The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XIII Part 22

[FN#69] i.e. blood is thicker than water, as the Highlanders say.

[FN#70] A popular saying amongst Moslems which has repeatedly occurred in The Nights. The son is the "lamp of a dark house."

Vol. ii 280.

[FN#71] Out of respect to his brother, who was probably the senior: the H. V. expressly says so.

[FN#72] Al-Marhm = my late brother. See vol. ii. 129, 196.

[FN#73] This must refer to Cairo not to Al-Medinah whose t.i.tle is "Al-Munawwarah" = the Illumined.

[FN#74] A picturesque term for birth-place.

[FN#75] In text "Y Rjul" (for Rajul) = O man, an Egypto-Syrian form, broad as any Doric.

[FN#76] Arab. Shf-hu, the colloquial form of Shuf-hu

[FN#77] For the same sentiment see "Julnr" the "Sea born,"

Nights dccxliii.-xliv.

[FN#78] "I will hire thee a shop in the Chauk"--Carfax or market-street says the H. V.

[FN#79] The MS. writes the word Khwj (for Khwjah see vol. vi.

46). Here we are at once interested in the scapegrace who looked Excelsior. In fact the tale begins with a strong inducement to boyish vagabondage and scampish indolence; but the Moslem would see in it the hand of Destiny bringing good out of evil. Amongst other meanings of "Khwjah " it is a honorific t.i.tle given by Khorsnis to their notables. In Arab. the similarity of the word to "Khuwj"=hunger, has given rise to a host of conceits, more or less frigid (Ibn Khallikn, iii. 45).

[FN#80] Arab. "Whid min al-Tujjr," the very vulgar style.

[FN#81] i.e., the Sat.u.r.day (see vol. ii. 305) established as a G.o.d's rest by the so-called "Mosaic" commandment No. iv. How it gradually pa.s.sed out of observance, after so many centuries of most stringent application, I cannot discover: certainly the text in Cor. ii. 16-17 is insufficient to abolish or supersede an order given with such singular majesty and impressiveness by G.o.d and so strictly obeyed by man. The popular idea is that the Jewish Sabbath was done away with in Christ, and that sundry of the 1604 councils, e.g., Laodicea, anathematized those who kept it holy after such fashion. With the day the aim and object changed; and the early Fathers made it the "Feast of the Resurrection" which could not be kept too joyously. The "Sabbatismus" of our Sabbatarians, who return to the Israelitic practice and yet honour the wrong day, is heretical and vastly illogical; and the Sunday is better kept in France, Italy and other "Catholic" countries than in England and Scotland.

[FN#82] For "Mushayyadt" see vol. viii. 23.

[FN#83] All these words sr, dakhal, jalas, &c. are in the plur. for the dual--popular and vulgar speech. It is so throughout the MS.

[FN#84] The Persians apply the Arab word "Sahr"=desert, to the waste grounds about a town.

[FN#85] Arab. Kashksh from the quadril, kashkasha = he gathered fuel.

[FN#86] In text "Shayy bi-lsh" which would mean lit. a thing gratis or in vain.

[FN#87] In the text "Sabba raml" = cast in sand. It may be a clerical error for "Zaraba Raml" = he struck sand, i.e., made geomantic figures.

[FN#88] Arab. Mauza'= a place, an apartment, a saloon.

[FN#89] Galland makes each contain quatre vases de bronze, grands comme des cuves.

[FN#90] The Arab. is "Lwn," for which see vols. iv. 71 and vii. 347. Galland translates it by a "terrace" and "niche."

[FN#91] The idea is borrowed from the lume eterno of the Rosicrucians. It is still prevalent throughout Syria where the little sepulchral lamps buried by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans are so called. Many tales are told of their being found burning after the lapse of centuries; but the traveller will never see the marvel.

[FN#92] The first notice of the signet-ring and its adventures is by Herodotus in the Legend of the Samian Polycrates; and here it may be observed that the accident is probably founded on fact; every fisherman knows that fish will seize and swallow spoon-bait and other objects that glitter. The text is the Talmudic version of Solomon's seal-ring. The king of the demons after becoming a "Bottle-imp," prayed to be set free upon condition of teaching a priceless secret, and after cajoling the Wise One flung his signet into the sea and cast the owner into a land four hundred miles distant. Here David's son begged his bread till he was made head cook to the King of Ammon at Mash Kernn. After a while, he eloped with Na'zah, the daughter of his master, and presently when broiling a fish found therein his missing property. In the Moslem version, Solomon had taken prisoner Amnah, the daughter of a pagan prince, and had homed her in his Harem, where she taught him idolatry. One day before going to the Hammam he entrusted to her his signet- ring presented to him by the four angelic Guardians of sky, air, water and earth when the mighty Jinni Al-Sakhr (see vol. i. 41; v. 36), who was hovering about unseen, s.n.a.t.c.hing away the ring, a.s.sumed the king's shape, whereby Solomon's form became so changed that his courtiers drove him from his own doors. Thereupon Al-Sakhr, taking seat upon the throne, began to work all manner of iniquity, till one of the Wazirs, suspecting the transformation, read aloud from a scroll of the law: this caused the demon to fly shrieking and to drop the signet into the sea. Presently Solomon, who had taken service with a fisherman, and received for wages two fishes a day, found his ring and made Al-Sakhr a "Bottle-imp." The legend of St.

Kentigern or Mungo of Glasgow, who recovered the Queen's ring from the stomach of a salmon, is a palpable imitation of the Biblical incident which paid tribute to C sar.

[FN#93] The Magician evidently had mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits are tales and novels founded.

