The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume IX Part 14

[FN#20] Here "Farz" (Koranic obligation which it is mortal sin to gainsay) follows whereas it should precede "Sunnat" (sayings and doings of the Apostle) simply because "Farz" jingles with "Arz"

(earth).

[FN#21] Moslems, like modern Agnostics, hold that Jesus of Nazareth would be greatly scandalized by the claims to G.o.dship advanced for him by his followers.

[FN#22] Koran ix. 33: See also v. 85. In the pa.s.sage above quoted Mr. Rodwell makes the second "He" refer to the deity.

[FN#23] Koran xxvi. 88, 89. For a very indifferent version (and abridgment) of this speech, see Sat.u.r.day Review, July 9, 1881.

[FN#24] Koran iv. 140.

[FN#25] Arab. "Furat" from the Arab. "Faruta" = being sweet, as applied to water. Al-Furatani = the two sweet (rivers), are the Tigris and Euphrates. The Greeks, who in etymology were satisfied with Greek, derived the latter from {Greek} (to gladden, laetificare, for which see Pliny and Strabo, although both are correct in explaining "Tigris") and Selden remarks hereon, "Talibus nugis nugantur Graeculi." But not only the "Graeculi"; e.g. Parkhurst's good old derivations from the Heb. "Farah" of fero, fructus, Freya (the G.o.ddess), frayer (to sp.a.w.n), friand, fry (of fish), etc., etc.

[FN#26] The great Caliph was a poet; and he spoke verses as did all his contemporaries: his lament over his slave-girl Haylanah (Helen) is quoted by Al-Suyuti, p. 305.

[FN#27] "The Brave of the Faith."

[FN#28] i.e., Saladin. See vol. iv. p. 116.

[FN#29] usually called the Horns of Hattin (cla.s.sically Hittin) North of Tiberias where Saladin by good strategy and the folly of the Franks annihilated the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. For details see the guide-books. In this action (June 23, 1187), after three bishops were slain in its defence, the last fragment of the True Cross (or rather the cross verified by Helena) fell into Moslem hands. The Christians begged hard for it, but Saladin, a conscientious believer, refused to return to them even for ransom "the object of their iniquitous superst.i.tion." His son, however, being of another turn, would have sold it to the Franks who then lacked money to purchase. It presently disappeared and I should not be surprised if it were still lying, an unknown and inutile lignum in some Cairene mosque.

[FN#30] Akka (Acre) was taken by Saladin on July 29, 1187. The Egyptian states that he was at Acre in 1184 or three years before the affair of Hattin (Night dcccxcv.).

[FN#31] Famous Sufis and ascetics of the second and third centuries A.H. For Bishr Barefoot, see vol. ii. p. 127. Al-Sakati means "the old-clothes man;" and the names of the others are all recorded in D'Herbelot.

[FN#32] i.e., captured, forced open their gates.

[FN#33] Arab. "Al-Sahil" i.e. the seaboard of Syria; properly Phoenicia or the coast-lands of Southern Palestine. So the maritime lowlands of continental Zanzibar are called in the plur.

Sawahil = "the sh.o.r.es" and the people Sawahili = Sh.o.r.e-men.

[FN#34] Arab. "Al-Khizanah" both in Mac. Edit. and Breslau x.

426. Mr. Payne has translated "tents" and says, "Saladin seems to have been encamped without Damascus and the slave-merchant had apparently come out and pitched his tent near the camp for the purposes of his trade." But I can find no notice of tents till a few lines below.

[FN#35] Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad, then Kazi al-Askar (of the Army) or Judge-Advocate-General under Saladin.

[FN#36] i.e. "abide with" thy second husband, the Egyptian.

[FN#37] A descendant of Hashim, the Apostle's great-grandfather from whom the Abbasides were directly descended. The Ommiades were less directly akin to Mohammed, being the descendants of Hashim's brother, Abd al-Shams. The Hashimis were famed for liberality; and the quality seems to have been inherited. The first Hashim got his name from crumbling bread into the Sarid or brewis of the Meccan pilgrims during "The Ignorance." He was buried at Ghazzah (Gaza) but his tomb was soon forgotten.

[FN#38] i.e. thy lover.

[FN#39] i.e. of those destined to h.e.l.l; the especial home of Moslem suicides.

[FN#40] Arab. "Ummal" (plur. of ?amil) viceroys or governors of provinces.

[FN#41] A town of Irak Arabi (Mesopotamia) between Baghdad and Ba.s.sorah built upon the Tigris and founded by Al-Hajjaj: it is so called because the "Middle" or half-way town between Basrah and Kufah. To this place were applied the famous lines:--

In good sooth a right n.o.ble race are they; Whose men "yea" can't say nor their women "nay."

[FN#42] i.e. robed as thou art.

[FN#43] i.e. his kinsfolk of the Hashimis.

