the East lack that development of sebaceous glands which afflicts Europeans.

[FN#72] i.e. cutting the animals' throats after Moslem law.

[FN#73] In Night dcclxxviii. supra p.5, we find the orthodox Moslem doctrine that "a single mortal is better in Allah's sight than a thousand Jinns." For, I repeat, Al-Islam systematically exalts human nature which Christianity takes infinite trouble to degrade and debase. The results of its ignoble teaching are only too evident in the East: the Christians of the so-called (and miscalled) "Holy Land" are a disgrace to the faith and the idiomatic Persian term for a Nazarene is "Tars" = funker, coward.

[FN#74] Arab. "Sakaba Krah;" the forge in which children are hammered out?

[FN#75] Arab. "M al-Malhat" = water (brilliancy) of beauty.

[FN#76] The fourth of the Seven Heavens, the "Garden of Eternity," made of yellow coral.

[FN#77] How strange this must sound to the Young Woman of London in the nineteenth century.

[FN#78] "Forty days" is a quasi-religious period amongst Moslem for praying, fasting and religious exercises: here it represents our "honey-moon." See vol. v. p. 62.

[FN#79] Y layta, still popular. Herr Carlo Landberg (Proverbes et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol. i. of Syria, Leyden, E. J. Brill, 1883) explains layta for rayta (=raayta) by permutation of liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42). But the Herr is no Arabist: "Layta" means "would to Heaven," or, simply "I wish," "I pray" (for something possible or impossible); whilst "La'alla" (perhaps, it may be) prays only for the possible: and both are simply particles governing the noun in the oblique or accusative case.

[FN#80] "His" for "her," i.e. herself, making somewhat of confusion between her state and that of her son.

[FN#81] i.e. his mother; the words are not in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#82] Baghdad is called House of Peace, amongst other reasons, from the Dijlah (Tigris) River and Valley "of Peace." The word was variously written Baghdd, Bghdd, (our old Bughdaud and Bagdat), Baghzz, Baghzn, Baghdn, Baghzm and Maghdd as Makkah and Bakkah (Koran iii. 90). Religious Moslems held Bgh (idol) and Dd (gift) an ill-omened conjunction, and the Greeks changed it to Eirenopolis. (See Ouseley's Oriental Collcctions, vol. i. pp. 18-20.)

[FN#83] This is a popular saying but hardly a "vulgar proverb." (Lane iii. 522.) It reminds rather of Shakespear's:

"So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly."

[FN#84] i.e. God forbid that I should oppose thee!

[FN#85] Here the writer again forgets apparently, that Shahrazad is speaking: she may, however, use the plural for the singular when speaking of herself.

[FN#86] i.e. She would have pleaded ill-treatment and lawfully demanded to be sold.

[FN#87] The Hindus speak of "the only bond that woman knows—her heart."

[FN#88] i.e. a rarity, a present (especially in Persian).

[FN#89] Arab. "Al-bist" wa'l-masnad lit. the carpet and the cushion.

[FN#90] For "Bb al-bahr" and "Bb al-Barr" see vol. iii. 281.

[FN#91] She was the daughter of Ja'afar bin Mansr; but, as will be seen, The Nights again and again called her father Al-Ksim.

[FN#92] This is an error for the fifth which occurs in the popular saying, "Is he the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbs!" i.e. Harun al-Rashid. Lane (note, in loco) thus accounts for the frequent mention of the Caliph, the greatest of the Abbasides in The Nights. But this is a causa non causa.

[FN#93] i.e. I find thy beauty all-sufficient. So the proverb "The son of the quarter (young neighbour) filleth not the eye," which prefers a stranger.

[FN#94] They are mere doggerel, like most of the pieces de circonstance.

[FN#95] Afterwards called Wk Wk, and in the Bresl. Edit. Wk al-Wk. See Lane's notes upon these Islands. Arab Geographers evidently speak of two Wak Waks. Ibn al-Fakih and Al-Mas'di (Fr. Transl., vol. iii. 6-7) locate one of them in East Africa beyond Zanzibar and Sofala. "Le territoire des Zendjes (Zanzibar-Negroids) commence au canal (Al-Khalij) driv du haut Nil (the Juln River?) et se prolonge jusqu'au pays de Sofalah et des Wak-Wak." It is simply the peninsula of Guardafui (Jard Hafun) occupied by the Gallas, pagans and Christians, before these were ousted by the Moslem Somal; and the former perpetually ejaculated "Wak" (God) as Moslems cry upon Allah. This identification explains a host of other myths such as the Amazons, who as Marco Polo tells us held the "Female Island" Socotra (Yule ii. 396). The fruit which resembled a woman's head (whence the puelloe Wakwakienses hanging by the hair from trees), and which when ripe called out "Wak Wak" and "Allah al-Khallk" (the Creator) refers to the Calabash-tree (Adausonia digitata), that grotesque growth, a vegetable elephant, whose gourds, something larger than a man's head, hang by a slender filament. Similarly the "cocoa" got its name, in Port. = Goblin, from the fancied face at one end. The other Wak Wak has been identified in turns with the Seychelles, Madagascar, Malacca, Sunda or Java (this by Langls), China and Japan. The learned Prof. de Goeje (Arabishe Berichten over Japan, Amsterdam, Muller, 1880) informs us that in Canton the name of Japan is Wo-Kwok, possibly a corruption of Koku-tan, the ebony-tree (Diospyros ebenum) which Ibn Khor-dbah and others find together with gold in an island 4,500 parasangs from Suez and East of China. And we must remember that Basrah was the chief starting-place for the Celestial Empire during the rule of the Tang dynasty (seventh and ninth centuries). Colonel J. W. Watson of Bombay suggests New Guinea or the adjacent islands where the Bird of Paradise is said to cry "Wak Wak!" Mr. W. F. Kirby in the Preface (p. ix.) to his neat little book "The New Arabian Nights," says: "The Islands of Wak-Wak, seven years' journey from Bagdad, in the story of Hasan, have receded to a distance of a hundred and fifty years' journey in that of Majin (of Khorasan). There is no doubt(?) that the Cora Islands, near New Guinea, are intended; for the wonderful fruits which grow there are Birds of Paradise, which settle in flocks on the trees at sunset and sunrise, uttering this very cry." Thus, like Ophir, Wak Wak has wandered all over the world and has been found even in Peru by the Turkish work Trikh al-Hind al-Gharbi = History of the West Indies (Orient. Coll. iii 189).

[FN#96] I accept the emendation of Lane's Shaykh, "Nasim " (Zephyr) for "Nadim " (cup-companion).

[FN#97] "Jannat al-N'im" = Garden of Delights is No. V Heaven, made of white diamond.

[FN#98] This appears to her very prettily put.

[FN#99] This is the "House of Sadness" of our old chivalrous Romances. See chapt. vi. of "Palmerin of England," by Francisco de Moraes (ob. 1572), translated by old Anthony Munday (dateless, 1590?) and "corrected" (read spoiled) by Robert Southey, London, Longmans, 1807.

[FN#100] The lines have occurred in Night clix. (vol. iii. 183), I quote Mr. Payne who, like Lane, prefers "in my bosom" to "beneath my ribs."

[FN#101] In this tale the Bresl. Edit. more than once adds "And let us and you send a blessing to the Lord of Lords" (or to "Mohammed," or to the "Prophet"); and in vol. v. p. 52 has a long prayer. This is an act of contrition in the tale-teller for romancing against the expressed warning of the Founder of Al-Islam.

[FN#102] From Bresl. Edit. (vi. 29): the four in the Mac. Edit. are too irrelevant.

[FN#103] Arab. "Ghayr"—jealous, an admirable epithet which Lane dilutes to "changeable"—making a truism of a metaphor.

[FN#104] These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#105] i.e. One fated to live ten years.

[FN#106] This poetical way of saying "fourteen" suggests Camoens (The Lusiads) Canto v. 2.

