alphabet, the Heb. Aleph. The Arabs, I have said, took the flag or
water-leaf form and departed very far from the Egyptian original (we
know from Plutarch that the hieroglyphic abecedarium began with "a"),
which was chosen by other imitators, namely the bull's head; and which
in the cursive form, especially the Phœnician, became a yoke. In
numerals "Alif" denotes one or one thousand. It inherits the
traditional honours of Alpha (as opposed to Omega), and in books,
letters and writings generally it is placed as a monogram over the
"Bismillah," an additional testimony to the Unity. (See vol. i. p. 1).
In mediæval Christianity this place of honour was occupied by the
cross: none save the wildest countries have preserved it, but our
vocabulary still retains Criss' (Christ-)cross Row, for horn-book, on
account of the old alphabet and nine digits disposed in the form of a
Latin cross. Hence Tickell ("The Horn-book"):
——Mortals ne'er shall know
More than contained of old the Chris'-cross Row.
Footnote 264:
The young man must have been a demon of chastity.
Footnote 265:
Arab. "Kirát" from κεράτιον, _i.e._ bean, the seed of the Abrus
precatorius, in weight = two to three (English) grains; and in length
= one finger-breadth here; 24 being the total. The Moslem system is
evidently borrowed from the Roman "as" and "uncia."
Footnote 266:
Names of women.
Footnote 267:
Arab. "Amsa" (lit. he passed the evening) like "asbaha" (he rose in
the morning) "Azhá" (he spent the forenoon) and "báta" (he spent the
night), are idiomatically used for "to be in any state, to continue"
without specification of time or season.
Footnote 268:
Lit. "my liver;" which viscus, and not the heart, is held the seat of
passion; a fancy dating from the oldest days. Theocritus says of
Hercules, "In his liver Love had fixed a wound" (Idyl. xiii). In the
Anthologia "Cease, Love, to wound my liver and my heart" (lib. vii.)
So Horace (Odes, i. 2); his Latin Jecur and the Persian "Jigar" being
evident congeners. The idea was long prevalent and we find in
Shakespeare:—
Alas, then Love may be called appetite,
No motion of the liver but the palate.
Footnote 269:
A marvellous touch of nature, love ousting affection; the same trait
will appear in the lover and both illustrate the deep Italian saying,
"Amor discende, non ascende." "The further it goes down the stronger
it becomes as of grand-parent for grand-child and _vice versâ_."
Footnote 270:
This tenet of the universal East is at once fact and unfact. As a
generalism asserting that women's passion is ten times greater than
man's (Pilgrimage, ii. 282), it is unfact. The world shows that while
women have more philoprogenitiveness, men have more amativeness;
otherwise the latter would not propose and would nurse the doll and
baby. Fact, however, in low-lying lands, like Persian Mazanderan
versus the Plateau; Indian Malabar compared with Marátha-land;
California as opposed to Utah and especially Egypt contrasted with
Arabia. In these hot-damp climates the venereal requirements and
reproductive powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male;
and hence the dissoluteness of morals would be phenomenal, were it not
obviated by seclusion, the sabre and the revolver. In cold-dry or
hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy
there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either
form, legal or illegal (_i.e._ prostitution). I have discussed this
curious point of "geographical morality" (for all morality is, like
conscience, both geographical and chronological), a subject so
interesting to the lawgiver, the student of ethics and the
anthropologist, in "The City of the Saints." But strange and
unpleasant truths progress slowly, especially in England.
Footnote 271:
This morning evacuation is considered, in the East, a _sine quâ non_
of health; and old Anglo-Indians are unanimous in their opinion of the
"bari fajar" (as they mispronounce the dawn-clearance). The natives of
India, Hindús (pagans) and Hindís (Moslems), unlike Europeans,
accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as
morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and
effeminacy; for:—
C'est la constipation qui rend l'homme rigoureux.
