The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XI Part 15

[FN#105] The poet means that unlike other fasters he eats meat openly. See Pilgrimage (i. 110), for the popular hypocrisy.

[FN#106] Arab. "Batha" the lowlands and plains outside the Meccan Valley. See al-Mas'udi, vi. 157. Mr. (now Sir) W. Muir in his Life of Mahomet, vol. i., p. ccv., remarks upon my Pilgrimage (iii.252) that in placing Arafat 12 miles from Meccah, I had given 3 miles to Muna, + 3 to Muzdalifah + 3 to Arafat = 9.

But the total does not include the suburbs of Meccah and the breadth of the Arafat-Valley.

[FN#107] The words of the Azan, vol. i. 306.

[FN#108] Wine in Arabic is feminine, "Shamul" = liquor hung in the wind to cool, a favourite Arab practice often noticed by the poets.

[FN#109] i.e. I will fall down dead drunk.

[FN#110] Arab. "aram," plur. of Irm, a beautiful girl, a white deer. The word is connected with the Heb. Reem (Deut. x.x.xiii.

17), which has been explained unicorn, rhinoceros, and aurochs.

It is at the a.s.s. Rimu, the wild bull of the mountains, provided with a human face, and placed at the palace-entrance to frighten away foes, demon or human.

[FN#111] i.e. she who ensnares [all] eyes.

[FN#112] Imam, the spiritual t.i.tle of the Caliph, as head of the Faith and leader (lit. "foreman," Antistes) of the people at prayer. See vol. iv. 111.

[FN#113] For Yamamah see vol. ii. 104. Omar bin Abd-al-Aziz was governor of the province before he came to the Caliphate. To the note on Zarka, the blue-eyed Yamamite, I may add that Marwan was called Ibn Zarka, son of "la femme au drapeu bleu," such being the sign of a public prost.i.tute. Al-Mas'udi, v. 509.

[FN#114] Rain and bounty, I have said, are synonymous.

[FN#115] About 4.

[FN#116] i.e. what is thy news.

[FN#117] Bresl. Edit., vol. vi. pp. 188-9, Night ccccx.x.xiv.

[FN#118] Of this masterful personage and his energie indomptable I have spoken in vol. iv. 3, and other places. I may add that he built Wasit city A.H. 83 and rendered eminent services to literature and civilization amongst the Arabs. When the Ommiade Caliph Abd al-Malik was dying he said to his son Walid, "Look to Al-Hajjaj and honour him for, verily, he it is who hath covered for you the pulpits; and he is thy sword and thy right hand against all opponents; thou needest him more than he needeth thee, and when I die summon the folk to the covenant of allegiance; and he who saith with his head--thus, say thou with thy sword--thus" (Al-Siyuti, p 225) yet the historian simply observes, "the Lord curse him."

[FN#119] i.e. given through his lieutenant.

[FN#120] "Necks" per synecdochen for heads. The pa.s.sage is a description of a barber-surgeon in a series of double-entendres the "nose-pierced" (Makhzum) is the subject who is led by the nose like a camel with halter and ring and the "breaker" (hashim) may be a breaker of bread as the word originally meant, or breaker of bones. Lastly the "wealth" (mal) is a recondite allusion to the hair.

[FN#121] Arab. "Kadr" which a change of vowel makes "Kidr" = a cooking-pot. The description is that of an itinerant seller of boiled beans (Ful mudammas) still common in Cairo. The "light of his fire" suggests a double-entendre some powerful Chief like masterful King Kulayb. See vol. ii. 77.

[FN#122] Arab. "Al-Sufuf," either ranks of fighting-men or the rows of thread on a loom. Here the allusion is to a weaver who levels and corrects his threads with the wooden spate and shuttle governing warp and weft and who makes them stand straight (behave aright). The "stirrup" (rikab) is the loop of cord in which the weaver's foot rests.

[FN#123] "Adab." See vols. i. 132, and ix. 41.

[FN#124] Bresl. Edit., vol. vi. pp. 189-191, Night ccccx.x.xiv.

[FN#125] Arab. "Za'mu," a word little used in the Cal., Mac. or Bul. Edit.; or in the Wortley Montague MS.; but very common in the Bresl. text.

[FN#126] More double-entendres. "Thou hast done justice"

('adalta) also means "Thou hast swerved from right;" and "Thou hast wrought equitably" (Akasta iv. of Kast) = "Thou hast transgressed."

[FN#127] Koran vi. 44. Allah is threatening unbelievers, "And when they had forgotten their warnings We set open to them the gates of all things, until, when they were gladdened," etc.

[FN#128] Arab. "Ta'dilu," also meaning, "Ye do injustice": quoted from Koran iv. 134.

[FN#129] Arab. "Al-Kasituna," before explained. Koran lxxii.

15.