[FN#94] These are the Gardens of the Hesperides and of King Isope (Tale of Beryn, Supplem. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc. p.

84):--

In mydward of this gardyn stant a feir tre Of alle manner levis that under sky be I-forgit and i- fourmyd, eche in his degre Of sylver, and of golde fyne, that l.u.s.ty been to see.

So in the Kath (S. S.) there are trees with trunks of gold, branches of pearls, and buds and flowers of clear white pearls.

[FN#95] The text causes some confusion by applying "Sullam" to staircase and ladder, hence probably the latter is not mentioned by Galland and Co., who speak only of an escalier de cinquante marches. "Sullam" (plur. "Sallim") in modern Egyptian is popularly used for a flight of steps: see Spitta-Bey's "Contes Arabes Modernes," p. 70. The H. V. places under the slab a hollow s.p.a.ce measuring four paces (kadam = 2.5 feet), and at one corner a wicket with a ladder. This leads to a vault of three rooms, one with the jars of gold; the second not to be swept by the skirts, and the third opening upon the garden of gems. "There thou shalt see a path, whereby do thou fare straight forwards to a lofty palace with a flight of fifty steps leading to a flat terrace: and here shalt thou find a niche wherein a lamp burneth."

[FN#96] In the H.V. he had thrust the lamp into the bosom of his dress, which, together with his sleeves, he had filled full of fruit, and had wound his girdle tightly around him lest any fall out.

[FN#97] Africa (Arab. Afrikyah) here is used in its old and cla.s.sical sense for the limited tract about Carthage (Tunis) net, Africa Propria. But the scribe imagines it to be the P. N. of a city: so m Jdar (vol. vi. 222) we find Fs and Mikns (Fez and Mequinez) converted into one settlement. The Maghribi, Mauritanian or Maroccan is famed for sorcery throughout the Moslem world: see vol. vi. 220. The Moslem "Kingdom of Afrikiyah"

was composed of four provinces, Tunis, Tripoli, Constantina, and Bugia: and a considerable part of it was held by the Berber tribe of Sanhja or Sinhga, also called the Zenag whence our modern "Senegal." Another noted tribe which held Bajaiyah (Bugia) in Afrikiyah proper was the "Zawwah," the European "Zouaves," (Ibn Khall. iv. 84).

[FN#98] Galland omits the name, which is outlandish enough.

[FN#99] Meaning that he had incurred no blood-guiltiness, as he had not killed the lad and only left him to die.

[FN#100] The H. V. explains away the improbability of the Magician forgetting his gift. "In this sore disquietude he bethought him not of the ring which, by the decree of Allah, was the means of Alaeddin's escape; and indeed not only he but oft times those who practice the Black Art are baulked of their designs by Divine Providence."

[FN#101] See vol. vii. 60. The word is mostly derived from "

'afar" = dust, and denotes, according to some, a man coloured like the ground or one who "dusts" all his rivals. " 'Ifr" (fem.

'Ifrah) is a wicked and dangerous man. Al-Jannabi, I may here notice, is the chief authority for Afrikus son of Abraha and xviiith Tobba being the eponymus of "Africa."

[FN#102] Arab. "Ghayr an" = otherwise that, except that, a favourite form in this MS. The first word is the Syriac "Gheir" = for, a conjunction which is most unneccessarily derived by some from the Gr. {Greek}.

[FN#103] Galland and the H.V. make the mother deliver a little hygienic lecture about not feeding too fast after famine: exactly what an Eastern parent would not dream of doing.

[FN#104] The lad now turns the tables upon his mother and becomes her master, having "a crow to pick" with her.

[FN#105] Arab. "Munfik" for whose true sense, "an infidel who pretendeth to believe in Al-Islam," see vol. vi. p. 207. Here the epithet comes last being the climax of abuse, because the lowest of the seven h.e.l.ls (vol. viii. 111) was created for "hypocrites,"

i.e., those who feign to be Moslems when they are Miscreants.

[FN#106] Here a little abbreviation has been found necessary to avoid the whole of a twice-told tale; but nothing material has been omitted.

[FN#107] Arab. "Taffaytu-hu." This is the correct term = to extinguish. They relate of the great scholar Firozbd, author of the "Kms" (ob. A. H. 817 = A. D. 1414), that he married a Badawi wife in order to study the purest Arabic and once when going to bed said to her, "Uktuli's-sirj," the Persian "Chirgh- r bi-kush" = Kill the lamp. "What," she cried, "Thou an ' lim and talk of killing the lamp instead of putting it out!"

[FN#108] In the H. V. the mother takes the "fruits" and places them upon the ground, "but when darkness set in, a light shone from them like the rays of a lamp or the sheen of the sun."

[FN#109] For these fabled Giant rulers of Syria, Og King of Bashan, etc., see vols. vii. 84; ix. 109, 323. D'Herbelot (s. v.

Giabbar= Giant) connects "Jabbirah" with the Heb. Ghibbor Ghibborim and the Pers. Dv, Divn: of these were ' d and Shaddd, Kings of Syria: the Falast"in (Philistines) 'Auj, Amlik and Ban Shayth or Seth's descendants, the sons of G.o.d (Benu- Elohim) of the Book of Genesis (vi. 2) who inhabited Mount Hermon and lived in purity and chast.i.ty.

[FN#110] The H. V. explains that the Jinni had appeared to the mother in hideous aspect, with noise and clamour, because she had scoured the Lamp roughly; but was more gentle with Alaeddin because he had rubbed it lightly. This is from Galland.

[FN#111] Arab. Musawwadatayn = lit. two black things, rough copies, etc.