[FN#107] Arab. "Surrah," lit. = a purse: a few lines lower down it is called "'Ulbah" = a box which, of course, may have contained the bag.

[FN#108] The month which begins the Moslem year.

[FN#109] As an Arab often does when deep in thought. Lane appositely quotes John viii. 6. "Jonas stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground." Mr. Payne translates, "He fell a-drumming on the earth with his fingers," but this does not complete the sense.

[FN#110] i.e."And the peace of Allah be upon thee! that will end thy story." The Arab formula, "Wa al-Salm" (pron. Wassalm) is used in a variety of senses.

[FN#111] Like Camoens, one of the model lovers, he calls upon Love to torment him still more—ad majorern Dei (amoris) gloriam.

[FN#112] Pron. Aboor-Ruwaysh. "The Father of the little Feather": he is afterwards called "Son of the daughter of the accursed Iblis"; yet, as Lane says, "he appears to be a virtuous person."

[FN#113] Arab. "Kantara al-lijm fi Karbs (bow) sarjih."

[FN#114] I do not translate "beckoned" because the word would give a wrong idea. Our beckoning with the finger moved towards the beckoner makes the so-beckoned Eastern depart in all haste. To call him you must wave the hand from you.

[FN#115] The Arabs knew what large libraries were; and a learned man could not travel without camel-loads of dictionaries.

[FN#116] Arab. "Adim;" now called Bulghr, our Moroccan leather.

[FN#117] Arab. "Zind," which Lane renders by "instruments for striking fire," and Mr. Payne, after the fashion of the translators of Al-Hariri, "flint and steel."

[FN#118] A congener of Hasan and Husayn, little used except in Syria where it is a favourite name for Christians. The Muhit of Butrus Al-Bostni (s.v.) tells us that it also means a bird called Ab Hasan and supplies various Egyptian synonyms. In Mod. Arab. Grammar the form Fa''l is a diminutive as Hammd for Ahmad, 'Ammr for 'Amr. So the fem. form, Fa''lah, e.g. Khaddgah = little Khadijah and Naffsah=little Nafisah; Ar'rah = little clitoris - whereas in Heb. it is an incrementative e.g. dabblah a large dablah (cake or lump of dried figs, etc.).

[FN#119] In the Mac. Edit. "Soldiers of Al-Daylam" i.e. warlike as the Daylamites or Medes. See vol. ii. 94.

[FN#120] Bilkis, it will be remembered, is the Arab. name of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. In Abyssinia she is termed Kebra z negest or z makad, the latter (according to Ferdinand Werne's "African Wanderings," Longmans, 1852) being synonymous with Ityopia or Habash (Ethiopia or Abyssinia).

[FN#121] Arab. "Dakkah," which Lane translates by "settee."

[FN#122] Arab. "Ambar al-Khm" the latter word (raw) being pure Persian.

[FN#123] The author neglects to mention the ugliest part of old-womanhood in the East, long empty breasts like tobacco-pouches. In youth the bosom is beautifully high, arched and rounded, firm as stone to the touch, with the nipples erect and pointing outwards. But after the girl-mother's first child (in Europe le premier embellit) all changes. Nature and bodily power have been overtasked; then comes the long suckling at the mother's expense: the extension of the skin and the enlargement of its vessels are too sudden and rapid for the diminished ability of contraction and the bad food aids in the continual consumption of vitality. Hence, among Eastern women age and ugliness are synonymous. It is only in the highest civilisation that we find the handsome old woman.

[FN#124] The name has occurred in the Knightly tale of King Omar and his sons, Vol. ii. 269. She is here called Mother of Calamities,but in p. 123, Vol. iv. of the Mac. Edit. she becomes "Lady (Zt) al-Dawhi." It will be remembered that the title means calamitous to the foe.

[FN#125] By this address she assured him that she had no design upon his chastity. In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman, no matter how young, with, "Y Ummi!" = O my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to make love to her.

[FN#126] Apparently the Wakites numbered their Islands as the Anglo-Americans do their streets. For this they have been charged with "want of imagination"; but the custom is strictly classical. See at Pompeii "Reg (io) I; Ins (ula) 1, Via Prima, Secunda," etc.

[FN#127] These are the Puell Wakwakienses of whom Ibn Al-Wardi relates after an ocular witness, "Here too is a tree which bears fruits like women who have fair faces and are hung by their hair. They come forth from integuments like large leathern bags (calabash-gourds?) and when they sense air and sun they cry 'Wak! Wak!' (God! God!) till their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the islanders understand this cry wherefrom they augure ill." The Ajib al-Hind (chapt. xv.) places in Wak-land the Samandal, a bird which enters the fire without being burnt evidently the Egyptian "Pi-Benni," which the Greeks metamorphised to "Phoenix." It also mentions a hare-like animal, now male then female, and the Somal behind Cape Guardafui tell the same tale of their Cynhynas.

[FN#128] i.e. I will keep thee as though thou wert the apple of my eye.

[FN#129] A mere exaggeration of the "Gull-fairs" noted by travellers in sundry islands as Ascension and the rock off Brazilian Santos.

[FN#130] Arab. "Kmil wa Basit wa Wfir" = the names of three popular metres, for which see the Terminal Essay.

[FN#131] Arab. "Manshif" = drying towels, Plur. of Minshafah, and the popular term which Dr. Jonathan Swift corrupted to "Munnassaf." Lane (Nights, Introduct. p. ix.).

[FN#132] Arab. "Shafaif" opposed to "Shafah" the mouth-lips.

[FN#133] Fountains of Paradise. This description is a fair instance of how the Saj'a (prose-rhyme) dislocates the order; an Arab begins with hair, forehead, eyebrows and lashes and when he reaches the nose, he slips down to the toes for the sake of the assonance. If the latter be neglected the whole list of charms must be otherwise ordered; and the student will compare Mr. Payne's version of this passage with mine.

[FN#134] A fair specimen of the Arab logogriph derived from the Abjad Alphabet which contains only the Hebrew and Syriac letters not the six Arabic. Thus 4 X 5=20 which represents the Kaf (K) and 6 X 10=60, or Sin (S). The whole word is thus "Kos", the Greek {Greek letters} or {Greek letters}, and the lowest word, in Persian as in Arabic, for the female pudenda, extensively used in vulgar abuse. In my youth we had at the University something of the kind,

To five and five and fifty-five The first of letters add To make a thing to please a King And drive a wise man mad.

Answer VVLVA. Very interesting to the anthropological student is this excursus of Hasan, who after all manner of hardships and horrors and risking his life to recover his wife and children, breaks out into song on the subject of her privities. And it can hardly be tale-teller's gag as both verse and prose show considerable art in composition. (See p. 348.)

Supplementary Note To Hasan of Bassorah.

Note(p.93)—There is something wondrous naive in a lover who, when asked by his mistress to sing a song in her honour, breaks out into versical praises of her parts. But even the classical Arab authors did not disdain such themes. See in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Mayyafarikin) where Abu Zayd laments the impotency of old age in form of a Rasy or funeral oration (Preston p. 484, and Chenery p. 221). It completely deceived Sir William Jones, who inserted it into the chapter "De Poesi Funebri," p. 527 (Poeseos Asiaticae Commentarii), gravely noting, "Haec Elegia non admodum dissimilis esse videtur pulcherrimi illius carminis de Sauli et Jonathani obitu; at que adeo versus iste 'ubi provocant adversarios nunquam rediit a pugnae contentione sine spiculo sanguine imbuto, 'ex Hebraeoreddi videtur,

A sanguine occisorum, a fortium virorum adipe, Arcus Jonathani non rediit irritus."

