The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume II Part 18

[FN#103] Arab. "Khara," the lowest possible word: Ya Khara! is the commonest of insults, used also by modest women. I have heard one say it to her son.

[FN#104] Arab. "Kamah," a measure of length, a fathom, also called "Ba'a." Both are omitted in that sadly superficial book, Lane's Modern Egyptians, App. B.

[FN#105] Names of her slave-girls which mean (in order), Garden-bloom, Dawn (or Beautiful), Tree o' Pearl (P. N. of Saladin's wife), Light of (right) Direction, Star o' the Morn Lewdness (= Shahwah, I suppose this is a chaff), Delight, Sweetmeat and Miss Pretty.

[FN#106] This mode of disposing of a rival was very common in Harems. But it had its difficulties and on the whole the river was (and is) preferred.

[FN#107] An Eastern dislikes nothing more than drinking in a dim dingy place: the brightest lights seem to add to his "drinkit.i.te."

[FN#108] He did not sleep with her because he suspected some palace-mystery which suggested prudence, she also had her reasons.

[FN#109] This as called in Egypt "Allah." (Lane M. E. chaps. i.)

[FN#110] It would be a broad ribbon-like band upon which the letters could be worked.

[FN#111] In the Arab. "he cried." These "Yes, Yes!" and "No! No!"

trifles are very common amongst the Arabs.

[FN#112] Arab. "Maragha" lit. rubbed his face on them like a fawning dog. Ghanim is another "softy" lover, a favourite character in Arab tales; and by way of contrast, the girl is masterful enough.

[FN#113] Because the Abbaside Caliphs descend from Al-Abbas, paternal uncle of Mohammed, text means more explicitly, "O descendant of the Prophet's uncle!"

[FN#114] The most terrible part of a belle pa.s.sion in the East is that the beloved will not allow her lover leave of absence for an hour.

[FN#115] It is hard to preserve these wretched puns. In the original we have "O spray (or branch) of capparis-shrub (araki) which has been thinned of leaf and fruit (tujna, i.e., whose fruit, the hymen, has been plucked before and not by me) I see thee (araka) against me sinning (tajni).

[FN#116] Apparently the writer forgets that the Abbaside banners and dress were black, originally a badge of mourning for the Imam Ibrahim bin Mohammed put to death by the Ommiade Caliph Al-Marwan. The modern Egyptian mourning, like the old Persian, is indigo-blue of the darkest; but, as before noted, the custom is by no means universal.

[FN#117] Koran, chaps. iv. In the East as elsewhere the Devil quotes Scripture.

[FN#118] A servant returning from a journey shows his master due honour by appearing before him in travelling suit and uncleaned.

[FN#119] The first name means "Rattan", the second "Willow wand,"

from the "Ban" or "Khilaf" the Egyptian willow (Salix aegyptiaca Linn.) vulgarly called "Safsaf." Forskal holds the "Ban" to be a different variety.

[FN#120] Arab. "Ta'am," which has many meanings: in mod. parlance it would signify millet holcus seed.

[FN#121] i.e. "I well know how to deal with him."

[FN#122] The Pen (t.i.tle of the Koranic chaps. Ixviii.) and the Preserved Tablet (before explained).

[FN#123] These plunderings were sanctioned by custom. But a few years ago, when the Turkish soldiers mutinied about arrears of pay (often delayed for years) the governing Pasha would set fire to the town and allow the men to loot what they pleased during a stated time. Rochet (soi-disant D'Hericourt) amusingly describes this manoeuvre of the Turkish Governor of Al-Hodaydah in the last generation. (Pilgrimage iii. 381.)

[FN#124] Another cenotaph whose use was to enable women to indulge in their pet pastime of weeping and wailing in company.

[FN#125] The lodging of pauper travellers, as the chapel in Iceland is of the wealthy. I have often taken benefit of the mosque, but as a rule it is unpleasant, the matting being not only torn but over-populous. Juvenal seems to allude to the Jewish Synagogue similarly used: "in qua te quaero proseucha"?

(iii. 296) and in Acts iii. we find the lame, blind and impotent in the Temple-porch.

[FN#126] This foul sort of vermin is supposed to be bred by perspiration. It is an epoch in the civilised traveller's life when he catches his first louse.

[FN#127] The Moslem peasant is a kind hearted man and will make many sacrifices for a sick stranger even of another creed. It is a manner of "pundonor" with the village.

[FN#128] Such treatment of innocent women was only too common under the Caliphate and in contemporary Europe.

[FN#129] This may also mean, "And Heaven will reward thee," but camel-men do not usually accept any drafts upon futurity.

[FN#130] He felt that he was being treated like a corpse.

[FN#131] This hatred of the Hospital extends throughout Southern Europe, even in places where it is not justified.

