The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VI Part 16

[FN#167] Taken from the life of the Egyptian Mameluke Sultan (No.

viii, regn. A.H, 825= A.D. 1421) who would not suffer his subjects to prostrate themselves or kiss the ground before him.

See D'Herbelot for details.

[FN#168] This nauseous Joe Miller has often been told in the hospitals of London and Paris. It is as old as the Hitopadesa.

[FN#169] Koran iv. 81, "All is from Allah;" but the evil which befals mankind, though ordered by Allah, is yet the consequence of their own wickedness (I add, which wickedness was created by Allah).

[FN#170] The Bresl. Edit. (xii. 266) says "bathing."

[FN#171] This tale is much like that told in the Fifth Night (vol. i. 54). It is the story of the Prince and the Lamia in the Book of Sindibad wherein it is given with Persian rhetoric and diffuseness.

[FN#172] Arab. "Wa'ar"= rocky, hilly, tree-less ground unfit for riding. I have noted that the three Heb. words "Year" (e.g.

Kiryath-Yearin=City of forest), "Ch.o.r.esh" (now Hirsh, a scrub), and "Pardes" ({Greek letters} a chase, a hunting-park opposed to {Greek letters}, an orchard) are preserved in Arabic and are intelligible in Palestine. (Unexplored Syria, i. 207.)

[FN#173] The privy and the bath are favourite haunts of the Jinns.

[FN#174] Arab history is full of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt the clans Sa'ad and Haram and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain to the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale bears some likeness to the acc.u.mulative nursery rhymes in "The House that Jack Built," and "The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;" which find their indirect original in an allegorical Talmudic hymn.

[FN#175] This is "The Story of the Old Man who sent his Young Wife to the Market to buy Rice," told with Persian reflections in the "Book of Sindibad."

[FN#176] Koran xii. 28. The words were spoken by Potiphar to Joseph.

[FN#177] Koran iv. 78. A mis-quotation, the words are, "Fight therefore against the friends of Satan, for the craft of Satan shall be weak."

[FN#178] i.e. Koranic versets.

[FN#179] In the Book of Sindibad this is the "Story of the Prince who went out to hunt and the stratagem which the Wazir practised on him."

[FN#180] I have noted that it is a dire affront to an Arab if his first cousin marry any save himself without his formal leave.

[FN#181] i.e. the flowery, the splendid; an epithet of Fatimah, the daughter of the Apostle "the bright blooming." Fatimah is an old Arab name of good omen, "the weaner:" in Egypt it becomes Fattumah (an incrementative= "great weaner"); and so Aminah, Khadijah and Nafisah on the banks of the Nile are barbarised to Ammunah, Khaddugah and Naffusah.

[FN#182] i.e. his coming misfortune, the phrase being euphemistic.

[FN#183] Arab. "Ray:" in theology it means "private judgment" and "Rayi" (act. partic.) is a Rationalist. The Hanafi School is called "Ashab al-Ray" because it allows more liberty of thought than the other three orthodox.

[FN#184] The angels in Al-Islam ride piebalds.

[FN#185] In the Bresl. Edit. "Zajir" (xii. 286).

[FN#186] This is the "King's Son and the Merchant's Wife" of the Hitopadesa (chapt. i.) transferred to all the Prakrit versions of India. It is the Story of the Bath-keeper who conducted his Wife to the Son of the King of Kanuj in the Book of Sindibad.

[FN#187] The pious Caliph Al-Muktadi bi Amri 'llah (A.H. 467=A.D.

1075) was obliged to forbid men entering the baths of Baghdad without drawers.

[FN#188] This peculiarity is not uncommon amongst the so-called Aryan and Semitic races, while to the African it is all but unknown. Women highly prize a conformation which (as the prost.i.tute described it) is always "either in his belly or in mine."

[FN#189] Easterns, I have said, are perfectly aware of the fact that women corrupt women much more than men do. The tale is the "Story of the Libertine Husband" in the Book of Sindibad; blended with the "Story of the Go-between and the b.i.t.c.h" in the Book of Sindibad. It is related in the "Disciplina Clericalis" of Alphonsus (A.D. 1106); the fabliau of La vieille qui seduisit la jeune fille; the Gesta Romanorum (thirteenth century) and the "Cunning Siddhikari" in the Katha-Sarit-Sagara.