The English, since the first invasion of cholera, in October, 1831,
are a different race from their costive grandparents who could not
dine without a "dinner-pill." Curious to say the clyster is almost
unknown to the people of Hindostan although the barbarous West
Africans use it daily to "wash 'um belly," as the Bonney-men say. And,
as Sonnini notes, to propose the process in Egypt under the Beys might
have cost a Frankish medico his life.
Footnote 272:
The Egyptian author cannot refrain from this characteristic
_polissonnerie_; and reading it out is always followed by a roar of
laughter. Even serious writers like Al-Hariri do not, as I have noted,
despise the indecency.
Footnote 273:
"Long beard and little wits," is a saying throughout the East where
the Kausaj (= man with thin, short beard) is looked upon as cunning
and tricksy. There is a venerable Joe Miller about a schoolmaster who,
wishing to singe his long beard short, burnt it off and his face to
boot:—which reminded him of the saying. A thick beard is defined as
one which wholly conceals the skin; and in ceremonial ablution it must
be combed out with the fingers till the water reach the roots. The
Sunnat, or practice of the Prophet, was to wear the beard not longer
than one hand and two fingers' breadth. In Persian "Kúseh"
(thin-beard) is an insulting term opposed to "Khush-rísh," a
well-bearded man. The Iranian growth is perhaps the finest in the
world, often extending to the waist; but it gives infinite trouble,
requiring, for instance, a bag when travelling. The Arab beard is
often composed of two tufts on the chin-sides and straggling hairs
upon the cheeks; and this is a severe mortification, especially to
Shaykhs and elders, who not only look upon the beard as one of man's
characteristics, but attach a religious importance to the appendage.
Hence the enormity of Kamar al-Zaman's behaviour. The Persian festival
of the vernal equinox was called Kuseh-nishín (Thin-beard sitting). An
old man with one eye paraded the streets on an ass with a crow in one
hand and a scourge and fan in the other, cooling himself, flogging the
bystanders and crying heat! heat! (garmá! garmá!). For other
particulars see Richardson (Dissertation, p. lii.). This is the
Italian Giorno delle Vecchie, Thursday in Mid-Lent, March 12 (1885),
celebrating the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.
Footnote 274:
I quote Torrens (p. 400) as these lines have occurred in Night
xxxviii.
Footnote 275:
Moslems have only two names for week days, Friday, Al-Jum'ah or
meeting-day, and Al-Sabt, Sabbath-day, that is Saturday. The others
are known by numbers after Quaker fashion with us, the usage of
Portugal and Scandinavia.
Footnote 276:
Our last night.
Footnote 277:
Arab. "Tayf" = phantom, the nearest approach to our "ghost," that
queer remnant of Fetishism imbedded in Christianity; the phantasma,
the shade (not the soul) of the dead. Hence the accurate Niebuhr
declares, "apparitions (_i.e._, of the departed) are unknown in
Arabia." Haunted houses are there tenanted by Ghuls, Jinns and a host
of supernatural creatures; but not by ghosts proper; and a man may
live years in Arabia before he ever hears of the "Tayf." With the
Hindus it is otherwise (Pilgrimage iii. 144.) Yet the ghost, the
embodied fear of the dead and of death is common, in a greater or less
degree, to all peoples; and, as modern Spiritualism proves, that ghost
is not yet laid.
Footnote 278:
Mr. Payne (iii. 133,) omits the lines which are _à propos de rien_ and
read much like "nonsense verses." I retain them simply because they
are in the text.
Footnote 279:
The first two couplets are the quatrain (or octave) in Night xxxv.
Footnote 280:
Arab. "Ar'ar," the Heb. "Aroer," which Luther and the A. V. translate
"heath." The modern Aramaic name is "Lizzáb" (Unexplored Syria, i.
68).
Footnote 281:
In the old version and the Bresl. Edit. (iii. 220) the Princess beats
the "Kahramánah," but does not kill her.
Footnote 282:
This is still the popular Eastern treatment of the insane.
Footnote 283:
Pers. Marz-bán = Warden of the Marches, Margrave. The foster-brother
in the East is held dear as, and often dearer than, kith and kin.
Footnote 284:
—Quirinus
Post mediam noctem visus, quum somnia vera.
