The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XVI Part 27

[FN#36] The simplicity of old a.s.syrian correspondence is here well preserved, as we may see by comparing those letters with the cuneiform inscriptions, etc., by S. Abden Smith (Pfeiffer, Leipsic, 1887). One of them begins thus, "The will of the King to Sintabni-Uzur. Salutation from me to thee. May it be well with thee. Regarding Sinsarra-utzur whom thou hast sent to me, how is thy report?" etc. We find such expressions as "May the great G.o.ds, lovers of thy reign, preserve thee an hundred years;" also "Peace to the King, my lord," etc.

[FN#37] Arab. "Yaum al-Khamis." For the week-days see vol. vi.

190, and for a longer notice, Al-Mas'udi, iii. 422-23.

[FN#38] In the text "Kal" (al-Rawi), "the Reciter saith"--which formula I omit here and elsewhere.

[FN#39] i.e. "The Father of the little Fish," in Gauttier (vii.

329) "Abou Someika."

[FN#40] By way of insult; as I have before noticed.

[FN#41] He had now learned that Nadan had ruined him.

[FN#42] The wife (in p. 155; "Ashghaftini") is called "Thou hast enamoured me" from the root "s.h.a.ghaf"=violent love, joy, grief.

Chavis has Zef.a.gnie: Gauttier suppresses the name, which is not pretty. In the old version she is made aunt (father's sister) to Sankharib.

[FN#43] The old version attributes all this device to "Zef.a.gnie;"

thus injuring the unity and the interest of the tale.

[FN#44] Arab. "Jund" plur. "Junud," a term mostly applied to regular troops under the Government, as opposed to soldiers who took service with the Amirs or great barons--a state of things still enduring in non-British India.

[FN#45] Who thus makes a "Ma'adabah"=wake or funeral feast before his death. See vol. viii. 231.

[FN#46] i.e. "Father of the Fishlet", in the old version "Yapousmek" (Ya Abu Sumayk).

[FN#47] In Chavis he becomes "an old slave, a magician, stained with the greatest crimes, who has the air and figure of Hicar."

[FN#48] A formula which announces the death of his supposed enemy.

[FN#49] Arab. " Matmurah"=Sardabah (i. 340), a silo for storing grain, an underground cell (ii. 39).

[FN#50] See text "Nahu" from "Nauh"=ceremonious keening for the dead. The general term for the wail is "Walwalah" or "Wilwal" (an onomatopoy) and for the public wailing-woman "Naddabah."

[FN#51] Here we find the Doric form "Rahum" for "Rahim," or it may simply be the intensive and emphatic form, as "Nazur"=one who looks intently for "n.a.z.ir," a looker.

[FN#52] In the old version "a tenth part of the revenues." The "Kasim" of the text is an unusual word which M. Houdas would render revenues en nature, as opposed to Khiraj, revenues en argent. I translate it by "tax tribute."

[FN#53] In text "'Azzamin, "i.e. men who recite "'Azm," mostly Koranic versets which avert evil.

[FN#54] This may either be figurative or literal--upon the ashes where the fire had been; even as the father of Sayf al-Muluk sat upon the floor of his audience-hall (vol. vii. 314).

[FN#55] In text "Ya'tadir"--from 'Adr=heavy rain, boldness. But in this MS. the dots are often omitted and the word may be Ya'tazir=find excuse.

[FN#56] In the old version the wife is made to disclose the secret of her husband being alive--again a change for the worse.

[FN#57] Here "Wayha-v." and before "Wayla-k": see vols. v. 258; vii. 127 and iii. 82.

[FN#58] The King, after the fashion of Eastern despots, never blames his own culpable folly and hastiness: this was decreed to him and to his victim by Destiny.

[FN#59] The older version reads "Roc" and informs us that "it is a prodigious bird, found in the deserts of Africa: it will bear two hundred pounds weight; and many are of opinion that the idea of this bird is visionary." In Weber ii. 63, this is the device of "Zaf.a.gnie," who accompanies her husband to Egypt.

[FN#60] This name appears to be a corruption. The sound, however, bears a suspicious resemblance to "Dabshalim" (a name most proper for such a Prince, to wit, meaning in their tongue a mighty King), who appears in chapt. i. of the "Fables of Pilpay"

(Bidpai=Bidyapati=Lord of Lore?). "Dabshalimat"=the Dabshalims, was the dynastic t.i.tle of the Kings of Somanath (Somnauth) in Western India.

[FN#61] Arab. "Tin"=clay, mud, which would be used with the Tob (adobe, sun-dried brick) forming the walls of Egypt and a.s.syria.

M.G. Maspero, in his excellent booklet "L'Archeologie Egyptienne"

(p. 7. Paris, Quantin, 1887), ill.u.s.trates this ancient industry which endures with all its gear to the present day. The average measured 22 X 11 X 14 cm.; the larger was 38 X 18 X 14 cm., with intermediate sizes. These formed the cores of temple walls, and, being revetted with granite, syenite, alabaster and other stones, made a grand show; but when the outer coat was removed they were presently weathered to the external semblance of mud-piles. Such was mostly the condition of the ruins of grand Bubastis ("Pi-Pasht") hod. Zagazig, where excavations are still being pushed on.