[FN#190] The Kashmir people, men and women, have a very bad name in Eastern tales, the former for treachery and the latter for unchast.i.ty. A Persian distich says:

If folk be scarce as food in dearth ne'er let three lots come near ye: First Sindi, second Jat, and third a rascally Kashmeeree.

The women have fair skins and handsome features but, like all living in that zone, Persians, Sindis, Afghans, etc., their bosoms fall after the first child and become like udders. This is not the case with Hindu women, Rajputs, Marathis, etc.

[FN#191] By these words she appealed to his honour.

[FN#192] These vehicles suggest derivation from European witchery. In the Bresl. Edit. (xii. 304) one of the women rides a "Miknasah" or broom.

[FN#193] i.e. a recluse who avoids society.

[FN#194] "Consecrated ground" is happily unknown to Moslems.

[FN#195] This incident occurs in the "Third Kalandar's Tale." See vol. i. 157 {Vol 1, FN#290}; and note to p. 145. {Vol 1, FN#264}

[FN#196] The Mac. Edit. has "Nahr"= river.

[FN#197] i.e. marked with the Wasm or tribal sign to show their blood. The subject of Wasm is extensive and highly interesting, for many of these brands date doubtless from prehistoric ages.

For instance, some of the great Anazah nation (not tribe) use a circlet, the initial of their name (an Ayn-letter), which thus shows the eye from which it was formed. I have given some specimens of Wasm in The Land of Midian (i. 320) where, as amongst the "Sinaitic" Badawin, various kinds of crosses are preserved long after the death and burial of Christianity.

[FN#198] i.e. from the heights. The "Sayl" is a dangerous feature in Arabia as in Southern India, where many officers have lost their lives by trying to swim it.

[FN#199] Arab. "'Ujb" I use arrogance in the Spanish sense of "arrogante," gay and gallant.

[FN#200] In this rechauffe Paul Pry escapes without losing an eye.

[FN#201] Eastern tale-tellers always harp upon this theme, the cunning precautions taken by mankind and their utter confusion by "Fate and Fortune." In such matters the West remarks, "Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut."

[FN#202] As favourite an occupation in Oriental lands as in Southern Europe and the Brazil, where the Quinta or country villa must be built by the road-side to please the mistress.

[FN#203] The ink-case would contain the pens; hence called in India Kalamdan=reed (pen) box. I have advised travellers to prefer the strong Egyptian article of bra.s.s to the Persian, which is of wood or papier-mache, prettily varnished, but not to wear it in the waist-belt, as this is a sign of being a scribe.

(Pilgrimage i. 353.)

[FN#204] The vulgar Eastern idea is that women are quite knowing enough without learning to read and write; and at all events they should not be taught anything beyond reading the Koran, or some clearly-written book. The contrast with modern Europe is great; greater still in Anglo-America of our day, and greatest with the new sects which propose "biunes" and "bis.e.xuals" and "women robed with the sun."

[FN#205] In the Bresl. Edit. the Prince ties a key to a second arrow and shoots it into the pavilion.

[FN#206] The "box-trick" has often been played with success, by Lord Byron amongst a host of others. The readiness with which the Wazir enters into the scheme is characteristic of oriental servility: an honest Moslem should at least put in a remonstrance.

[FN#207] This story appears familiar, but I have not found it easy to trace. In "The Book of Sindibad" (p. 83) it is apparently represented by a lacuna. In the Squire's Tale of Chaucer Canace's ring enables the wearer to understand bird-language, not merely to pretend as does the slave-boy in the text.

[FN#208] The crow is an ill-omened bird in Al-lslam and in Eastern Christendom. "The crow of cursed life and foul odour,"

says the Book of Kalilah and Dimna (p. 44). The Hindus are its only protectors, and in this matter they follow suit with the Guebres. I may note that the word belongs to the days before "Aryan" and "Semitic" speech had parted; we find it in Heb. Oreb; Arab. Ghurab; Lat. Corvus; Engl. Crow, etc.

[FN#209] Again in the Hibernian sense of being "kilt."

[FN#210] Quoted in Night dlx.x.xii.; said by Kitfir or Itfir (Potiphar) when his wife (Rail or Zulaykha) charged Joseph with attempting her chast.i.ty and he saw that the youth's garment was whole in front and rent in rear. (Koran, chapt. xii.)