I need hardly say with Captain Lockett (226) that this "Sabb warrior," this Arabian Achilles, is the celebrated Bonus Deus or Hellespontiacus of the Ancients. The oration runs thus:—

O folk I have a wondrous tale, so rare Much shall it profit hearers wise and ware! I saw in salad-years a potent Brave And sharp of edge and point his warrior glaive; Who entered joust and list with hardiment Fearless of risk, of victory confident, His vigorous onset straitest places oped And easy passage through all narrows groped: He ne'er encountered foe in single fight But came from tilt with spear in blood stained bright; Nor stormed a fortress howso strong and stark— With fenced gates defended deep and dark— When shown his flag without th' auspicious cry "Aidance from Allah and fair victory nigh!" Thus wise full many a night his part he played In strength and youthtide's stately garb arrayed, Dealing to fair young girl delicious joy And no less welcome to the blooming boy. But Time ne'er ceased to stint his wondrous strength (Steadfast and upright as the gallow's length) Until the Nights o'erthrew him by their might And friends contemned him for a feckless wight; Nor was a wizard but who wasted skill Over his case, nor leach could heal his ill. Then he abandoned arms abandoned him Who gave and took salutes so fierce and grim; And now lies prostrate drooping haughty crest; For who lives longest him most ills molest. Then see him, here he lies on bier for bet;— Who will a shroud bestow on stranger dead?

A fair measure of the difference between Eastern and Western manners is afforded by such a theme being treated by their gravest writers and the verses being read and heard by the gravest and most worshipful men, whilst amongst us Preston and Chenery do not dare even to translate them. The latter, indeed, had all that immodest modesty for which English professional society is notable in this xixth century. He spoiled by needlessly excluding from a scientific publication (Mem. R.A.S.) all of my Proverbia Communia Syriaca (see Unexplored Sryia, i. 364) and every item which had a shade of double entendre. But Nemesis frequently found him out: during his short and obscure rule in Printing House Square, The Thunderer was distinguished by two of the foulest indecencies that ever appeared in an English paper.

The well-known Koranic verse, whereby Allah is introduced into an indecent tale and "Holy Writ" is punned upon. I have noticed (iii. 206) that victory Fat'h lit.=opening everything (as e.g. a maidenhead).

[FN#135] Egyptian and Syrian vulgar term for Mawliyah or Mawliyah, a short poem on subjects either classical or vulgar. It generally consists of five lines all rhyming except the penultimate. The metre is a species of the Basit which, however, admits of considerable poetical license; this being according to Lane the usual "Weight,"

—U-/-U-/—U-/—.

The scheme is distinctly anapaestic and Mr. Lyall (Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry) compares with a cognate metre, the Tawil, certain lines in Abt Vogler, e.g.

"Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told."

[FN#136] i.e. repeat the chapter of the Koran termed The Opening, and beginning with these words, "Have we not opened thy breast for thee and eased thee of thy burden which galled thy back? *** Verily with the difficulty cometh ease!"—Koran xciv. vol. 1, 5.

[FN#137] Lane renders Nur al-Hud (Light of Salvation) by Light of Day which would be Nur al-Had.

[FN#138] In the Bresl. Edit. "Y Salm"=O safety!—a vulgar ejaculation.

[FN#139] A favourite idiom meaning from the mischief which may (or will) come from the Queen.

[FN#140] He is not strong-minded but his feminine persistency of purpose, likest to that of a sitting hen, is confirmed by the "Consolations of religion." The character is delicately drawn.

[FN#141] In token that she intended to act like a man.

[FN#142] This is not rare even in real life: Moslem women often hide and change their names for superstitious reasons, from the husband and his family.

[FN#143] Arab. "Sabab" which also means cause. Vol. ii. 14. There is the same metaphorical use of "Habl"= cord and cause.

[FN#144] Arab. "Him," a word often occurring in Arab poetry, domain, a pasture or watered land forcibly kept as far as a dog's bark would sound by some masterful chief like "King Kulayb." (See vol. ii. 77.) This tenure was forbidden by Mohammed except for Allah and the Apostle (i.e. himself). Lane translates it "asylum."

[FN#145] She was a maid and had long been of marriageable age.

[FN#146] The young man had evidently "kissed the Blarney stone"; but the flattery is the more telling as he speaks from the heart.

[FN#147] "Inshallah " here being= D. V.

[FN#148] i.e. The "Place of Light" (Pharos), or of Splendour. Here we find that Hasan's wife is the youngest sister, but with an extraordinary resemblance to the eldest, a very masterful young person. The anagnorisis is admirably well managed.

[FN#149] i.e. the sweetmeats of the feast provided for the returning traveller. The old woman (like others) cannot resist the temptation of a young man's lips. Happily for him she goes so far and no farther.

[FN#150] The first, fourth, fifth and last names have already occurred: the others are in order, Star o' Morn, Sun of Undtirn and Honour of Maidenhood. They are not merely fanciful, but are still used in Egypt and Syria.

[FN#151] Arab. "Fjirah" and elsewhere "Ahirah," =whore and strumpet used often in loose talk as mere abuse without special meaning.

[FN#152] This to Westerns would seem a most improbable detail, but Easterns have their own ideas concerning "Al-Muhabbat al-ghariziyah" =natural affection, blood speaking to blood, etc.

[FN#153] One of the Hells (see vol. iv. 143). Here it may be advisable to give the names of the Seven Heavens (which are evidently based upon Ptolemaic astronomy) and which correspond with the Seven Hells after the fashion of Arabian system-mania. (1) Dar al-Jall (House of Glory) made of pearls; (2) Dr al-Salm (of Rest), rubies and jacinths; (3) Jannat al-Maaw (Garden of Mansions, not "of mirrors," as Herklots has it, p. 98), made of yellow copper; (4) Jannat al-Khuld (of Eternity), yellow coral; (5) Jannat al-Na'im (of Delights), white diamond; (6) Jannat al-Firdaus (of Paradise), red gold; and (7) Jannat al-'Adn (of Eden, or Al-Karr= of everlasting abode, which some make No. 8), of red pearls or pure musk. The seven Hells are given in vol. v. 241; they are intended for Moslems (Jahannam); Christians (Laz); Jews (Hutamah); Sabians (Sa'ir); Guebles (Sakar); Pagans or idolaters (Jahim); and Hypocrites (Hwiyah).

[FN#154] Arab. "'Atb," more literally= "blame," "reproach."

[FN#155] Bresl. Edit. In the Mac. "it returned to the place whence I had brought it"—an inferior reading.

[FN#156] The dreams play an important part in the Romances of Chivalry, e.g. the dream of King Perion in Amadis de Gaul, chapt. ii. (London; Longmans, 1803).

[FN#157] Amongst Moslems bastardy is a sore offence and a love-child is exceedingly rare. The girl is not only carefully guarded but she also guards herself knowing that otherwise she will not find a husband. Hence seduction is all but unknown. The wife is equally well guarded and lacks opportunities hence adultery is found difficult except in books. Of the Ibn (or Walad) Harm (bastard as opposed to the Ibn Hall) the proverb says, "This child is not thine, so the madder he be the more is thy glee!" Yet strange to say public prostitution has never been wholly abolished in Al-Islam. Al-Mas'di tells us that in Arabia were public prostitutes'(Baghy), even before the days of the Apostle, who affected certain quarters as in our day the Tartshah of Alexandria and the Hosh Bardak of Cairo. Here says Herr Carlo Landberg (p. 57, Syrian Proverbs) "Elles parlent une langue toute elle." So pretentious and dogmatic a writer as the author of Proverbes et Dictons de la Province de Syrie, ought surely to have known that the Hosh Bardak is the head-quarters of the Cairene Gypsies. This author, who seems to write in order to learn, reminds me of an acute Oxonian undergraduate of my day who, when advised to take a "coach," became a "coach" himself.

[FN#158] These lines occur in vol. vii. p. 340. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#159] She shows all the semi-maniacal rancour of a good woman, or rather a woman who has not broken the eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out," against an erring sister who has been discovered. In the East also these unco'gid dames have had, and too often have, the power to carry into effect the cruelty and diabolical malignity which in London and Paris must vent itself in scan. mag. and anonymous letters.

