The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XIII Part 21

[FN#35] In the text "Ymin," a copyist's error, which can mean nothing else but "Yasimn."

[FN#36] The H. V. rejects this detail for "a single piece of mother-o'-pearl twelve yards long," etc. Galland has une seule ecaille de poisson. In my friend M. Zotenberg's admirable translation of Tabara (i. 52) we read of a bridge at Baghdad made of the ribs of Og bin 'Unk (= Og of the Neck), the fabled King of Bashan.

[FN#37] I have noted that this is the primitive attire of Eastern man in all hot climates, and that it still holds its ground in that grand survival of heathenry, the Meccan Pilgrimage. In Galland the four strips are of taffetas jaune, the Hind. "Taft."

[FN#38] The word is Hizm = girdle, sash, waist-belt, which Galland turns into nappes. The object of the cloths edged with gems and gums was to form a barrier excluding hostile Jinns: the European magician usually drew a magic circle.

[FN#39] This is our corruption of the Malay Aigla = sandal wood.

See vol. ix. 150.

[FN#40] Lit. = the Day of a.s.sembly, "Yaum al-Mahshar." These lines were translated at Cannes on Feb. 22n, 1886, the day before the earthquake which brought desolation upon the Riviera. It was a second curious coincidence. On Thursday, July 10th, 1863--the morning when the great earthquake at Accra laid in ruins the town and the stout old fort built in the days of James II--I had been reading the Koranic chapter ent.i.tled "Earthquakes" (No. XCIX.) to some Moslem friends who had visited my quarters. Upwards of a decade afterwards I described teh accident in "Ocean Highways"

(New Series, No. II., Vol. I, pp. 448-461), owned by Trubner & Co., and edited by my friend Clements Markham, and I only regret that this able Magazine has been extinguished by that dullest of Journals, "Porceedings of the R. S. S. and monthly record of Geography."

[FN#41] Galland has un tremblement pareil celui qu'Israfyel (Isrfl) doit causer le jour du jugement.

[FN#42] The idea is Lady M. W. Montague's ("The Lady's Resolve.")

In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.

As an unknown correspondent warns me the sentiment was probably suggested by Sir Thomas Overbury ("A Wife." St. x.x.xvi):--

--In part to blame is she Which hath without consent bin only tride: He comes too near that comes to be denide.

[FN#43] These highly compromising magical articles are of many kinds. The ballad of The Boy and the Mantle is familiar to all, how in the case of Sir Kay's lady:--

When she had tane the mantle With purpose for to wear; It shrunk up to her shoulder And left her backside bare.

Percy, Vol. I., i and Book III.

Percy derives the ballad from "Le COurt Mantel," an old French piece and Mr. Evans (Specimens of Welsh Poetry) from an ancient MS, of Tegan Earfron, one of Arthur's mistresses, who possessed a mantle which would not fit immodest women. See also in Spenser, Queen Florimel's Girdle (F.Q. iv. 5,3), and the detective is a horn in the Morte d'Arthur, translated from the French, temp.

Edward IV., and first printed in A. D. 1484. The Spectator (No.

579) tells us "There was a Temple upon Mount Etna which was guarded by dogs of so exquisite a smell, that they could discover whether the Persons who came thither were chaste or not;" and that they caused, as might be expected, immense trouble. The test-article becomes in the Tuti-nmeh the Tank of Trial at Agra; also a nosegay which remains fresh or withers; in the Kath Sarit Sgara, the red lotus of Shiva; a shirt in Story lxix. Gesta Romanorum; a cup in Ariosto; a rose-garland in "The Wright's Chaste WIfe," edited by Mr. Furnival for the Early English Text Society; a magic picture in Bandello, Part I., No. 21; a ring in the Pentamerone, of Basile; and a distaff in "L'Adroite Princesse," a French imitation of the latter.

[FN#44] Looking gla.s.ses in the East are mostly made, like our travelling mirrors, to open and shut.