[FN#132] The importance of the pillow (wisadah or makhaddah) to the sick man is often recognised in The Nights. "He took to his pillow" is = took to his bed.

[FN#133] i.e in order that the reverend men, who do not render such suit and service gratis, might pray for him.

[FN#134] The reader will notice in The Nights the frequent mention of these physical prognostications, with which mesmerists are familiar.

[FN#135] The Pers. name of the planet Saturn in the Seventh Heaven. Arab. "Zuhal"; the Kiun or Chiun of Amos vi. 26.

[FN#136] i.e. "Pardon me if I injured thee"-- a popular phrase.

[FN#137] A "seduction," a charmer. The double-entendre has before been noticed.

[FN#138] This knightly tale, the longest in the Nights (xliv.-- cxlv.), about one-eighth of the whole, does not appear in the Bres. Edit. Lane, who finds it "objectionable," reduces it to two of its episodes, Aziz-c.u.m-Azizah and Taj al-Muluk. On the other hand it has been converted into a volume (8vo, pp. 240) "Scharkan, Conte Arabe," etc. Traduit par M. a.s.selan Riche, etc.

Paris: Dondey-Dupre. 1829. It has its longueurs and at times is longsome enough; but it is interesting as a comparison between the chivalry of Al-Islam and European knight-errantry. Although all the characters are fict.i.tious the period is evidently in the early crusading days. Caesarea, the second capital of Palestine, taken during the Caliphate of Omar (A.H. 19) and afterwards recovered, was fortified in A.H. 353 = 963 as a base against the Arabs by the Emperor Phocas, the Arab. "Nakfur" i.e. Nicephorus.

In A.H. 498=1104, crusading craft did much injury by plundering merchantmen between Egypt and Syria, to which allusion is found in the romance. But the story teller has not quite made up his mind about which Caesarea he is talking, and M. Riche tells us that Cesaree is a "ville de la Mauritanie, en Afrique" (p. 20).

[FN#139] The fifth Ommiade Caliph reign. A.H. 65-86 = 685-704.

[FN#140] This does not merely mean that no one was safe from his wrath: or, could approach him in the heat of fight: it is a reminiscence of the masterful "King Kulayb," who established game-laws in his dominions and would allow no man to approach his camp-fire. Moreover the Jinn lights a fire to decoy travellers, but if his victim be bold enough to brave him, he invites him to take advantage of the heat.

[FN#141] China.

[FN#142] The Jaxartes and the Bactrus (names very loosely applied).

[FN#143] In full "Sharrun kana" i.e. an evil (Sharr) has come to being (kana) that is, "bane to the foe" a pagan and knightly name. The hero of the Romance "Al-Dalhamah" is described as a bitter gourd (colocynth), a viper, a calamity.

[FN#144] This is a Moslem law (Koran chaps. iv. bodily borrowed from the Talmud) which does not allow a man to marry one wife unless he can carnally satisfy her. Moreover he must distribute his honours equally and each wife has a right to her night unless she herself give it up. This was the case even with the spouses of the Prophet; and his biography notices several occasions when his wives waived their rights in favour of one another M. Riche kindly provides the King with la piquante francaise (p. 15).

[FN#145] So the celebrated mosque in Stambul, famed for being the largest church in the world is known to the Greeks as "Agia (p.r.o.n.

Aya) Sophia" and to Moslems as "Aye Sofiyeh" (Holy Wisdom) i.e. the Logos or Second Person of the Trinity (not a Saintess). The sending a Christian girl as a present to a Moslem would, in these days, be considered highly scandalous. But it was done by the Mukaukis or Coptic Governor of Egypt (under Heraclius) who of course hated the Greeks. This worthy gave two damsels to Mohammed; one called Sirin and the other Mariyah (Maria) whom the Prophet reserved for his especial use and whose abode is still shown at Al-Medinah. The Rev.

Doctor Badger (loc. cit. p. 972) gives the translation of an epistle by Mohammed to this Mukaukis, written in the Cufic character ( ? ?) and sealed "Mohammed, The Apostle of Allah." My friend seems to believe that it is an original, but upon this subject opinions will differ. It is, however, exceedingly interesting, beginning with "Bismillah," etc., and ending (before the signature) with a quotation from the Koran (iii. 57); and it may be a.s.sumed as a formula addressee to foreign potentates by a Prophet who had become virtually "King of Arabia."

[FN#146] This prayer before "doing the deed of kind" is, I have said, Moslem as well Christian.

[FN#147] Exodus i. 16, quoted by Lane (M. E., chaps. xxvii.).

Torrens in his Notes cites Drayton's "Moon-calf':--

Bring forth the birth-stool--no, let it alone; She is so far beyond all compa.s.s grown, Some other new device us needs must stead, Or else she never can be brought to bed.