[FN#160] These faintings and trances are as common in the Romances of Chivalry e.g. Amadis of Gaul, where they unlace the garments to give more liberty, pour cold water on the face and bathe the temples and pulses with diluted vinegar (for rose water) exactly as they do in The Nights.

[FN#161] So Hafiz, "Bd-i-Sab chu bugzari" etc.

[FN#162] Arab. "Takiyah." See vol. i. 224 and for the Tarn-Kappe vol. iv. p. 176. In the Sinthsana Dwatrinsati (vulgo. Singhsan Battisi), or Thirty-two Tales of a Throne, we find a bag always full of gold, a bottomless purse; earth which rubbed on the forehead overcomes all; a rod which during the first watch of the night furnishes jewelled ornaments; in the second a beautiful girl; in the third invisibility, and in the fourth a deadly foe or death; a flower-garland which renders the possessor invisible and an unfading lotus-flower which produces a diamond every day.

[FN#163] Arab. "Judad," plur. of Jadid, lit.= new coin, ergo applied to those old and obsolete; 10 Judad were= one nusf or half dirham.

[FN#164] Arab. "Raff," a shelf proper, running round the room about 7-7 feet from the ground. During my day it was the fashion in Damascus to range in line along the Raff splendid porcelain bowls brought by the Caravans in olden days from China, whilst on the table were placed French and English specimens of white and gold "china" worth perhaps a franc each.

[FN#165] Lane supposes that the glass and china-ware had fallen upon the divan running round the walls under the Raff and were not broken.

[FN#166] These lines have occurred in Night dclxxxix. vol. vii. p. 119. I quote Lane.

[FN#167] The lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#168] This formula, I repeat, especially distinguishes the Tale of Hasan of Bassorah.

[FN#169] These lines have occurred in vol. 1. 249. I quote Lane.

[FN#170] She speaks to the "Gallery," who would enjoy a loud laugh against Mistress Gadabout. The end of the sentence must speak to the heart of many a widow.

[FN#171] These lines occur in vol. i. 25: so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#172] Arab. "Mushikah;" the more usual term for a Tribade is "Sahikah" from "Sahk" in the sense of rubbing: both also are applied to onanists and masturbators of the gender feminine.

[FN#173] i.e. by way of halter. This jar is like the cask in Auerbach's Keller; and has already been used by witches; Night dlxxxvii. vol. vi. 158.

[FN#174] Here they are ten but afterwards they are reduced to seven: I see no reason for changing the text with Lane and Payne.

[FN#175] Wazir of Solomon. See vol. i. 42; and vol. iii. 97.

[FN#176] Arab. "Ism al-A'azam," the Ineffable Name, a superstition evidently derived from the Talmudic fancies of the Jews concerning their tribal god, Yah or Yahvah.

[FN#177] The tradition is that Mohmmed asked Akf al-Wad'ah "Hast a wife?"; and when answered in the negative, "Then thou appertainest to the brotherhood of Satans! An thou wilt be one of the Christian monks then company therewithal; but an thou be of us, know that it is our custom to marry!"

[FN#178] The old woman, in the East as in the West, being the most vindictive of her kind. I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 70) that a Badawi will sometimes though in shame take the blood-wit; but that if it be offered to an old woman she will dash it to the ground and clutch her knife and fiercely swear by Allah that she will not eat her son's blood.

[FN#179] Neither dome nor fount etc. are mentioned before, the normal inadvertency.

[FN#180] In Eastern travel the rest comes before the eating and drinking.

[FN#181] Arab. "'Id" (pron.'Eed) which I have said (vol. i. 42, 317) is applied to the two great annual festivals, the "Fte of Sacrifice," and the "Break-Fast." The word denotes restoration to favour and Moslems explain as the day on which Adam (and Eve) who had been expelled from Paradise for disobedience was re-established (Uida) by the relenting of Allah. But the name doubtless dates amongst Arabs from days long before they had heard of the "Lord Nomenclator."

[FN#182] Alluding to Hasan seizing her feather dress and so taking her to wife.

[FN#183] Arab. "Kharaj"=they (masc.) went forth, a vulgarism for "Kharajna" (fem.)

[FN#184] Note the notable housewife who, at a moment when youth would forget everything, looks to the main chance.

[FN#185] Arab. "Al-Malakt" (not "Malkt" as in Freytag) a Sufi term for the world of Spirits (De Lacy Christ, Ar. i. 451). Amongst Eastern Christians it is vulgarly used in the fem. and means the Kingdom of Heaven, also the preaching of the Gospel.

[FN#186] This is so rare, even amongst the poorest classes in the East, that it is mentioned with some emphasis.

[FN#187] A beauty among the Egyptians, not the Arabs.

[FN#188] True Fellah—"chaff."

[FN#189] Alluding to the well-known superstition, which has often appeared in The Nights, that the first object seen in the morning, such as a crow, a cripple, or a cyclops determines the fortunes of the day. Notices in Eastern literature are as old as the days of the Hitopadesa; and there is a something instinctive in the idea to a race of early risers. At an hour when the senses are most impressionable the aspect of unpleasant spectacles ahs double effect.

[FN#190] Arab. "Masukah," the stick used for driving cattle, baton gourdin (Dozy). Lane applies the word to a wooden plank used for levelling the ground.

[FN#191] i.e. the words I am about to speak to thee.

[FN#192] Arab. "Sahifah," which may mean "page" (Lane) or "book" (Payne).

[FN#193] Pronounce, "Abussa'adat" = Father of Prosperities: Lane imagines that it came from the Jew's daughter being called "Sa'adat." But the latter is the Jew's wife (Night dcccxxxiii) and the word in the text is plural.

[FN#194] Arab. "Furkh samak" lit. a fish-chick, an Egyptian vulgarism.

[FN#195] Arab. "Al-Rasif"; usually a river-quay, levee, an embankment. Here it refers to the great dyke which distributed the Tigris-water.

[FN#196] Arab. "Dajlah," see vol. i, p 180. It is evidently the origin of the biblical "Hiddekel" "Hid" = fierceness, swiftness.

[FN#197] Arab. "Bayaz" a kind of Silurus (S. Bajad, Forsk.) which Sonnini calls Bayatto, Saksatt and Hebede; also Bogar (Bakar, an ox). The skin is lubricous, the flesh is soft and insipid and the fish often grows to the size of a man. Captain Speke and I found huge specimens in the Tangany ika Lake.

[FN#198] Arab. "Mu'allim," vulg. "M'allim," prop.= teacher, master esp. of a trade, a craft. In Egypt and Syria it is a civil address to a Jew or a Christian, as Hajj is to a Moslem.

[FN#199] Arab. "Gharamah," an exaction, usually on the part of government like a corvee etc. The Europeo-Egyptian term is Avania (Ital.) or Avanie (French).

[FN#200] Arab. "Sayyib-hu" an Egyptian vulgarism found also in Syria. Hence Saibah, a woman who lets herself go (a-whoring) etc. It is syn. with "Dashar," which Dozy believes to be a softening of Jashar; and Jashsh became Dashsh.

[FN#201] The Silurus is generally so called in English on account of its feeler-acting mustachios.

[FN#202] See Night dcccvii, vol. viii. p. 94.

[FN#203] This extraordinary confusion of two distinct religious mythologies cannot be the result of ignorance. Educated Moslems know at least as much as Christians do, on these subjects, but the Rawi or story-teller speaks to the "Gallery." In fact it becomes a mere 'chaff' and The Nights give some neat specimens of our modern linguistic.

[FN#204] See vol. ii. 197. "Al-Siddikah" (fem.) is a title of Ayishah, who, however, does not appear to have deserved it.

[FN#205] The Jew's wife.

