The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XVI Part 35

[FN#362] In text "al-Towab," Arab. plur. of the Persian and Turk. "Top." We hardly expected to find ordinance in the age of Harun al-Rashid, although according to Milton they date before the days of Adam.

[FN#363] M. Houdas would read for "Alhy Tys" in the text "Tuha Tays" a general feast; "Tuha" = cooked meat and "Tays" = myriads of.

[FN#364] M. Houdas translates les injures devancerent les compliments, an idiom = he did not succeed in his design.

[FN#365] "Cousin" being more polite than "wife": see vols. vi.

145; ix. 225.

[FN#366] Les vertebres ont fait bourrelet, says M. Houdas who adds that "Shakban" is the end of a cloth, gown, or cloak, which is thrown over the shoulders and serves, like the "Jayb" in front, to carry small parcels, herbs, etc.

[FN#367] In the local Min jargon, the language of Fellahs, "Addiki" = I will give thee.

[FN#368] In text "Min al-'an wa sa'idan;" lit. = from this moment upwards.

[FN#369] "Tarajjum" taking refuge from Satan the Stone (Rajim).

See vol. iv. 242.

[FN#370] i.e. a descenant of Al-Hashim, great-grandfather of the Prophet. See ix. 24.

[FN#371] In text "Shobasi," for "Sobashi" which M. Houdas translates prevot du Palais.

[FN#372] In the C. MS. Attaf's head was to be cut off.

[FN#373] In the C. MS. the anagnorisis is much more detailed.

Ja'afar asks Attaf if he knew a Damascus-man Attaf hight and so forth; and lastly an old man comes forward and confesses to have slain the Sharif or Hashimi.

[FN#374] The drink before the meal, as is still the custom in Syria and Egypt. See vol. vii. 132.

[FN#375] Gauttier (vii. 256), ill.u.s.trating the sudden rise of low-caste and uneducated men to high degree, quotes a contemporary celebrity, the famous Mirza Mohammed Husayn Khan who, originally a Bakkal or greengrocer, was made premier of Fath Ali Shah's brilliant court, the last bright flash of Iranian splendour and autocracy. But Iran is a land upon which Nature has inscribed "Resurgam"; and despite her present abnormal position between two vast overshadowing empires--British India and Russia in Asia--she has still a part to play in history. And I may again note that Al-Islam is based upon the fundamental idea of a Republic which is, all (free) men are equal, and the lowest may aspire to the highest dignity.

[FN#376] In text "'Aramrami."

[FN#377] "Wa'llaha 'l-Muwaffiku 'l-Mu'in" = G.o.d prospereth and directeth, a formula often prefixed or suffixed to a book.

[FN#378] MS. pp. 628-685. Gauttier, vii. 64-90; Histoire du Prince Habib et de la Princesse Dorrat-el-Gawas. The English translation dubs it "Story of Habib and Dorathil-goase, or the Arabian Knight" (vol. iii. 219-89); and thus degrades the high sounding name to a fair echo of Dorothy Goose. The name = Pearl of the Diver: it is also the P.N. of a treatise on desinental syntax by the grammarian-poet Al-Hariri (Chenery, p. 539).

[FN#379] The "Banu Hilal," a famous tribe which formed part of a confederation against the Prophet on his expedition to Honayn.

See Tabari, vol. iii. chapt. 32, and Doughty, Arabia Deserta (Index, B. Helal). In the text we have the vulgarism "Bani" for "Banu".

[FN#380] Gauttier (vii. 64) clean omits the former Emir because he has nothing to do with the tale. In Heron it is the same, and the second chief is named "Emir-Ben-Hilac-Salamis"; or for shortness tout bonnement "Salamis"; and his wife becoming Amirala which, if it mean anything, is = Colonel, or Captain R. N.

[FN#381] ie. Moon of the n.o.bles.

[FN#382] = the Beloved, le bien-aime.

[FN#383] As has been seen Gauttier reduces the t.i.tle to "Prince."

Amongst Arabs, however, it is not only a name proper but may denote any dignity from a Shaykh to a Sultan rightly so termed.

[FN#384] For the seven handwritings see vol. iv. 196. The old English version says, "He learned the art of writing with pens cut in seven different ways." To give an idea of the style it renders the quatrain:--"Father," said the youth, "you must apply to my master, to give you the information you desire. As for me, I must long be all eye and all ear. I must learn to use my hand, before I begin to exercise my tongue, and to write my letters as pure as pearls from the water." And this is translation!