[FN#44] See vol. ii. 24. {Vol2, FN#49}

[FN#45] Arab. "Sur'itu" = I was possessed of a Jinn, the common Eastern explanation of an epileptic fit long before the days of the Evangel. See vol. iv. 89.

[FN#46] Arab. "Zi'ah," village, feof or farm.

[FN#47] Arab. "Tarikah."

[FN#48] "Most of the great Arab musicians had their own peculiar fashion of tuning the lute, for the purpose of extending its register or facilitating the accompaniment of songs composed in uncommon keys and rhythms or possibly of increasing its sonority, and it appears to have been a common test of the skill of a great musician, such as Ishac el-Mausili or his father Ibrahim, to require him to accompany a difficult song on a lute purposely untuned. As a (partial) modern instance of the practice referred to in the text, may be cited Paganini's custom of lowering or raising the G string of the violin in playing certain of his own compositions. According to the Kitab el-Aghani, Ishac el-Mausili is said to have familiarized himself, by incessant practice, with the exact sounds produced by each division of the strings of the four course lute of his day, under every imaginable circ.u.mstance of tuning." It is regrettable that Mr. Payne does not give us more of such notes.

[FN#49] See vol. vii. 363 for the use of these fumigations.

[FN#50] In the Mac. Edit. "Aylah" for Ubullah: the latter is one of the innumerable ca.n.a.ls, leading from Ba.s.sorah to Ubullah-town a distance of twelve miles. Its banks are the favourite pleasure- resort of the townsfolk, being built over with villas and pavilions (now no more) and the orchards seem to form one great garden, all confined by one wall. See Jaubert's translation of Al-Idrisi, vol. i. pp. 368-69. The Aylah, a tributary of the Tigris, waters (I have noted) the Gardens of Ba.s.sorah.

[FN#51] Music having been forbidden by Mohammed who believed with the vulgar that the Devil has something to do with it. Even Paganini could not escape suspicion in the nineteenth century.

[FN#52] The "Mahr," or Arab dowry consists of two parts, one paid down on consummation and the other agreed to be paid to the wife, contingently upon her being divorced by her husband. If she divorce him this portion, which is generally less than the half, cannot be claimed by her; and I have related the Persian abomination which compels the woman to sacrifice her rights. See vol. iii. p. 304.

[FN#53] i.e. the cost of her maintenance during the four months of single blessedness which must or ought to elapse before she can legally marry again.

[FN#54] Lane translates most incompletely, "To Him, then, be praise, first and last!"

[FN#55] Lane omits because it is "extremely puerile" this most characteristic tale, one of the two oldest in The Nights which Al Mas'udi mentions as belonging to the Hazar Afsaneh (See Terminal Essay). Von Hammer (Preface in Trebutien's translation p. xxv ) refers the fables to an Indian (Egyptian ?) origin and remarks, "sous le rapport de leur antiquite et de la morale qu'ils renferment, elles meritent la plus grande attention, mais d'un autre cote elles ne vent rien moins qu'amusantes."

[FN#56] Lane (iii. 579) writes the word "Shemmas": the Bresl.

Edit. (viii. 4) "Shimas."

[FN#57] i.e. When the tale begins.

[FN#58] Arab. "Khafz al-jinah" drooping the wing as a brooding bird. In the Koran ([vii. 88) lowering the wing" = demeaning oneself gently.

[FN#59] The Bresl. Edit. (viii. 3) writes "Kil'ad": Trebutien (iii. 1) "le roi Djilia."

[FN#60] As the sequel shows the better t.i.tle would be, ''The Cat and the Mouse" as in the headings of the Mac. Edit. and "What befel the Cat with the Mouse," as a punishment for tyranny. But all three Edits. read as in the text and I have not cared to change it. In our European adaptations the mouse becomes a rat.

[FN#61] So that I may not come to grief by thus daring to foretell evil things.

[FN#62] Arab. "Af'a'" pl. Afa'i = {Greek}, both being derived from 0. Egypt. Hfi, a worm, snake. Af'a is applied to many species of the larger ophidia, all supposed to be venomous, and synonymous with "Sall" (a malignant viper) in Al Mutalammis. See Preston's Al Hariri, p. 101.

[FN#63] This apparently needless cruelty of all the feline race is a strong weapon in the hand of the Eastern "Dahri" who holds that the world is G.o.d and is governed by its own laws, in opposition to the religionists believing in a Personal Deity whom, moreover, they style the Merciful, the Compa.s.sionate, etc.

Some Christians have opined that cruelty came into the world with "original Sin," but how do they account for the hideous waste of life and the fearful destructiveness of the fishes which certainly never learned anything from man? The mystery of the cruelty of things can be explained only by a Law without a Law-giver.

[FN#64] The three things not to be praised before death in Southern Europe are a horse, a priest and a woman; and it has become a popular saying that only fools prophesy before the event.

[FN#65] 'Arab. "Sawn" =b.u.t.ter melted and skimmed. See vol. i.

144.