[FN#206] Here is a double entendre. The fisherman meant a word or two. The Jew understood the Shibboleth of the Moslem Creed, popularly known as the "Two Words,"—I testify that there is no Ilah (god) but Allah (the God) and I testify that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah. Pronouncing this formula would make the Jew a Moslem. Some writers are surprised to see a Jew ordering a Moslem to be flogged; but the former was rich and the latter was poor. Even during the worst days of Jewish persecutions their money-bags were heavy enough to lighten the greater part, if not the whole of their disabilities. And the Moslem saying is, "The Jew is never your (Moslem or Christian) equal: he must be either above you or below you." This is high, because unintentional praise of the (self-) Chosen People.

[FN#207] He understands the "two words" (Kalmatani) the Moslem's double profession of belief; and Khalifah's reply embodies the popular idea that the number of Moslems (who will be saved) is preordained and that no art of man can add to it or take from it.

[FN#208] Arab. "Mamarr al-Tujjar" (passing-place of the traders) which Lane renders "A chamber within the place through which the traders passed." At the end of the tale (Night dccxlv.) we find him living in a Khan and the Bresl. Edit. (see my terminal note) makes him dwell in a magazine (i.e. ground- floor store-room) of a ruined Khan.

[FN#209] The text is somewhat too concise and the meaning is that the fumes of the Hashish he had eaten ("his mind under the influence of hasheesh," says Lane) suggested to him, etc.

[FN#210] Arab. "Mamrak" either a simple aperture in ceiling or roof for light and air or a more complicated affair of lattice- work and plaster; it is often octagonal and crowned with a little dome. Lane calls it "Memrak," after the debased Cairene pronunciation, and shows its base in his sketch of a Ka'ah (M.E., Introduction).

[FN#211] Arab. "Kamar." This is a practice especially amongst pilgrims. In Hindostan the girdle, usually a waist-shawl, is called Kammar-band our old "Cummerbund." Easterns are too sensible not to protect the pit of the stomach, that great ganglionic centre, against sun, rain and wind, and now our soldiers in India wear flannel-belts on the march.

[FN#212] Arab. "Fa-imma 'alayha wa-imma biha," i.e. whether (luck go) against it or (luck go) with it.

[FN#213] "O vilest of sinners!" alludes to the thief. "A general plunge into worldly pursuits and pleasures announced the end of the pilgrimage-ceremonies. All the devotees were now "whitewashed"—the book of their sins was a tabula rasa: too many of them lost no time in making a new departure down South and in opening a fresh account" (Pilgrimage iii. 365). I have noticed that my servant at Jeddah would carry a bottle of Raki, uncovered by a napkin, through the main streets.

[FN#214] The copper cucurbites in which Solomon imprisoned the rebellious Jinns, often alluded to in The Nights.

[FN#215] i.e. Son of the Chase: it is prob. a corruption of the Persian Kurnas, a pimp, a cuckold, and introduced by way of chaff, intelligible only to a select few "fast" men.

[FN#216] For the name see vol. ii.61, in the Tale of Ghanim bin 'Ayyub where the Caliph's concubine is also drugged by the Lady Aubaydah.

[FN#217] We should say, "What is this?" etc. The lines have occurred before so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#218] Zubaydah, I have said, was the daughter of Ja'afar, son of the Caliph al-Mansur, second Abbaside. The story-teller persistently calls her daughter of Al-Kasim for some reason of his own; and this he will repeat in Night dcccxxxix.

[FN#219] Arab. "Shakhs," a word which has travelled as far as Hindostan.

[FN#220] Arab. "Shamlah" described in dictionaries, as a cloak covering the whole body. For Hizam (girdle) the Bresl. Edit. reads "Hiram" vulg. "Ehram," the waist-cloth, the Pilgrim's attire.

[FN#221] He is described by Al-Siyuti (p. 309) as "very fair, tall handsome and of captivating appearance."

[FN#222] Arab. "Uzn al-Kuffah" lit. "Ear of the basket," which vulgar Egyptians pronounce "Wizn," so "Wajh" (face) becomes "Wishsh" and so forth.

[FN#223] Arab. "Bi-fardayn" = with two baskets, lit. "two singles," but the context shows what is meant. English Frail and French Fraile are from Arab. "Farsalah" a parcel (now esp. of coffee-beans) evidently derived from the low Lat. "Parcella" (Du Cange, Paris, firmin Didot 1845). Compare "ream," vol. v. 109.

[FN#224] Arab. "Satur," a kind of chopper which here would be used for the purpose of splitting and cleaning and scaling the fish.

[FN#225] And, consequently, that the prayer he is about to make will find ready acceptance.

[FN#226] Arab. "Ruh bila Fuzul" (lit. excess, exceeding) still a popular phrase.

[FN#227] i.e. better give the fish than have my head broken.

[FN#228] Said ironice, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.

[FN#229] The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. 274.

[FN#230] This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be admired wherever Arabs are not "frankified."

[FN#231] Arab. "Shibabah;" Lane makes it a kind of reed- flageolet.

[FN#232] These lines occur in vol. i. 76: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#233] The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar and going to church.

[FN#234] Arab. "Ya Shukayr," from Shakar, being red (clay, etc.): Shukar is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim. Form. Lane's Shaykh made it a dim. of "Ashkar" = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former writes, "O Shukeyr." Mr. Payne prefers "O Rosy cheeks."

[FN#235] For "Sandal," see vol. ii. 50. Sandali properly means an Eunuch clean rase, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandal-wood.

[FN#236] Arab. "Ya mumatil," one who retards payment.

[FN#237] Arab. "Kirsh al-Nukhal" = guts of bran, a term too little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a Fallah-grazioso of normal assurance shrewd withal; he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and he uses the first epithet that comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii. for the sudden change in Khalifah.

[FN#238] So the Persian "May your shadow never be less" means, I have said, the shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade, cold water and fresh breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.

[FN#239] When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the Government of Egypt, he was a once imprisoned for arrears of taxes and thus prevented from being troublesome. I am told that matters have improved under English rule, but I "doubt the fact."

[FN#240] This freak is of course not historical. The tale- teller introduces it to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun al-Rashid, and the vulgar would regard it as a right kingly diversion. Westerns only wonder that such things could be.

[FN#241] Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage ii. 248.

[FN#242] First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abu Talib, a brother of Al-Abbas from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.

[FN#243] i.e. I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell me.

[FN#244] Arab. "Nakhuzah Zulayt." The former, from the Persian Nakhoda or ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense "a godless wight," one owning no (na) God (Khuda). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.

[FN#245] Yasamin and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.

[FN#246] Arab. Tamar-hanna, the cheapest of dyes used ever by the poorest classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.

[FN#247] The formula (meaning, "What has he to do here?") is by no means complimentary.

[FN#248] Arab. "Jarrah" (pron. "Garrah") a "jar." See Lane (M.E. chapt. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial notices. The "Jarrah" is of pottery, whereas the "Dist" is a large copper chauldron and the Khalkinah one of lesser size.

[FN#249] i.e. What a bother thou art, etc.

[FN#250] This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of their distinguished men, especially students. A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and after repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an Allamah (doctissimus).

[FN#251] Arab. "Bismillah, Nami!" here it is not a blessing, but a simple invitation, "Now please go to sleep."

[FN#252] The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an illustration of that of "Amasis, the good god and lord of the two lands" (circ. B.C. 1350) in British Museum (p. 41, "The Dwellers on the Nile," by E. A. Wallis Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).

[FN#253] This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of inverted speech—Thou art in luck this time!

[FN#254] Arab. "Marhub" = terrible: Lane reads "Mar'ub" = terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with something terrible.

[FN#255] i.e. in Kut al-Kulub.

[FN#256] Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, i.e. Mohammed.

[FN#257] In the text he tells of the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.: but — "of no avail is a twice-told tale."

[FN#258] Koran xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.

[FN#259] Easterns find it far easier to "get the chill of poverty out of their bones" than Westerns.

