The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XV Part 23

she a.s.sumed a satisfied air; and as the only way to preserve her honour, received the addresses of the treacherous master with pretended complacency, and consented to receive him as a husband at the first port at which the ship might touch."

[FN#19] The captain, the skipper, not the owner: see vols. i.

127; vi. 12; the fem. (which we shall presently find) is "Ra'isah."

[FN#20] Scott (p. 246) has:--"At length the vessel anch.o.r.ed near a city, to which the captain went to make preparations for his marriage; but the lady, while he was on sh.o.r.e, addressed the ship's crew, setting forth with such force his treacherous conduct to herself, and offering such rewards if they would convey her to her lover at the port they had left, that the honest sailors were moved in her favour, agreed to obey her as their mistress, and hoisting sail, left the master to shift for himself."

[FN#21] In text "Kamrah," = the chief cabin, from the Gr.

{Greek}(?) = vault; Pers. Kamar; Lat. "Camara"; Germ. "Kammer."

It is still the popular term in Egypt for the "cuddy," which is derived from Pers. "Kadah" = a room.

[FN#22] Scott makes the doughty damsel (p. 249), "relate to them her own adventures, and a.s.sure them that when she should have rejoined her lover, they should, if they choose it be honourably restored to their homes; but in the mean time she hoped they would contentedly share her fortunes."

[FN#23] In text "Fidawi," see "Fida'i" and "Fidawiyah," suppl.

col. iv. 220.

[FN#24] [In the text "Al-Kazanat," pl. of "Kazan," which occurs in Spitta Bey's tales under the form "Kazan" on account of the accent. It is the Turkish "Kazghan," vulgarly p.r.o.nounced "Kazan,"

and takes in Persian generally the form "Kazkan." In Night 652 it will be met again in the sense of crucibles.--ST.]

[FN#25] In text "Banj al-tayyar," i.e. volatile: as we should say, that which flies fastest to the brain.

[FN#26] This marvellous bird, the "Ter-il-bas" (Tayr Taus?), is a particular kind of peac.o.c.k which is introduced with a monstrous amount of nonsense about "Dagon and his son Bil-il-Sanan" and made to determine elections by alighting upon the head of one of the candidates in Chavis and Cazotte, "History of Yamalladdin (Jamal al-Din), Prince of Great Katay" (Khata = Cathay = China).

See Heron, iv. 159.

[FN#27] Lit. "hath given it to him."

[FN#28] Arab. "Jihaz," the Egypt. "Gahaz," which is the Scotch "tocher," and must not be confounded with the "Mahr" = dowry, settled by the husband upon the wife. Usually it consists of sundry articles of dress and ornament, furniture (matting and bedding carpets, divans, cushions and kitchen utensils), to which the Badawi add "Gribahs" (water-skins) querns, and pestles with mortars. These are usually carried by camels from the bride's house to the bridegroom's: they are the wife's property, and if divorced she takes them away with her and the husband has no control over the married woman's capital, interest or gains. For other details see Lane M.E. chapt. vi. and Herklots chapt. xiv.

sec. 7.

[FN#29] [Arab. "Shuwar" = trousseau, whence the verb "shawwara binta-hu" = he gave a marriage outfit to his daughter. See Dozy Suppl. s. v. and Arnold Chrestom. 157, 1. --ST.]

[FN#30] Arab. "Ghashim," see vol. ii. 330. It is a favourite word in Egypt extending to Badawiland, and especially in Cairo, where it is looked upon as slighting if not insulting.

[FN#31] The whole of the scene is a replica of the marriage between Kamar al-Zaman and that notable blackguard the Lady Budur (vol. iii. 211), where also we find the pigeon slaughtered (p.

289). I have mentioned that the blood of this bird is supposed throughout the East, where the use of the microscope is unknown, and the corpuscles are never studied, most to resemble the results of a bursten hymen, and that it is the most used to deceive the expert eyes of midwives and old matrons. See note to vol. iii. p. 289.

[FN#32] Scott (p. 254) makes his heroine "erect a most magnificent caravanserai, furnished with baths hot and cold, and every convenience for the weary traveller." Compare this device with the public and royal banquet (p. 212) contrived by the slave-girl sultaness, the charming Zumurrud or Smaragdine in the tale of Ali Shar, vol. iv. 187.

[FN#33] In text "Shakhs," see vol. iii. 26; viii. 159.

[FN#34] This a.s.semblage of the dramatis personae at the end of the scene, highly artistic and equally improbably, reminds us of the ending of King Omar bin al-Nu'uman (vol. iii. 112)

[FN#35] The King and the Minister could not have recognised the portrait as neither had seen the original.

[FN#36] In text "Ishtalaka" = he surmised, discovered (a secret).

[FN#37] In the Arab. "she knew them," but the careless storyteller forgets the first part of his own story.

[FN#38] Story-telling being servile work.