(Horace Sat. i. 10, 33.)
The moderns believe most in the dawn-dream.
Footnote 285:
The Bresl. Edit. (iii. 223) and Galland have "Torf:" Lane (ii. 115)
"El-Tarf."
Footnote 286:
Arab. "Maghzal;" a more favourite comparison is with a tooth-pick.
Both are used by Nizami and Al-Hariri, the most "elegant" of Arab
writers.
Footnote 287:
These form a Kasídah, Ode or Elegy = rhymed couplets numbering more
than thirteen: if shorter it is called a "Ghazal." I have not thought
it necessary to preserve the monorhyme.
Footnote 288:
Sulaymá dim. of Salmá = any beautiful woman: Rabáb = the viol mostly
single-stringed: Tan'oum = she who is soft and gentle. These
fictitious names are for his old flames.
Footnote 289:
_i.e._ wine. The distich is highly fanciful and the conceits would
hardly occur to a Western.
Footnote 290:
Arab. "Andam," a term applied to Brazil-wood (also called "Bakkam")
and to "dragon's blood," but not, I think, to tragacanth, the "goat's
thorn," which does not dye. Andam is often mentioned in The Nights.
Footnote 291:
The superior merit of the first (explorer, etc.) is a _lieu commun_
with Arabs. So Al-Hariri in Preface quotes his predecessor:—
Justly of praise the price I pay;
The praise is his who leads the way.
Footnote 292:
There were two Lukmans, of whom more in a future page.
Footnote 293:
This symbolic action is repeatedly mentioned in The Nights.
Footnote 294:
Arab. "Shakhs" = a person, primarily a dark spot. So "Sawád" =
blackness, in Al-Hariri means a group of people who darken the ground
by their shade.
Footnote 295:
The first bath after sickness, I have said, is called "Ghusl
al-Sihhah,"—the Washing of Health.
Footnote 296:
The words "malady" and "disease" are mostly avoided during these
dialogues as ill-omened words which may bring on a relapse.
Footnote 297:
Solomon's carpet of green silk which carried him and all his host
through the air is a Talmudic legend generally accepted in Al-Islam
though not countenanced by the Koran, chapt. xxvii. When the "gnat's
wing" is mentioned, the reference is to Nimrod who, for boasting that
he was lord of all, was tortured during four hundred years by a gnat
sent by Allah up his ear or nostril.
Footnote 298:
The absolute want of morality and filial affection in the chaste young
man are supposed to be caused by the violence of his passion, and he
would be pardoned because he "loved much."
Footnote 299:
I have noticed the geomantic process in my "History of Sindh" (chapt.
vii.). It is called "Zarb al-Raml" (strike of sand, the French say
"frapper le sable") because the rudest form is to make on the ground
dots at haphazard, usually in four lines one above the other: these
are counted and, if even-numbered, two are taken (* *); if odd one
(*); and thus the four lines will form a scheme say
* *
*
*
* *
This is repeated three times, producing the same number of figures;
and then the combination is sought in an explanatory table or, if the
practitioner be expert, he pronounces off-hand. The Nights speak of a
"Takht Raml" or a board, like a schoolboy's slate, upon which the dots
are inked instead of points in sand. The moderns use a "Kura'h," or
oblong die, upon whose sides the dots, odd and even, are marked; and
these dice are hand-thrown to form the figure. By way of complication
Geomancy is mixed up with astrology and then it becomes a most
complicated kind of ariolation and an endless study. "Napoleon's Book
of Fate," a chap-book which appeared some years ago, was Geomancy in
its simplest and most ignorant shape. For the rude African form see my
Mission to Dahome, i. 332; and for that of Darfour, pp. 360-69 of
Shaykh Mohammed's Voyage before quoted.
Footnote 300:
Translators understand this of writing marriage contracts; I take it
in a more general sense.
Footnote 301:
These lines are repeated from Night lxxv.: with Mr. Payne's permission
I give his rendering (iii. 153) by way of variety.
Footnote 302:
The comparison is characteristically Arab.