[FN#45] In Eastern countries the oarsman stands to his work and lessens his labour by applying his weight which cannot be done so forcibly when sitting even upon the sliding-seat. In rowing as in swimming we have forsaken the old custom and have lost instead of gaining.

[FN#46] I have explained this word in vol. iii. 100; viii. 51, etc., and may add the interpretation of Mr. L. C. Casartelli (p.

17) "La Philosophie Religieuse du Mazdisme, etc., Paris Maisonneuve, 1884." "A divine name, which has succeeded little (?) is the ancient t.i.tle Bagh, the O. P. Baga of the Cuneiforms (Baga vazraka Auramazda, etc.) and the Bagha of the Avesta, whose memory is preserved in Baghdad--the city created by the G.o.ds (?).

The Pahlevi books show the word in the compound Baghbakht, lit.

= what is granted by the G.o.ds, popularly, Providence."

[FN#47] The H. V. makes the old woman a "finished procuress whose skill was unrivalled in that profession."

[FN#48] In the text "Al-Sd w'al-Ghd:" the latter may mean those who came for the morning meal.

[FN#49] An antistes, a leader in prayer (vols. ii. 203, and iv.

227); a reverend, against whom the normal skit is directed. The H. V. makes him a Muezzin, also a Mosque-man; and changes his name to Murad. Imm is a word with a host of meanings, e.g., model (and master), a Sir-Oracle, the Caliph, etc., etc.

[FN#50] i.e. being neighbours they would become to a certain extent answerable for the crimes committed within the quarter.

[FN#51] Arab. "Nakshat" and "Sifrat."

[FN#52] Arab. "Farajyah," for which see vol. i. 210, 321.

[FN#53] For this aphrodisiac see vol. vi. 60.

[FN#54] In the text "Ay ni'am," still a popular expression.

[FN#55] Arab. "'Ilm al-Hah," gen. translated Astrology, but here meaning scientific Physiognomy. All these branches of science, including Palmistry, are nearly connected; the features and the fingers, mounts, lines, etc. being referred to the sun, moon and planets.

[FN#56] Arab. "Mihaffah bi-takhtrawn": see vols. ii. 180; v.

175.

[FN#57] The H. V. is more explicit: "do not so, or the King of the Jann will slay thee even before thou canst enjoy her and will carry her away."

[FN#58] Arab. "Shahwah" the rawest and most direct term. The Moslem religious has no absurd shame of this natural pa.s.sion. I have heard of a Persian Imam, who, suddenly excited as he was sleeping in a friend's house, awoke the master with, "Shahwah dram" = "I am l.u.s.tful" and was at once gratified by a "Mut'ah,"

temporary and extempore marriage to one of the slave-girls. These morganatic marriages are not, I may note, allowed to the Sunnis.

[FN#59] Arab. "Min ba'di an" for "Min ba'di m" = after that, still popular in the latter broad form.

[FN#60] The word has been used in this tale with a threefold sense Egypt, old Cairo (Fostat) and new Cairo, in fact to the land and to its capital for the time being.

[FN#61] Arab. "Kabbaltu" = I have accepted, i.e., I accept emphatically. Arabs use this form in sundry social transactions, such as marriages, sales, contracts, bargains, and so forth, to denote that the engagement is irrevocable and that no change can be made. De Sacy neglected to note this in his Grammar, but explains it in his Chrestomathy (i. 44, 53), and rightly adds that the use of this energetic form peut-tre serait susceptible d'applications plus tendues.

[FN#62] La nuit de l'entre, say the French: see Lane "Leylet ed-dukhlah" (M.E. chapt. vi.).

[FN#63] This MS. uses "Milh" (pleasant) for "Mubh"

(permitted). I must remark, before parting with Zayn al-Asnam, that its object is to inculcate that the price of a good wife is "far above rubies" (Prov. x.x.xi. 10: see the rest of this fine chapter), a virtuous woman being "a crown to her husband" (ibid.

xxii. 4); and "a prudent wife is from the Lord" (Prov. xix. 4).