[FN#62] The old version has "Ma.s.ser, Grand Cairo (in the days of the Pharaohs!); so called from having been built by Misraim, the son of Cham."

[FN#63] In Chavis, "Abicam, a Chaldaean astrologer;" in Gauttier "Abimacam."

[FN#64] In Al-Hariri (p. 409) we read, "Hospitality is three days;" and a Hadis of the Prophet confirms the liberal practice of The Ignorance:--"The entertainment of a guest is three days, and the viatic.u.m ("Jaizah") is a day and a night, and whatso exceedeth is an alms-gift." On the first day is shown largesse and courtesy; on the second and third the stranger is treated after the usual custom of the household, and then he is provided with rations for a day and a night. See Lane: A. Nights, i. 486; also The Nights, vol. i. 3.

[FN#65] i.e. Not standing astraddle, or in other such indecorous att.i.tude.

[FN#66] Chavis, "Bilelsanam, the oracle of Bel, the chief G.o.d of the a.s.syrian: "Gauttier, Une idole Bil. Bel (or Ba'al or Belus, the Phoenician and Canaanite head-G.o.d) may here represent Hobal the biggest idol in the Meccan Pantheon, which used to be borne on raids and expeditions to give plunder a religious significance. Tabari iii. 17. Evidently the author holds it to be an idol.

[FN#67] The Syro-solar month=April; much celebrated by poets and fictionists: rain falling at such time into sh.e.l.ls becomes pearls and upon serpents poison.

[FN#68] The text has "Baybunah," prop. Babunaj in Arab., and in Pers. "Babuk," or "Babunak"=the white camomile-flower. See vol.

iii. 58.

[FN#69] "Khabata"="He (the camel) pawed the ground." The prim.

sig. is to beat, secondly, it is applied to a purblind camel which beats or strikes the ground and so stumbles, or to him who bashes a tree for its leaves; and lastly to him who gets alms by begging. See Chenery's Al-Hariri, p. 447.

[FN#70] Arab. "Karz"=moneys lent in interest and without fixed term of payment, as opp. to "Dayn."

[FN#71] In text "Kintar"=a quintal, 98 to 99 lbs. avoir.: in round numbers a cwt. a hundred weight: see vol. ii. 233. The old version explains it by "A golden coin, equivalent to three hundred livres French (?)." About the value of the Kintar of gold, doctors differ. Some value it at 40 ounces, others make it a leathern bag containing 1,080 to 1,100 dinars, and others 100 rotls (lbs.) of precious metal; while Al-Makrizi relates that Mohammed the Apostle declared, "The Kintar of gold is twelve hundred ounces." Baron de Slane (Ibn Khaldun i. 210) computes 100 Kintars=1 million of francs.

[FN#72] In the text "wa la ahad tafawwaha fina."

[FN#73] Arab. "Falsafah"=philosophy: see vols. v. 234 and vii.

145.

[FN#74] In the text "Fa-yatrahuna," masc. for fem.

[FN#75] The writer probably remembered that the cat was a sacred animal amongst the Egyptians: see Herod., ii. 66, and Diod. Sic., who tells us (vol. i. p. 94) of a Roman put to death under Ptolemy Auletes for accidentally killing one of these holy beasts. The artists of Bubastis, whose ruins are now for the first time being scientifically explored, modelled the animal in bronze with an admirable art akin to nature.

[FN#76] M. Houdas explains this miswritten pa.s.sage, Quand le soleil fut leve et qu'il penetra par ces ouvertures (lis.

abkhash, trou de flute), il repandit le sable dans ces cylindres formes par la lumiere du soleil. It is not very intelligible. I understand that the Sage went behind the Palace and drove through a mound or heap of earth a narrow hole bearing east?-west, which he partially filled up with sand; and so when the sun rose the beams fell upon it and made it resemble a newly made cord of white flax. M. Agoub (in Gauttier vol. vi. 344) shirks, as he is wont to do, the whole difficulty. [The idea seems to me to be, and I believe this is also the meaning of M. Houdas, that Haykar produced streaks of light in an otherwise dark room by boring holes in the back wall, and scattered the sand over them, so that, while pa.s.sing through the rays of the sun, it a.s.sumed the appearance of ropes. Hence he says mockingly to Pharaoh, "Have these ropes taken up, and each time you please I will twist thee the like of them"--reading "Aftilu," lst p. aor. instead of "Iftil", 2nd imper.--ST.)

[FN#77] Gauttier (vi. 347), Ces presens ne sont pas dignes de lui; mais peu de chose contents les rois.

[FN#78] Haykar is a Sage who follows the religion of nature, "Love thy friends and hate thy foes." Gauttier (vii. 349) embroiders all this with Christian and French sentiment-- L'intention secrete de Heycar etait de sauver la vie a l'ingrat qui avait conspire contre la sienne. Il voulait pour toute vengeance, le mettre desormais dans l'impossibilite de nuire et l'abandonner ensuite a ses remords, persuade que le remords n'est pas le moindre chatiment du coupable. True nonsense this when talking of a character born bad: its only remorse is not to have done worse than bad.

[FN#79] Striking the nape being the Moslem equivalent for "boxing ears."