Footnote 303:
Not her "face": the head, and especially the back of the head, must
always be kept covered, even before the father.
Footnote 304:
Arab. "Siwák" = a tooth-stick; "Siwá-ka" = lit. other than thou.
Footnote 305:
Arab. "Arák" = tooth-stick of the wild caper-tree; "Ará-ka" lit. = I
see thee. The _capparis spinosa_ is a common desert-growth and the
sticks about a span long (usually called Miswák), are sold in
quantities at Meccah after being dipped in Zemzem water. In India many
other woods are used, date-tree, Salvadora, Achyrantes, phyllanthus,
etc. Amongst Arabs peculiar efficacy accompanies the tooth-stick of
olive, "the tree springing from Mount Sinai" (Koran xxiii. 20); and
Mohammed would use no other, because it prevents decay and scents the
mouth. Hence Koran, chapt. xcv. 1. The "Miswák" is held with the
unused end between the ring-finger and minimus, the two others grasp
the middle and the thumb is pressed against the back close to the
lips. These articles have long been sold at the Medical Hall near the
"Egyptian Hall," Piccadilly. They are better than our unclean
tooth-brushes because each tooth gets its own especial rubbing, not a
general sweep; at the same time the operation is longer and more
troublesome. In parts of Africa as well as Asia many men walk about
with the tooth-stick hanging by a string from the neck.
Footnote 306:
The "Mehari," of which the Algerine-French speak, are the dromedaries
bred by the Mahrah tribe of Al-Yaman, the descendants of Mahrat ibn
Haydán. They are covered by small wild camels (?) called Al-Húsh,
found between Oman and Al-Shihr: others explain the word to mean
"stallions of the Jinns," and term those savage and supernatural
animals, "Najáib al-Mahriyah"—nobles of the Mahrah.
Footnote 307:
Arab. "Khaznah" = a thousand purses; now about £5000. It denotes a
large sum of money, like the "Badrah," a purse containing 10,000
dirhams of silver (Al-Hariri), or 80,000 (Burckhardt Prov. 380);
whereas the "Nisáb" is a moderate sum of money, gen. 20 gold dinars =
200 silver dirhams.
Footnote 308:
As The Nights show, Arabs admire slender forms; but the hips and
hinder cheeks must be highly developed and the stomach fleshy rather
than lean. The reasons are obvious. The Persians who exaggerate
everything say _e.g._ (Husayn Váiz in the Anvár-i-Suhayli):—
How paint her hips and waist? Who saw
A mountain (Koh) dangling to a straw (káh)?
In Antar his beloved Abla is a tamarisk (_T. Orientalis_). Others
compare with the palm-tree (Solomon), the Cypress (Persian, esp. Hafiz
and Firdausi) and the Arák or wild Capparis (Arab.).
Footnote 309:
Ubi aves ibi angeli. All African travellers know that a few birds
flying about the bush, and a few palm-trees waving in the wind, denote
the neighbourhood of a village or a camp (where angels are scarce).
The reason is not any friendship for man but because food, animal and
vegetable, is more plentiful. Hence Albatrosses, Mother Carey's (Mater
Cara, the Virgin) chickens, and Cape pigeons follow ships.
Footnote 310:
The stanza is called Al-Mukhammas = cinquains; the quatrains and the
"bob," or "burden," always preserve the same consonance. It ends with
a Koranic _lieu commun_ of Moslem morality.
Footnote 311:
Moslem port towns usually have (or had) only two gates. Such was the
case with Bayrut, Tyre, Sidon and a host of others; the
faubourg-growth of modern days has made these obselete. The portals
much resemble the entrances of old Norman castles—Arques for instance.
Pilgrimage, i. 185.
Footnote 312:
Arab. "Lisám"; before explained.
Footnote 313:
_i.e._ Life of Souls (persons, etc.).