[FN#385] I need hardly note that "Voices from the other world"

are a lieu commun of so-called Spiritualism. See also vol. i. 142 and Suppl. Vol. iii.

[FN#386] This tale and most of those in the MS. affect the Ka1a ?l-Rawi (= quoth the reciter) showing the true use of them. See Terminal Essay, vol. x. 144.

[FN#387] The missing apodosis would be, "You would understand the cause of my weeping."

[FN#388] In the text there are only five lines. I have borrowed the sixth from the prose.

[FN#389] "Daud" = David: see vols. ii. 286; vi. 113.

[FN#390] For "Samhari" see vol. iv. 258.

[FN#391] From "Rudaynah," either a woman or a place: see vols.

ii. 1; vii. 265; and for "Khatt Hajar" vol. ii. 1.

[FN#392] This is the idiomatic meaning of the Arab word "Nizal" = dismounting to fight on foot.

[FN#393] In the text "Akyal," plur. of "Kayl" = Kings of the Himyarite peoples. See vol. vii. 60; here it is = the hero, the heroes.

[FN#394] An intensive word, "on the weight," as the Arabs say of 'Abbas (stern-faced) and meaning "Very stern-faced, austere, grim." In the older translations it becomes "Il Haboul"--utterly meaningless.

[FN#395] The Arab. "Moon of the Time" becomes in the olden versions "Camaulzaman," which means, if anything, "Complete Time," and she is the daughter of a Jinn-King "Illabousatrous (Al-'Atrus?)." He married her to a potent monarch named "Shah-Goase" (Shah Ghawwas=King Diver), in this version "Sabur"

(Shahpur), and by him Kamar Al-Zaman became the mother of Durrat al-Ghawwas.

[FN#396] In text "Sadat wa Ashraf:" for the technical meaning of "Sayyid" and "Sharif" see vols. iv. 170; v. 259.

[FN#397] Gauttier, vii. 71. Les Isles Bellour. see vol. iii. 194.

[FN#398] Heron's "Illabousatrous"(?).

[FN#399] In text "Zayjah," from Pers. "Zaycheh" = lit. a horoscope, a table for calculating nativities and so forth. In page 682 of the MS. the word is used = marriage-lines.

[FN#400] In text "Snsal," for "Salsal " = lit. chain.

[FN#401] In Sindbad the Seaman I have shown that riding men as a.s.ses is a facetious exaggeration of an African practice, the Minister being generally the beast of burden for the King. It was the same in the Maldive Islands. "As soon as the lord desires to land, one of the rhief Catibes (Arab. Khatib = a preacher, not Katib = a writer) comes forward to offer his shoulder (a function much esteemed) and the other gets upon his shoulders; and so, with a leg on each side, he rides him horse fashion to land, and is there set down." See p. 71, "The Voyage of Francois Pyrard,"

etc. The volume is unusually well edited by Mr. Albert Gray, formerly of the Ceylon Civil Service, for the Hakluyt Society, MDCCCLx.x.xVII: it is, however, regretable that he and Mr. Bell, his collaborateur, did not trace out the Maldive words to their "Aryan" origin showing their relationship to vulgar Hindostani as Mas to Machhi (fish) from the Sanskrit Matsya.

[FN#402] In text "Ghayth al-Hatil = incessant rain of small drops and widely dispread. In Arab. the names for clouds, rain and all such matters important to a pastoral race are well nigh innumerable. Poetry has seized upon the material terms and has converted them into a host of metaphors; for "the genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects (e.g.

'Azud, lit. the upper arm; met. a helper)." Chenery, p. 380.

[FN#403] In the text "To the palace:" the scribe, apparently forgetting that he is describing Badawi life, lapses at times into "decorating the capital" and "adorning the mansion," as if treating of the normal city-life. I have not followed his example.

[FN#404] Heron translates "A ma.s.sy cuira.s.s of Haoudi."

[FN#405] In text, "Inbasata 'l-Layl al-Asa," which M. Houdas renders et s'etendit la nuit (mere) de la tristesse.

[FN#406] "Rauzah" in Algiers is a royal park; also a prairie, as "Rauz al-Sanajirah," plain of the Sinjars: Ibn Khaldun, ii. 448.