[FN#130] Bresl. Edit. vol. vi. pp. 191-343, Nights ccccx.x.xv- cccclx.x.xvii. This is the old Persian Bakhtyar Nameh, i.e., the Book of Bakhtyar, so called from the prince and hero "Fortune's Friend." In the tale of Jili'ad and Shimas the number of Wazirs is seven, as usual in the Sindibad cycle. Here we have the full tale as advised by the Imam al-Jara'i: "it is meet for a man before entering upon important undertakings to consult ten intelligent friends; if he have only five to apply twice to each; if only one, ten times at different visits, and if none, let him repair to his wife and consult her; and whatever she advises him to do let him do the clear contrary" (quoting Omar), or as says Tommy Moore,

Whene'er you're in doubt, said a sage I once knew, 'Twixt two lines of conduct which course to pursue, Ask a woman's advice, and whate'er she advise Do the very reverse, and you're sure to be wise.

The Romance of the Ten Wazirs occurs in dislocated shape in the "Nouveaux Contes Arabes, ou Supplement aux Mille et une Nuits,"

etc., par M. l'Abbe * * * Paris, 1788. It is the "Story of Bohetzad (Bakht-zad=Luck-born, v.p.), and his Ten Viziers," in vol. iii., pp. 2-30 of the "Arabian Tales," etc., published by Dom Chavis and M. Cazotte, in 1785; a copy of the English translation by Robert Heron, Edinburgh, 1792, I owe to the kindness of Mr. Leonard Smithers of Sheffield. It appears also in vol. viii. of M. C. de Perceval's Edition of The Nights; in Gauttier's Edition (vol. vi.), and as the "Historia Decem Vizirorum et filii Regis Azad-bacht," text and translation by Gustav Knos, of Goettingen (1807). For the Turkish, Malay and other versions see (p. x.x.xviii. etc.) "The Bakhtiy r N ma," etc.

Edited (from the Sir William. Ouseley version of 1801) by Mr. W.

A. Clouston and privately printed, London, 1883. The notes are valuable but their worth is sadly injured by the want of an index. I am pleased to see that Mr. E. J. W. Gibb is publishing the "History of the Forty Vezirs; or, the Story of the Forty Morns and Eves," written in Turkish by "Sheykh-Zadah," evidently a nom de plume (for Ahmad al-Misri?), and translated from an Arabic MS. which probably dated about the xvth century.

[FN#131] In Chavis and Cazotte, the "kingdom of Dineroux (comprehending all Syria and the isles of the Indian Ocean) whose capital was Issessara." An article in the Edinburgh Review (July, 1886), calls the "Supplement" a "bare-faced forgery"; but evidently the writer should have "read up" his subject before writing.

[FN#132] The Persian form; in Arab. Sijistan, the cla.s.sical Drangiana or province East of Fars=Persia proper. It is famed in legend as the feof of hero Rustam.

[FN#133] Arab. Rawi=a professional tale-teller, which Mr. Payne justly holds to be a clerical error for "Rai, a beholder, one who seeth."

[FN#134] In Persian the name would be Bahr-i-Jaur="luck" (or fortune, "bahr") of Jaur- (or Jur-) city.

[FN#135] Supply "and cared naught for his kingdom."

[FN#136] Arab. "Atraf," plur. of "Tarf," a great and liberal lord.

[FN#137] Lit. "How was," etc. Kayf is a favourite word not only in the Bresl. Edit., but throughout Egypt and Syria. Cla.s.sically we should write "Ma;" vulgarly "Aysh."

[FN#138] Karmania vulg. and fancifully derived from Kirman Pers.=worms because the silkworm is supposed to have been bred there; but the name is of far older date as we find the Asiatic Aethiopians of Herodotus (iii. 93) lying between the Germanii (Karman) and the Indus. Also Karmania appears in Strabo and Sinus Carmanicus in other cla.s.sics.

[FN#139] Arab. "Ka'id"; lit.=one who sits with, a colleague, hence the Span. Alcayde; in Marocco it is=colonel, and is prefixed e.g. Ka'id Maclean.

[FN#140] A favourite food; Al-Hariri calls the dates and cream, which were sold together in bazars, the "Proud Rider on the desired Steed."

[FN#141] In Bresl. Edit. vi. 198 by misprint "Kutru": Chavis and Cazotte have "Ka.s.sera." In the story of Bihkard we find a P.N.

"Yatru."

[FN#142] i.e. waylaying travellers, a term which has often occurred.

[FN#143] i.e. the royal favour.

[FN#144] i.e. When the fated hour came down (from Heaven).

[FN#145] As the Nights have proved in many places, the Asl (origin) of a man is popularly held to influence his conduct throughout life. So the Jeweller's wife (vol. ix.) was of servile birth, which accounted for her vile conduct; and reference is hardly necessary to a host of other instances. We can trace the same idea in the sayings and folk-lore of the West, e.g. Bon sang ne peut mentir, etc., etc.

[FN#146] i.e. "What deemest thou he hath done?"

[FN#147] The apodosis wanting "to make thee trust in him?"

[FN#148] In the Braj Bakha dialect of Hindi, we find quoted in the Akhlak-i-Hindi, "Tale of the old Tiger and the Traveller":--