Footnote 314:
Arab. "Insánu-há" = her (_i.e._ their) man: _i.e._ the babes of the
eyes: the Assyrian Ishon, dim. of Ish = Man; which the Hebrews call
"Bábat" or "Bit" (the daughter); the Arabs "Bubu (or Hadakat) al-Ayn";
the Persians "Mardumak-i-chashm" (mannikin of the eye); the Greeks
κόρη and the Latins pupa, pupula, pupilla. I have noted this in the
Lyricks of Camoens (p. 449).
Footnote 315:
Ma'an bin Zá'idah, a soldier and statesman of the eighth century.
Footnote 316:
The mildness of the Caliph Mu'áwiyah, the founder of the Ommiades,
proverbial among the Arabs, much resembles the "meekness" of Moses the
Lawgiver, which commentators seem to think has been foisted into
Numbers xii. 3.
Footnote 317:
Showing that there had been no consummation of the marriage which
would have demanded "Ghusl", or total ablution, at home or in the
Hammam.
Footnote 318:
have noticed this notable desert-growth.
Footnote 319:
The "situation" is admirable, solution appearing so difficult and
catastrophe imminent.
Footnote 320:
This quatrain occurs in Night ix.: I have borrowed from Torrens (p.
79) by way of variety.
Footnote 321:
The belief that young pigeon's blood resembles the virginal discharge
is universal; but the blood most resembling man's is that of the pig
which in other points is so very human. In our day Arabs and Hindus
rarely submit to inspection the nuptial sheet as practised by the
Israelites and Persians. The bride takes to bed a white kerchief with
which she staunches the blood and next morning the stains are
displayed in the Harem. In Darfour this is done by the bridegroom.
"Prima Venus debet esse cruenta," say the Easterns with much truth,
and they have no faith in our complaisant creed which allows the
hymen-membrane to disappear by any but one accident.
Footnote 322:
Not meaning the two central divisions commanded by the King and his
Wazir.
Footnote 323:
_Ironicè._
Footnote 324:
Arab. "Rasy" = praising in a funeral sermon.
Footnote 325:
Arab. "Manáyá," plur. of Maniyat = death. Mr. R. S. Poole (the
Academy, April 26, 1879) reproaches Mr. Payne for confounding
"Muniyat" (desire) with "Maniyat" (death); but both are written the
same except when vowel-points are used.
Footnote 326:
Arab. "Iddat," alluding to the months of celibacy which, according to
Moslem law, must be passed by a divorced woman before she can
re-marry.
Footnote 327:
Arab. "Talák bi'l-Salásah" = a triple divorce which cannot be revoked;
nor can the divorcer re-marry the same woman till after consummation
with another husband. This subject will continually recur.
Footnote 328:
An allusion to a custom of the pagan Arabs in the days of ignorant
Heathenism. The blood or brain, soul or personality of the murdered
man formed a bird called Sady or Hámah (not the Humá or Humái, usually
translated "phœnix") which sprang from the head, where four of the
five senses have their seat, and haunted his tomb, crying continually,
"Uskúni!" = Give me drink (of the slayer's blood)! and which
disappeared only when the vendetta was accomplished. Mohammed forbade
the belief. Amongst the Southern Slavs the cuckoo is supposed to be
the sister of a murdered man ever calling for vengeance.
Footnote 329:
To obtain a blessing and show how he valued it.
Footnote 330:
Well-known tribes of proto-historic Arabs who flourished before the
time of Abraham: see Koran (chapt. xxvi. _et passim_). They will be
repeatedly mentioned in The Nights and notes.
Footnote 331:
Arab. "Amtár"; plur. of "Matr," a large vessel of leather or wood for
water, etc.
Footnote 332:
Arab. "Asáfírí," so called because they attract sparrows (asáfír) a
bird very fond of the ripe oily fruit. In the Romance of "Antar"
Asáfír camels are beasts that fly like birds in fleetness. The reader
must not confound the olives of the text with the hard unripe berries
("little plums pickled in stale") which appear at English tables; nor
wonder that bread and olives are the beef-steak and potatoes of many
Mediterranean peoples. It is an excellent diet, the highly oleaginous
fruit supplying the necessary carbon.