[FN#39] [In the MS. "istanatu la-ha." The translation in the text presupposes the reading "istanattu" as the 10th form of "matt) = he jumped, he leapt. I am inclined to take it for the 8th form of "sanat," which according to Dozy stands in its 2nd form "sannat"

for "sannat," a transposition of the cla.s.sical "na.s.sat" = he listened to. The same word with the same meaning of "listening attentively," recurs in the next line in the singular, applying to the captain and the following p.r.o.noun "la-ha" refers in both pa.s.sages to "Hikayah," tale, not to the lady-sultan who reveals herself only later, when she has concluded her narrative.--ST.]

[FN#40] Here the converse is probably meant, as we have before seen.

[FN#41] Scott ends (p. 258) "Years of unusual happiness pa.s.sed over the heads of the fortunate adventurers of this history, until death, the destroyer of all things, conducted them to a grave which must one day be the resting-place for ages of us all, till the receiving (?) angel shall sound his trumpet."

[FN#42] Scott (vi. 259-267), "Story of Hyjuaje, the tyrannical Governor of Coufeh, and the Young Syed." For the difference between the "Sayyid" (descendant of Hasan) and the "Sharif,"

derived from Husayn, see vol. v. 259. Being of the Holy House the youth can truly deny tat he belongs to any place or race, as will be seen in the sequel.

[FN#43] This masterful administrator of the Caliphate under the early Ommiades is noticed in vols. iv. 3, vii. 97. The succession to the Prophet began--as mostly happens in the proceedings of elective governments, republics, and so forth--with the choice of a n.o.body, "Abubakr the Veridical," a Meccan merchant, whose chief claim was the glamour of the Apostolate. A more notable personage, and seen under the same artificial light, was "Omar the Justiciary," also a trader of Meccah, who was murdered for an act of injustice. In Osman nepotism and corruption so prevailed, while distance began to dim the Apostolic glories, that the blood-thirsty turbulence of the Arab was aroused and caused the death of the third Caliph by what we should call in modern phrase "lynching." Ali succeeded, if indeed we can say he succeeded at all, to an already divided empire. He was only one of the four who could be described as a man of genius, and therefore he had a host of enemies: he was a poet, a sage, a moralist and even a grammarian; brave as a lion, strong as a bull, a successful and experienced captain, yet a complete failure as a King. A mere child in mundane matters, he ever acted in a worldly sense as he should have avoided acting, and hence, after a short and disastrous reign, he also was killed. His two sons, Hasan and Husayn, inherited all the defects and few of the merits of their sire: Hasan was a pauvre diable, whose chief characteristic was addiction to marriage, and by poetical justice one of his wives murdered him. Husayn was of stronger mould, but he fought against the impossible; for his rival was Mu'awiyah, the Cavour of the Age, the longest-headed man in Arabia, and against Yazid, who, like Italy of the present day, flourished and prospered by the artificial game which the far-seeing politician, his father, had bequeathed to his house--the Ommiade. The fourth of this dynasty, ?Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, "the Father of Flies," and his successor, Al-Walid, were happy in being served thoroughly and unscrupulously by Al-Hajjaj, the ablest of Lieutenants. whose specialty it was to take in hand a revolted province, such as Al-Hijaz, Al-Irak, or Khorasan, and to slaughter it into submission; besides deaths in battle he is computed to have slain 120,000 men. He was an unflinching preacher of the Divine Right of Kings and would observe that the Lord says, "Obey Allah and ye can" (conditional), but as regards royal government "Hearing and obeying" (absolute); ergo, all opposition was to be cut down and uprooted. However, despite his most brilliant qualities, his learning, his high and knightly sense of honour, his insight and his foresight (e.g. in building Wasit), he won an immortality of infamy: he was hated by his contemporaries, he is the subject of silly tale and offensive legend (e.g., that he was born without a.n.u.s, which required opening with instruments, and he was suckled by Satan's orders on blood), and he is still execrated as the tyrant, per excellentiam, and the oppressor of the Holy Family-- the children and grand-children of the Apostle.

The traditional hatred of Al-Hajjaj was envenomed by the accession of the Abbasides and this dynasty, the better to distinguish itself from the Ommiades, affected love for the Holy Family, especially Ali and his descendants, and a fanatical hatred against their oppressors. The following table from Ibn Khaldun (Introduct. xxii.) shows that the Caliphs were cousins, which may account for their venomous family feud.

[First Version]

'Abd Manaf | ____________|____________ | | Hashim Abd Shams | | Abd al-Muttalib Umayyah | | ___________|__________ ____|______ | | | | | Al-Abbas Abdullah Abu Talib Harb Abu 'l-Aus | | | | | Abdullah Mohammed | Abu Sufyan Al-Hakim | | | | | Ali Fatimah married Ali Mu'awiyah Marwan | _____|_____ (1st Ommiade) | | | Mohammed Al-Hasan Al-Husayn | Al-Saffah (1st Abbaside)

[Second Version]

'Abd Manaf, father of Hashim and Abd Shams Hashim, father of Abd al-Muttalib Abd al-Muttalib, father of Al-Abbas, Abdullah, and Abu Talib Al-Abbas, father of Abdullah Abdullah, father of Ali Ali, father of Mohammed Mohammed, father of Al-Saffah (1st Abbaside) Abdullah, father of Mohammed Mohammed, father of Fatimah, who married Ali (son of Abu Talib) Fatimah, mother of Al-Hasan and Al-Husayn Abu Talib, father of Ali Abd Shams, father of Umayyah Umayyah, father of Harb and Abu 'l-Aus Harb, father of Abu Sufyan Abu Sufyan, father of Mu'awiyah (1st Ommaide) Abu 'l-Aus, father of Al-Hakim Al-Hakim, father of Marwan

[FN#44] [The word here translated "invited guest" reads in the MS. "Mad'ur." In this form it is no dictionary word, but under the root "D'r" I find in the Muhit: "wa 'l-'amatu takulu fulanun da'irun ya'ni ghalizun jafin" = the common people say such a one is "daiir," i.e., rude, churlish. "Mad'ur" may be a synonym and rendered accordingly: as though thou wert a boor or clown.--ST]

[FN#45] A neat specimen of the figure anachronism. Al-Hajjaj died in A.H. 95 (= AD 714), and Cairo was built in A.H. 358 (= AD 968).

[FN#46] Perfectly true in the present day. The city was famed for intelligence and sanguinary fanaticism; and no stranger in disguise could pa.s.s through it without detection. This ended with the ma.s.sacre of 1840, which brought a new era into the Moslem East. The men are, as a rule, fine-looking, but they seem to be all show: we had a corps of them in the old Bash-Buzuks, who, after a month or two in camp, seemed to have pa.s.sed suddenly from youth into old age.

[FN#47] In text, "Yasta'amiluna al-Mrd," which may have a number of meanings, e.g. "work frowardness" (Maradd), or "work the fruit of the tree Arak" (Maradd = wild capparis) and so forth. I have chosen the word mainly because "Murd" rhymes to "Burd." The people of Al-Yaman are still deep in the Sotadic Zone and practice; this they owe partly to a long colonization of the "'Ajam," or Persians. See my Terminal Essay, -- "Pederasty," p.

178.

[FN#48] "Burd," plur. of "Burdah" = mantle or woolen plaid of striped stuff: vol. vii. 95. They are still woven in Arabia, but they are mostly white.

[FN#49] So in Tabari (vol. III. 127) Al Hajjaj sees a man of haughty mien (Abd al-Rahman bin Abdullah), and exclaims, "Regarde comme il est orgueilleux: par Dieu, j'aurais envie de lui couper la tete!"

[FN#50] [The phrase is Koranic (viii. 24): "Wa 'lamu anna 'llaha yahulu bayna 'l-mari wa kalbi-hi," which Rodwell translates: Know that G.o.d cometh in between man and his own heart.--ST]

[FN#51] "Yathrib," the cla.s.sical name ?{Greek}, one of the multifarious t.i.tles of what is called in full "Madinat al-Nabi,"

City of the Prophet, and vulgarly, Al-Madinah, the City.

"Tayyibah," the good, sweet, or lawful: "Al-Munawwarah" = the enlightened, i.e. by the light of The Faith and the column of (odylic) flame supposed to be based upon the Prophet's tomb. For more, see my Pilgrimage, ii. 162. I may note how ridiculously the story-teller displays ignorance in Al-Hajjaj, who knew the Moslem's Holy Land by heart.

[FN#52] In text "Taawil," = the commentary or explanation of Moslem Holy Writ: "Tanzil" = coming down, revelation of the Koran: "Tahrim" = rendering any action "haram" or unlawful, and "Tahil" = the converse, making word or deed canonically legal.

Those are well known theological terms.

[FN#53] The Banu Ghalib, whose eponymous forefather was Ghalib, son of Fihr, the well known ancestor of Mohammed.

[FN#54] In text "Hasab wa Nasab." It is told of Al-Mu'izz bi Dini'llah, first Fatimate Caliph raised to the throne of Egypt, that he came forward to the elective a.s.sembly and drew his sword half way out of the scabbard and exclaimed "Haza Nasabi" (this is my genealogy); and then cast handfuls of gold amongst the crowd, crying, "Haza Hasabi" (such is my t.i.tle to reign). This is as good as the traditional saying of Napoleon the Great at his first a.s.suming the iron crown--"G.o.d gave her to me; woe for whoso toucheth her" (the crown).

[FN#55] [In MS. "takhs-u," a curious word of venerable yet green old age, used in the active form with both transitive and intransitive meaning: to drive away (a dog, etc.), and to be driven away. In the Koran (xxiii. 110) we find the imper.