[FN#260] Arab. "Dar al-Na'im." Name of one of the seven stages of the Moslem heaven. This style of inscription dates from the days of the hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of Raamses ends with these lines.—

Daily is there a supply of food: Within it gladness doth ever brood * * * * Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc., etc.

[FN#261] Arab. "Ansar" = auxiliaries, the men of Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 130, etc.).

[FN#262] Arab. "Ashab" = the companions of the Prophet who may number 500 (Pilgrimage ii. 81, etc.).

[FN#263] Arab. "Hsilah" prob. a corner of a "Godown" in some Khan or Caravanserai.

[FN#264] Arab. "Funduk" from the Gr. , whence the Italian Fondaco e.g. at Venice the Fondaco de' Turchi.

[FN#265] Arab. "Astr" plur. of Satr: in the Mac. Edit. Str, both (says Dozy) meaning "Couperet" (a hatchet). Habicht translates it "a measure for small fish," which seems to be a shot and a bad shot as the text talks only of means of carrying fish. Nor can we accept Dozy's emendation Astl (plur. of Satl) pails, situlae. In Petermann's Reisen (i. 89) Satr=assiette.

[FN#266] Which made him expect a heavy haul.

[FN#267] Arab. "Urkb" = tendon Achilles in man hough or pastern in beast, etc. It is held to be an incrementative form of 'Akab (heel); as Kur'b of Ka'b (heel) and Khurtm of Khatm (snout).

[FN#268] Arab. "Karmt" and "Zakzk." The former (pronounced Garmt) is one of the many Siluri (S. Carmoth Niloticus) very common and resembling the Shl. It is smooth and scaleless with fleshy lips and soft meat and as it haunts muddy bottoms it was forbidden to the Ancient Egyptians. The Zakzk is the young of the Shl (Synodontis Schal: Seetzen); its plural form Zakzik (pronounced Zigzig) gave a name to the flourishing town which has succeeded to old Bubastis and of which I have treated in "Midian" and "Midian Revisited."

[FN#269] "Y A'awar"O one-eye! i.e.. the virile member. So the vulgar insult "Ya ibn al-aur" (as the vulgar pronounce it) "O son of a yard!" When AlMas'di writes (Fr. Trans. vii. 106), "Udkhul usbu'ak fi aynih," it must not be rendered "Il faut lui faire violence": thrust thy finger into his eye ('Ayn) means "put thy penis up his fundament!" ('Ayn beingDubur). The French remarks, "On en trouverait l'quivalent dans les bas-fonds de notre langue," So in English "pig's eye," "blind eye," etc.

[FN#270] Arab. "Nabbt"=a quarterstaff: see vol. i. 234.

[FN#271] Arab. "Banni," vulg. Benni and in Lane (Lex. Bunni) the Cyprinus Bynni (Forsk.), a fish somewhat larger than a barbel with lustrous silvery scales and delicate flesh, which Sonnini believes may be the "Lepidotes" (smooth-scaled) mentioned by Athenaeus. I may note that the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 332) also affects the Egyptian vulgarism "Farkh-Banni" of the Mac. Edit. (Night dcccxxxii.).

[FN#272] The story-teller forgets that Khalif had neither basket nor knife.

[FN#273] Arab. "Rayhn" which may here mean any scented herb.

[FN#274] In the text "Fard Kalmah," a vulgarism. The Mac. Edit. (Night dcccxxxv.) more aptly says, "Two words" (Kalmatni, vulg. Kalmatayn) the Twofold Testimonies to the Unity of Allah and the Mission of His Messenger.

[FN#275] The lowest Cairene chaff which has no respect for itself or others.

[FN#276] Arab. "Karrat azl h": alluding to the cool skin of healthy men when digesting a very hearty meal.

[FN#277] This is the true Fellah idea. A peasant will go up to his proprietor with the "rint" in gold pieces behind his teeth and undergo an immense amount of flogging before he spits them out. Then he will return to his wife and boast of the number of sticks he has eaten instead of paying at once and his spouse will say, "Verily thou art a man." Europeans know nothing of the Fellah. Napoleon Buonaparte, for political reasons, affected great pity for him and horror of his oppressors, the Beys and Pashas; and this affectation gradually became public opinion. The Fellah must either tyrannise or be tyrannised over; he is never happier than under a strong-handed despotism and he has never been more miserable than under British rule, or rather, misrule. Our attempts to constitutionalise him have made us the laughing-stock of Europe.

[FN#278] The turban is a common substitute for a purse with the lower classes of Egyptians; and an allusion to the still popular practice of turban-snatching will be found in vol. i. p. 259.

[FN#279] Arab. "Slih," a devotee; here, a naked Dervish.

[FN#280] Here Khalif is made a conspicuous figure in Baghdad like Boccaccio's Calandrino and Co. He approaches in type the old Irishman now extinct, destroyed by the reflux action Of Anglo-America (U.S.) upon the miscalled "Emerald Isle." He blunders into doing and saying funny things whose models are the Hibernian "bulls" and acts purely upon the impulse of the moment, never reflecting till (possibly) after all is over.

[FN#281] Arab. "Kayllah," explained in vol. i. 51.

[FN#282] i.e. thy bread lawfully gained. The "Bawwk" (trumpeter) like the "Zammr" (piper of the Mac. Edit.) are discreditable craftsmen, associating with Almahs and loose women and often serving as their panders.

[FN#283] i.e. he was indecently clad. Man's "shame" extends from navel to knees. See vol vi. 30.

[FN#284] Rashid would be=garden-cresses or stones: Rashid the heaven-directed.

[FN#285] Arab. "Uff 'alayka"=fie upon thee! Uff=lit. Sordes Aurium and Tuff (a similar term of disgust)=Sordes unguinum. To the English reader the blows administered to Khalif appear rather hard measure. But a Fellah's back is thoroughly broken to the treatment and he would take ten times as much punishment for a few piastres.

[FN#286] Arab. "Zurayk" dim. of Azrak=blue-eyed. See vol. iii. 104.

[FN#287] Of Baghdad.

[FN#288] Arab. "Hsil," i.e. cell in a Khan for storing goods: elsewhere it is called a Makhzan (magazine) with the same sense.

[FN#289] The Bresl. text (iv. 347) abbreviates, or rather omits; so that in translation details must be supplied to make sense.

[FN#290] Arab. "Kamn," vulgar Egyptian, a contraction from Kama' (as) + anna (since, because). So " Kamn shuwayh"=wait a bit; " Kamn marrah"=once more and "Wa Karmna-ka"=that is why.

[FN#291] i.e. Son of the Eagle: See vol. iv. 177. Here, however, as the text shows it is hawk or falcon. The name is purely fanciful and made mnemonically singular.

[FN#292] The Egyptian Fellah knows nothing of boxing like the Haus man; but he is fond of wrestling after a rude and uncultivated fashion, which would cause shouts of laughter in Cumberland and Cornwall. And there are champions in this line, See vol. iii. 93.

[FN#293] The usual formula. See vol. ii. 5.

[FN#294] As the Fellah still does after drinking a cuplet ("fingn" he calls it) of sugared coffee.

[FN#295] He should have said "white," the mourning colour under the Abbasides.

[FN#296] Anglic, "Fine feathers make fine birds"; and in Eastern parlance, "Clothe the reed and it will become a bride." (Labbis al-Bsah tabki 'Arsah, Spitta Bey, No. 275.) I must allow myself a few words of regret for the loss of this Savant, one of the most singleminded men known to me. He was vilely treated by the Egyptian Government, under the rule of the Jew-Moslem Riyz; and, his health not allowing him to live in Austria, he died shortly after return home.

[FN#297] Arab. " Saub (Tobe) 'Atbi": see vol. iii. 149.

[FN#298] In text "Kimkh," which Dozy also gives Kumkh=chenille, tissu de soie veloutee: Damasqute de soie or et argent de Venise, du Levant , fleurs, etc. It comes from Kamkhb or Kimkhb, a cloth of gold, the well-known Indian "Kimcob."