Footnote 333:
Arab. "Tamar al-Hindi" = the "Indian-date," whence our word
"Tamarind." A sherbet of the pods, being slightly laxative, is much
drunk during the great heats; and the dried fruit, made into small
round cakes, is sold in the bazars. The traveller is advised not to
sleep under the tamarind's shade, which is infamous for causing ague
and fever. In Sind I derided the "native nonsense," passed the night
under an "Indian date-tree" and awoke with a fine specimen of ague
which lasted me a week.
Footnote 334:
Moslems are not agreed upon the length of the Day of Doom when all
created things, marshalled by the angels, await final judgement; the
different periods named are 40 years, 70, 300 and 50,000. Yet the
trial itself will last no longer than while one may milk an ewe, or
than "the space between two milkings of a she-camel." This is bringing
down Heaven to Earth with a witness; but, after all, the Heaven of all
faiths, including "Spiritualism," the latest development, is only an
earth more or less glorified even as the Deity is humanity more or
less perfected.
Footnote 335:
Arab. "Al-Kamaráni," lit. "the two moons." Arab rhetoric prefers it to
"Shamsáni," or "two suns," because lighter (akhaff), to pronounce. So,
albeit Omar was less worthy than Abu-Bakr the two are called
"Al-Omaráni," in vulgar parlance, Omarayn.
Footnote 336:
Alluding to the angels who appeared to the Sodomites in the shape of
beautiful youths (Koran xi).
Footnote 337:
Koran xxxiii. 38.
Footnote 338:
"Niktu-hu taklídan" _i.e._ not the real thing (with a woman). It may
also mean "by his incitement of me." All this scene is written in the
worst form of Persian-Egyptian blackguardism, and forms a curious
anthropological study. The "black joke" of the true and modest wife is
inimitable.
Footnote 339:
Arab. "Jamíz" (in Egypt "Jammayz") = the fruit of the true sycomore
(F. Sycomorus) a magnificent tree which produces a small tasteless
fig, eaten by the poorer classes in Egypt and by monkeys. The "Tín" or
real fig here is the woman's parts; the "mulberry-fig," the anus.
Martial (i. 65) makes the following distinction:—
Dicemus ficus, quas scimus in arbore nasci,
Dicemus ficos, Cæciliane, tuos.
And Modern Italian preserves a difference between _fico_ and _fica_.
Footnote 340:
Arab. "Ghániyat Azárá" (plur. of Azrá = virgin): the former is
properly a woman who despises ornaments and relies on "beauty
unadorned" (_i.e._ in bed).
Footnote 341:
"Nihil usitatius apud monachos, cardinales, sacrificulos," says
_Johannes de la Casa Beneventius_ Episcopus, quoted by Burton Anat. of
Mel. lib. iii. Sect. 2; and the famous epitaph on the Jesuit,
Ci-gît un Jesuite:
Passant, serre les fesses et passe vite!
Footnote 342:
Arab. "Kiblah" = the fronting-place of prayer, Meccah for Moslems,
Jerusalem for Jews and early Christians. See Pilgrimage (ii. 321) for
the Moslem change from Jerusalem to Meccah and ibid. ii. 213 for the
way in which the direction was shown.
Footnote 343:
The Koran says (chapt. ii.): "Your wives are your tillage: go in
therefore unto your tillage in what manner so ever ye will." Usually
this is understood as meaning in any posture, standing or sitting,
lying, backwards or forwards. Yet there is a popular saying about the
man whom the woman rides (vulg. St. George, in France, le Postillon);
"Cursed he who maketh woman Heaven and himself earth!" Some hold the
Koranic passage to have been revealed in confutation of the Jews, who
pretended that if a man lay with his wife backwards, he would beget a
cleverer child. Others again understand it of preposterous venery,
which is absurd: every ancient lawgiver framed his code to increase
the true wealth of the people—population—and severely punished all
processes, like onanism, which impeded it. The Persians utilise the
hatred of women for such misuse when they would force a wife to demand
a divorce and thus forfeit her claim to Mahr (dowry); they convert
them into catamites till, after a month or so, they lose all patience
and leave the house.
Footnote 344: