[FN#179] These naďve offers in Eastern tales mostly come from the true
seducer—Eve. Europe and England especially, still talks endless
absurdity upon the subject. A man of the world may "seduce" an utterly
innocent (which means an ignorant) girl. But to "seduce" a married
woman! What a farce!
[FN#180] Masculine again for feminine: the lines are as full of
word-plays, vulgarly called puns, as Sanskrit verses.
[FN#181] The Eastern heroine always has a good appetite and eats well.
The sensible Oriental would infinitely despise that maladive Parisienne
in whom our neighbours delight, and whom I long to send to the
Hospital.
[FN#182] i.e. her rivals have discovered the secret of her heart.
[FN#183] i.e. blood as red as wine.
[FN#184] The wine-cup (sun-like) shines in thy hand; thy teeth are
bright as the Pleiads and thy face rises like a moon from the darkness
of thy dress-collar.
[FN#185] The masculine of Marjánah (Morgiana) "the she coral-branch ;"
and like this a name generally given to negroes. We have seen white
applied to a blackamoor by way of metonomy and red is also connected
with black skins by way of fun. A Persian verse says :
"If a black wear red, e'en an ass would grin."
[FN#186] Suggesting that she had been sleeping.
[FN#187] Arab. "Raushan," a window projecting and latticed: the word is
orig. Persian: so Raushaná (splendour)=Roxana. It appears to me that
this beautiful name gains beauty by being understood.
[FN#188] The word means any servant, but here becomes a proper name.
"Wasífah" usually= a concubine.
[FN#189] i.e. eagerness, desire, love-longing.
[FN#190] Arab. "Rind," which may mean willow (oriental), bay or aloes
wood: Al-Asma'i denies that it ever signifies myrtle.
[FN#191] These lines occur in Night cxiv.: by way of variety I give
(with permission) Mr. Payne's version (iii. 59).
[FN#192] Referring to the proverb "Al-Khauf maksúm"=fear (cowardice) is
equally apportioned: i.e. If I fear you, you fear me.
[FN#193] The fingers of the right hand are struck upon the palm of the
left.
[FN#194] There are intricate rules for "joining" the prayers; but this
is hardly the place for a subject discussed in all religious treatises.
(Pilgrimage iii. 239.)
[FN#195] The hands being stained with Henna and perhaps indigo in
stripes are like the ring rows of chain armour. See Lane's illustration
(Mod. Egypt, chaps. i.).
[FN#196] She made rose-water of her cheeks for my drink and she bit
with teeth like grains of hail those lips like the lotus-fruit, or
jujube: Arab. "Unnab" or "Nabk," the plum of the Sidr or Zizyphus
lotus.
[FN#197] Meaning to let Patience run away like an untethered camel.
[FN#198] i.e. her fair face shining through the black hair. "Camphor"
is a favourite with Arab poets: the Persians hate it because connected
in their minds with death; being used for purifying the corpse. We read
in Burckhardt (Prov. 464) "Singing without siller is like a corpse
without Hanút"—this being a mixture of camphor and rose-water sprinkled
over the face of the dead before shrouded. Similarly Persians avoid
speaking of coffee, because they drink it at funerals and use tea at
other times.
[FN#199] i.e. she is angry and bites her carnelion lips with pearly
teeth.
[FN#200] Arab. "Wa ba'ad;" the formula which follows "Bismillah"—In the
name of Allah. The French translate it or sus, etc. I have noticed the
legend about its having been first used by the eloquent Koss, Bishop of
Najran.
[FN#201] i.e. Her mind is so troubled she cannot answer for what she
writes.
[FN#202] The Bul. Edit. (i. 329) and the Mac. Edit. (i. 780) give to
Shams al-Nahar the greater part of Ali's answer, as is shown by the
Calc. Edit. (230 et seq.) and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 366 et seq.) Lane
mentions this (ii. 74) but in his usual perfunctory way gives no
paginal references to the Calc. or Bresl.; so that those who would
verify the text may have the displeasure of hunting for it.