The whole tale is told with extreme delicacy and the want of roughness and energy suggests a European origin.

[FN#64] i.e. the "Height or Glory ('Al) of the Faith (al-Dn)"

p.r.o.n. Aladdeen; which is fairly represented by the old form "Aladdin;" and better by De Sacy's "Ala-eddin." The name has occurred in The Nights, vol. iv. 29-33; it is a household word in England and who has not heard of THomas Hood's "A-lad-in?"

Easterns write it in five different ways and in the Paris MS. it is invariably "Al al-dn," which is a palpable mistake. The others are (1) 'Al al-Dn, (2) 'Al yadn, (3) 'Alah Dn in the H. V. and (4) 'Ala al-Dn (with the Hamzah), the last only being grammatical. In Galland the Histoire de la Lampe merveilleuse is preceded by the Histoire du Dormeur Eveill which, being "The Story of Ab al-Hasan the Wag, or the Sleeper awakened," of the Bresl. Edit. (Nights cclxxi.-ccxc.), is here omitted. The Alaeddin Story exists in germ in Tale ii. of the "Dravidian Nights Entertainments," (Madana Kamara-Sankdj), by Pandit S. M.

Natisa Shastri (Madras, 1868, and London, Trbner). We are told by Mr. Coote that it is well represented in Italy. The Messina version is by Pitt, "La Lanterna Magica," also the Palermitan "Lanterne;" it is "Il Matrimonio di Cajussi" of Rome (R. H.

Busk's Folk-lore); "Il Gallo e il Mago," of Visentini's "Fiabe Mantovane," and the "Pesciolino," and "Il Contadino che aveva tre Fgli," of Imbriana. In "La Fanciulla c il Mago," of De Gubernatis ("Novelline di Sante Stefano de Calcenaja," p. 47), occurs the popular incident of the original. "The Magician was not a magician for nothing. He feigned to be a hawker and fared through the streets, crying out, 'Donne, donne, chi baratta anelli di ferro contra anelli di argento?'"

Alaeddin has ever been a favourite with the stage. Early in the present century it was introduced to the Parisian opera by M.

Etienne, to the Feydeau by Thaulon's La Clochette: to the Gymnase by La Pet.i.te-Lampe of M. Scribe and Melesville, and to teh Panorama Dramatique by MM. Merle, Cartouche and Saintine (Gauttier, vii. 380).

[FN#65] This MS. always uses Dnrzd like Galland.

[FN#66] Arab. "Abadan," a term much used in this MS. and used correctly. It refers always and only to future time, past being denoted by "Kattu" from Katta = he cut (in breadth, as opposed to Kadda=he cut lengthwise). See De Sacy, Chrestom. ii. 443.

[FN#67] In the text "Ibn mn," a vulgarism for "man." Galland adds that the tailor's name was Mustapha--i y avait un tailleur nomm Mustafa.

[FN#68] In cla.s.sical Arabic the word is "Maghribi," the local form of the root Gharaba= he went far away (the sun), set, etc., whence "Maghribi"=a dweller in the Sunset-land. The vulgar, however, prefer "Maghrab" and "Maghrabi," of which foreigners made "Mogrebin." For other information see vols. vi. 220; ix. 50.

The "Moormen" are famed as magicians; so we find a Maghrabi Sahhr=wizard, who by the by takes part in a transformation scene like that of the Second Kalandar (vol. i. p. 134, The Nights), in p. 10 of Spitta Bey's "Contes Arabes Modernes," etc. I may note that "Sihr," according to Jauhari and Firozbdi=anything one can hold by a thin or subtle place, i.e., easy to handle. Hence it was applied to all sciences, "Sahhr" being=to 'Alim (or sage) .

and the older Arabs called poetry "Sihar al-hall"--lawful magic.