[FN#299] Here meaning=Enter in Allah's name!

[FN#300] The Arabs have a saying, "Wine breeds gladness, music merriment and their offspring is joy."

[FN#301] Arab. "Jokh al-Saklt," rich kind of brocade on broadcloth.

[FN#302] Arab. "Hanabt," which Dozy derives from O. German Hnapf, Hnap now Napf: thence too the Lat. Hanapus and Hanaperium: Ital. Anappo, Nappo; Provenc. Enap and French and English "Hanap"= rich bowl, basket, bag. But this is known even to the dictionaries.

[FN#303] Arab. " Kirm," nobles, and " Kurm," vines, a word which appears in Carmel=Karam-El (God's vineyard).

[FN#304] Arab. "Sulf al-Khandarisi," a contradiction. Sulf=the ptisane of wine. Khandarisi, from Greek , lit. gruel, applies to old wine.

[FN#305] i.e. in bridal procession.

[FN#306] Arab. "Al-'Ars, one of the innumerable tropical names given to wine by the Arabs. Mr. Payne refers to Grangeret de la Grange, Anthologie Arabe, p, 190.

[FN#307] Here the text of the Mac. Edition is resumed.

[FN#308] i.e. "Adornment of (good) Qualities." See the name punned on in Night dcccli. Lane omits this tale because it contains the illicit "Amours of a Christian and a Jewess who dupes her husband in various abominable ways." The text has been taken from the Mac. and the Bresl. Edits. x. 72 etc. In many parts the former is a mere Epitome.

[FN#309] The face of her who owns the garden.

[FN#310] i.e. I am no public woman.

[FN#311] i.e. with the sight of the garden and its mistress— purposely left vague.

[FN#312] Arab. "Ddat." Night dcclxxvi. vol. vii. p. 372.

[FN#313] Meaning respectively "Awaking" (or blowing hard), "Affairs" (or Misfortunes) and "Flowing" (blood or water). They are evidently intended for the names of Jewish slave-girls.

[FN#314] i.e. the brow-curls, or accroche-coeurs. See vol. i. 168.

[FN#315] Arab. "Wishh" usually applied to woman's broad belt, stomacher (Al-Hariri Ass. af Rayy).

[FN#317] The old Greek "Stephane."

[FN#317] Alluding to the popular fancy of the rain-drop which becomes a pearl.

[FN#318] Arab. "Ghzi"=one who fights for the faith.

[FN#319] i.e. people of different conditions.

[FN#320] The sudden change appears unnatural to Europeans; but an Eastern girl talking to a strange man in a garden is already half won. The beauty, however, intends to make trial of her lover's generosity before yielding.

[FN#321] These lines have occurred in the earlier part of the Night: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#322] Arab. "Al-Shh mt"=the King is dead, Pers. and Arab. grotesquely mixed: Europeans explain "Checkmate" in sundry ways, all more or less wrong.

[FN#323] Cheating (Ghadr) is so common that Easterns who have no tincture of Western civilisation look upon it not only as venial but laudable when one can take advantage of a simpleton. No idea of "honour" enters into it. Even in England the old lady whist-player of the last generation required to be looked after pretty closely—if Mr. Charles Dickens is to be trusted.

[FN#324] Arab. "Al-Ghliyah," whence the older English Algallia. See vol. i., 128. The Voyage of Linschoten, etc. Hakluyt Society MDCCCLXXXV., with notes by my learned friend the late Arthur Coke Burnell whose early death was so sore a loss to Oriental students.

[FN#325] A favourite idiom, "What news bringest thou?" ("O Asm!" Arab. Prov. ii. 589) used by Hris bin Amr, King of Kindah, to the old woman Asm whom he had sent to inspect a girl he purposed marrying.

[FN#326] Amongst the Jews the Arab Salm becomes "Shalm" and a Jewess would certainly not address this ceremonial greeting to a Christian. But Eastern storytellers care little for these minutiae; and the "Adornment of Qualities," was not by birth a Jewess as the sequel will show.

[FN#327] Arab. "Slifah," the silken plaits used as adjuncts. See vol. iii, 313.

[FN#328] I have translated these lines in vol. i. 131, and quoted Mr. Torrens in vol. iv. 235. Here I borrow from Mr. Payne.

[FN#329] Mr. Payne notes:—Apparently some place celebrated for its fine bread, as Gonesse in seventeenth-century France. It occurs also in Bresl. Edit. (iv. 203) and Dozy does not understand it. But Arj the root=good odour.

[FN#330] Arab. "Ts," from Pers. Tsah. M. Charbonneau a Professor of Arabic at Constantine and Member of the Asiatic Soc. Paris, who published the Histoire de Chams-Eddine et Nour-Eddine with Maghrabi punctuation (Paris, Hachette, 1852) remarks the similarity of this word to Tazza and a number of other whimsical coincidences as Zauj, {Greek letters} jugum; Inkr, negare; matrah, matelas; Ishtir, acheter, etc. To which I may add wasat, waist; zabad, civet; Bs, buss (kiss); uzrub (pron. Zrub), drub; Kat', cut; Tarik, track; etc., etc.

[FN#331] We should say "To her (I drink)" etc.

[FN#332] This is ad captandum. The lovers becoming Moslems would secure the sympathy of the audience. In the sequel (Night dccclviii) we learn that the wilful young woman was a born Moslemah who had married a Jew but had never Judaized.

[FN#333] The doggerel of this Kasidah is not so phenomenal as some we have seen.

[FN#334] Arab. "'Andam"=Brazil wood, vol. iii. 263.

[FN#335] Arab. " Him." See supra, p. 102.

[FN#336] i.e. her favours were not lawful till the union was sanctified by heartwhole (if not pure) love.

[FN#337] Arab. "Mansr wa munazzam=oratio soluta et ligata.

[FN#338] i.e. the cupbearers.

[FN#339] Which is not worse than usual.

[FN#340] i.e. "Ornament of Qualities."

[FN#341] The 'Akik, a mean and common stone, ranks high in Moslem poetry on account of the saying of Mohammed recorded by Ali and Ayishah "Seal with seals of Carnelian." ('Akik.)

[FN#342] See note ii. at the end of this volume.

[FN#343] Arab. "Mahall" as opposed to the lady's "Manzil," which would be better "Makm." The Arabs had many names for their old habitations, e.g.; Kubbah, of brick; Sutrah, of sun-dried mud; Hazirah, of wood; Tirf, a tent of leather; Khaba, of wool; Kash'a, of skins; Nakhd, of camel's or goat's hair; Khaymah, of cotton cloth; Wabar, of soft hair as the camel's undercoat and Fustt (the well-known P.N.) a tent of horsehair or any hair (Sha'ar) but Wabar.

[FN#344] This is the Maghribi form of the Arab. Sk=a bazar-street, known from Tanjah (Tangiers) to Timbuctoo.

[FN#345] Arab. "Walimah" usually=a wedding-feast. According to the learned Nasif alYazaji the names of entertainments are as follows: Al-Jafal=a general invitation, opp. to Al-Nakar, especial; Khurs, a childbirth feast; 'Akikah, when the boy-babe is first shaved; A'zr=circumcision-feast; Hizk, when the boy has finished his perlection of the Koran; Milk, on occasion of marriage-offer; Wazimah, a mourning entertainment; Wakirah=a "house-warming"; Naki'ah, on returning from wayfare; 'Akirah, at beginning of the month Rajab; Kir=a guest-feast and Maadubah, a feast for other cause; any feast.

[FN#346] Arab. "Anistan" the pop. phrase=thy company gladdens us.

[FN#347] Here "Mukht" or making mutual brotherhood would be=entering into a formal agreement for partnership. For the forms of "making brotherhood," see vol. iii. 15.

