The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VIII Part 38

[FN#537] Arab. "Kayyimah," the fem. of "Kayyim," misprinted "Kayim" in vol. ii. 93.

[FN#538] i.e. hadst thou not disclosed thyself. He has one great merit in a coward of not being ashamed for his cowardice; and this is a characteristic of the modern Egyptian, whose proverb is, "He ran away, Allah shame him! is better than, He was slain, Allah bless him!"

[FN#539] Arab. "Ahjar al-Ka.s.sarin" nor forgotten. In those days ships anch.o.r.ed in the Eastern port of Alexandria which is now wholly abandoned on account of the rocky bottom and the dangerous "Levanter," which as the Gibraltar proverb says

"Makes the stones canter."

[FN#540] Arab. "Hakk" = rights, a word much and variously used.

To express the possessive "mine" a Badawi says "Hakki" (p.r.o.n.

Haggi) and "Lili;" a Syrian "s.h.i.ti" for Shayyati, my little thing or "taba 'i" my dependent; an Egyptian "Bita' i" my portion and a Maghribi "M'ta 'i" and "diyyali" (di allazi li = this that is to me). Thus "mine" becomes a shibboleth.

[FN#541] i.e. The "Good for nothing," the "Bad'un;" not some forgotten ruffian of the day, but the hero of a tale antedating The Nights in their present form. See Terminal Essay, x. ii.

[FN#542] i.e. Hoping to catch Nur al-Din.

[FN#543] Arab. "Sawwahun" = the Wanderers, Pilgrims, wandering Arabs, whose religion, Al-Islam, so styled by its Christain opponents. And yet the new creed was at once accepted by whole regions of Christians, and Mauritania, which had rejected Roman paganism and Gothic Christianity. This was e.g. Syria and the so-called "Holy Land," not because, as is fondly a.s.serted by Christians, al-Islam was forced upon them by the sword, but on account of its fulfilling a need, its supplying a higher belief, unity as opposed to plurality, and its preaching a more manly att.i.tude of mind and a more sensible rule of conduct. Arabic still preserves a host of words special to the Christian creed; and many of them have been adopted by Moslems but with changes of signification.

[FN#544] i.e. of things commanded and things prohibited. The writer is thinking of the Koran in which there are not a few abrogated injunctions.

[FN#545] See below for the allusion.

[FN#546] Arab. "Kafra" = desert place. It occurs in this couplet,

"Wa Kabrun Harbin fii-makaanin Kafrin; Wa laysa Kurba Kabri Harbin Kabrun."

"Harb's corse is quartered in coa.r.s.e wold accurst; Nor close to corse of Harb is other corse;--"

words made purposely harsh because uttered by a Jinni who killed a traveller named "Harb."

So Homer:--

and Pope:--

"O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go, etc."

See Preface (p. v.) to Captain A. Lockett's learned and whimsical volume, "The Muit Amil" etc. Calcutta, 1814.

[FN#547] These lines have occurred vol. iv. 267. I quote Mr.

Lane.

[FN#548] The topethesia is here designedly made absurd.

Alexandria was one of the first cities taken by the Moslems (A.H.

21 = 642) and the Christian pirates preferred attacking weaker places, Rosetta and Damietta.

[FN#549] Arab. "Bilad al-Rum," here and elsewhere applied to France.

[FN#550] Here the last line of p. 324, vol. iv. in the Mac.

Edit. is misplaced and belongs to the next page.

[FN#551] Arab. "Akhawan shikikan" = brothers german (of men and beasts) born of one father and mother, sire and dam.

[FN#552] "The Forerunner" and "The Overtaker," terms borrowed from the Arab Epsom.

[FN#553] Known to us as "the web and pin," it is a film which affects Arab horses in the damp hot regions of Malabar and Zanzibar and soon blinds them. This equine cataract combined with loin-disease compels men to ride Pegu and other ponies.

[FN#554] Arab. "Zujaj bikr" whose apparent meaning would be gla.s.s in the lump and unworked. Zaj aj bears, however, the meaning of clove-nails (the ripe bud of the clove-shrub) and may possibly apply to one of the manifold "Alfaz Adwiyh" (names of drugs). Here, however, pounded gla.s.s would be all sufficient to blind a horse: it is much used in the East especially for dogs affected by intestinal vermicules.

[FN#555] Alluding to the Arab saying "The two rests"

(Al-rahatani) "certainty of success or failure," as opposed to "Wiswas" when the mind fluctuates in doubt.

[FN#556] She falls in love with the groom, thus antic.i.p.ating the n.o.ble self-devotion of Miss Aurora Floyd.

[FN#557] Arab. "Tufan" see vol. v. 156: here it means the "Deluge of Noah."

[FN#558] Two of the h.e.l.ls. See vol. v. 240.

[FN#559] Lit. "Out upon a prayer who imprecated our parting!"

[FN#560] The use of masculine for feminine has frequently been noted. I have rarely changed the gender or the number the plural being often employed for the singular (vol. i. 98). Such change may avoid "mystification and confusion" but this is the very purpose of the subst.i.tution which must be preserved if "local colour" is to be respected.