[FN#348] Arab. "Ishrah" in classical Arab. signs with the finger (beckoning); Aum with the hand; Ramz, with the lips; Khalaj, with the eyelids (wink); and Ghamz with the eye. Aumz is a furtive glance, especially of women, and Ilhz, a side-glance from lahaza, limis oculis intuitus est. See Preston's Al-Hariri, p. 181.

[FN#349] Arab. "Haudaj" (Hind. Haudah, vulg. Howda=elephant-saddle), the women's camel-litter, a cloth stretched over a wooden frame. See the Prize-poem of Lebid, v. 12.

[FN#350] i.e. the twelve days' visit.

[FN#351] See note, vol. vii. 267. So Dryden (Virgil):—

"And the hoarse raven on the blasted bough By croaking to the left presaged the coming blow."

And Gay (Fable xxxvii.),

"That raven on the left-hand oak, Curse on his ill-betiding croak!"

In some Persian tales two crows seen together are a good omen.

[FN#352] Vulgar Moslems hold that each man's fate is written in the sutures of his skull but none can read the lines. See vol. iii. 123.

[FN#353] i.e. cease not to bemoan her lot whose moon-faced beloved ones are gone.

[FN#354] Arab. "Rukb" used of a return caravan; and also meaning travellers on camels. The vulgar however apply "Rkib" (a camel-rider) to a man on horseback who is properly Fris plur. "Khayylah," while "Khayyl" is a good rider. Other names are "Fayyl" (elephant-rider), Baghghl (mule-rider) and Hammr (donkeyrider).

[FN#355] A popular exaggeration. See vol. i. 117

[FN#356] Lit. Empty of tent-ropes (Atnb).

[FN#357] Arab. "'Abir," a fragrant powder sprinkled on face, body and clothes. In India it is composed of rice flower or powdered bark of the mango, Deodar (uvaria longifolia), Sandalwood, lign-aloes or curcuma (zerumbat or zedoaria) with rose-flowers, camphor, civet and anise-seed. There are many of these powders: see in Herklots Chiks, Phul, Ood, Sundul, Uggur, and Urgujja.

[FN#358] i.e. fair faced boys and women. These lines are from the Bresl. Edit. x. 160.

[FN#359] i.e. the Chief Kazi. For the origin of the Office and title see vol. ii. 90, and for the Kazi al-Arab who administers justice among the Badawin see Pilgrimage iii. 45.

[FN#360] Arab. "Raas al-Ml"=capital, as opposed to Rib or Ribh=interest. This legal expression has been adopted by all Moslem races.

[FN#361] Our Aden which is thus noticed by Abulfeda (A.D. 1331): "Aden in the lowlands of Tehmah * * * also called Abyana from a man (who found it?), built upon the seashore, a station (for land travellers) and a sailing-place for merchant ships India-bound, is dry and sunparcht (Kashifah, squalid, scorbutic) and sweet water must be imported. * * * It lies 86 parasangs from San' but Ibn Haukal following the travellers makes it three stages. The city, built on the skirt of a wall-like mountain, has a watergate and a landgate known as Bab al-Skayn. But 'Adan L'ah (the modest, the timid, the less known as opposed to Abyan, the better known?) is a city in the mountains of Sabir, Al-Yaman, whence issued the supporters of the Fatimite Caliphs of Egypt." 'Adan etymologically means in Arab. and Heb. pleasure ({Greek letters}), Eden (the garden), the Heaven in which spirits will see Allah and our "Coal-hole of the East," which we can hardly believe ever to have been an Eden. Mr. Badger who supplied me with this note described the two Adens in a paper in Ocean Highways, which he cannot now find. In the 'Ajib al-Makhlkt, Al-Kazwini (ob. A.D. 1275) derives the name from Ibn Sinn bin Ibrahim; and is inclined there to place the Bir al-Mu'attal (abandoned well) and the Kasr alMashid (lofty palace) of Koran xxii. 44; and he adds "Kasr al-Misyad" to those mentioned in the tale of Sayf al-Mulk and Badi'a al-Jaml.

[FN#362] Meaning that she had been carried to the Westward of Meccah.

[FN#363] Arab. "Zahrawiyah" which contains a kind of double entendre. Ftimah the Prophet's only daughter is entitled Al-Zahr the "bright-blooming"; and this is also an epithet of Zohrah the planet Venus. For Fatimah see vol. vi. 145. Of her Mohammed said, "Love your daughters, for I too am a father of daughters" and, "Love them, they are the comforters, the dearlings." The Lady appears in Moslem history a dreary young woman (died aet. 28) who made this world, like Honorius, a hell in order to win a next-world heaven. Her titles are Zahr and Batl (Pilgrimage ii. 90) both signifying virgin. Burckhardt translates Zahr by "bright blooming" (the etymological sense): it denotes literally a girl who has not menstruated, in which state of purity the Prophet's daughter is said to have lived and died. "Batl" has the sense of a "clean maid" and is the title given by Eastern Christians to the Virgin Mary. The perpetual virginity of Fatimah even after motherhood (Hasan and Husayn) is a point of orthodoxy in Al-Islam as Juno's with the Romans and Um's with the Hind worshippers of Shiva. During her life Mohammed would not allow Ali a second wife, and he held her one of the four perfects, the other three being Asia wife of "Pharaoh," the Virgin Mary and Khadijah his own wife. She caused much scandal after his death by declaring that he had left her the Fadak estate (Abulfeda I, 133, 273) a castle with a fine palmorchard near Khaybar. Abu Bakr dismissed the claim quoting the Apostle's Hadis, "We prophets are folk who will away nothing: what we leave is alms-gift to the poor," and Shi'ahs greatly resent his decision. (See Dabistan iii. 51 52 for a different rendering of the words.) I have given the popular version of the Lady Fatimah's death and burial (Pilgrimage ii. 315) and have remarked that Moslem historians delight in the obscurity which hangs over her last resting-place, as if it were an honour even for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of men. Her repute is a curious comment on Tom Hood's

"Where woman has never a soul to save."

[FN#364] For Sharif and Sayyid, descendants of Mohammed, see vol. iv. 170.

[FN#365] These lines have occurred with variants in vol. iii. 257, and iv. 50.

[FN#366] Arab. "Hazrat," esp. used in India and corresponding with our mediaeval "praesentia vostra."

[FN#367] This wholesale slaughter by the tale-teller of worshipful and reverend men would bring down the gallery like a Spanish tragedy in which all the actors are killed.

[FN#368] They are called indifferently "Ruhbn"=monks or "Batrikah"=patriarchs. See vol. ii. 89.

[FN#369] Arab. "Khill." The toothpick, more esteemed by the Arabs than by us, is, I have said, often used by the poets as an emblem of attenuation without offending good taste. Nizami (Layla u Majnn) describes a lover as "thin as a toothpick." The "elegant" Hariri (Ass. of Barkaid) describes a toothpick with feminine attributes, "shapely of shape, attractive, provocative of appetite, delicate as the leanest of lovers, polished as a poinard and bending as a green bough."

[FN#370] From Bresl. Edit. x. 194.

[FN#371] Trbutien (vol. ii. 344 et seq.) makes the seven monks sing as many anthems, viz. (1) Congregamini; (2) Vias tuas demonstra mihi; (3) Dominus illuminatis; (4) Custodi linguam; (5) Unam petii a Domino; (6) Nec adspiciat me visus, and (7) Turbatus est a furore oculus meus. Dnis the Abbot chaunts Anima mea turbata est vald.

[FN#372] A neat and characteristic touch: the wilful beauty eats and drinks before she thinks of her lover. Alas for Masrur married.

[FN#373] The unfortunate Jew, who seems to have been a model husband (Orientally speaking), would find no pity with a coffee-house audience because he had been guilty of marrying a Moslemah. The union was null and void therefore the deliberate murder was neither high nor petty treason. But, The Nights, though their object is to adorn a tale, never deliberately attempt to point a moral and this is one of their many charms.