[FN#203] Arab. "Bi'smi 'lláhi' r-Rahmáni'r-Rahím." This auspicatory
formula was borrowed by Al-Islam not from the Jews but from the Guebre
"Ba nám-i-Yezdán bakhsháishgar-i-dádár!" (in the name of
Yezdan-God—All-generous, All-just!). The Jews have, "In the name of the
Great God;" and the Christians, "In the name of the Father, etc." The
so-called Sir John Mandeville begins his book, In the name of God,
Glorious and Almighty. The sentence forms the first of the Koran and
heads every chapter except only the ninth, an exception for which
recondite reasons are adduced. Hence even in the present day it begins
all books, letters and writings in general; and it would be a sign of
Infidelity (i.e. non-Islamism) to omit it. The difference between
"Rahmán" and "Rahím" is that the former represents an accidental
(compassionating), the latter a constant quality (compassionate). Sale
therefore renders it very imperfectly by "In the name of the most
merciful God;" the Latinists better, "In nomine Dei misericordis,
clementissimi" (Gottwaldt in Hamza Ispahanensis); Mr. Badger much
better, "In the name of God, the Pitiful, the Compassionate"—whose only
fault is not preserving the assonance: and Maracci best, "In nomine Dei
miseratoris misericordis."
[FN#204] Arab. Majnún (i.e. one possessed by a Jinni) the well-known
model lover of Layla, a fictitious personage for whom see D'Herbelot
(s. v. Megnoun). She was celebrated by Abu Mohammed Nizam al-Din of
Ganjah (ob. A.H. 597=1200) pop. known as Nizámi, the caustic and
austere poet who wrote:—
The weals of this world are the ass's meed!
Would Nizami were of the ass's breed.
The series in the East begins chronologically with Yúsuf and Zulaykhá
(Potiphar's wife) sung by Jámi (nat. A.H. 817=1414); the next in date
is Khusraw and Shirin (also by Nizami); Farhad and Shirin; and Layla
and Majnun (the Night-black maid and the Maniac-man) are the last. We
are obliged to compare the lovers with "Romeo and Juliet," having no
corresponding instances in modern days: the classics of Europe supply a
host as Hero and Leander, Theagenes and Charicleia, etc. etc.
[FN#205] The jeweller of Eastern tales from Marocco to Calcutta, is
almost invariably a rascal: here we have an exception.
[FN#206] This must not be understood of sealing-wax, which, however, is
of ancient date. The Egyptians (Herod. ii. 38) used "sealing earth" (
) probably clay, impressed with a signet ( ); the
Greeks mud-clay ( ); and the Romans first cretula and then wax
(Beckmann). Medićval Europe had bees-wax tempered with Venice
turpentine and coloured with cinnabar or similar material. The modern
sealing-wax, whose distinctive is shell-lac, was brought by the Dutch
from India to Europe; and the earliest seals date from about A.D. 1560.
They called it Ziegel-lak, whence the German Siegel-lack, the French
preferring cire-ŕ-cacheter, as distinguished from cire-ŕ-sceller, the
softer material. The use of sealing-wax in India dates from old times
and the material, though coarse and unsightly, is still preferred by
Anglo-Indians because it resists heat whereas the best English softens
like pitch.
[FN#207] Evidently referring to the runaway Abu al-Hasan, not to the
she-Mercury.
[FN#208] An unmarried man is not allowed to live in a respectable
quarter of a Moslem city unless he takes such precaution. Lane (Mod.
Egypt. passim) has much to say on this point; and my excellent friend
the late Professor Spitta at Cairo found the native prejudice very
troublesome.
[FN#209] Arab. "Yá fulán"=O certain person (fulano in Span. and
Port.) a somewhat contemptuous address.
[FN#210] Mr. Payne remarks, "These verses apparently relate to
Aboulhusn, but it is possible that they may be meant to refer to
Shemsennehar." (iii. 80.)
[FN#211] Arab. and Pers "Bulúr" (vulg. billaur) retaining the venerable
tradition of the Belus- river. In Al-Hariri (Ass. of Halwán) it means
crystal and there is no need of proposing to translate it by onyx or to
identify it with the Greek , the beryl.
[FN#212] The door is usually shut with a wooden bolt.
[FN#213] Arab. "Ritánah," from "Ratan," speaking any tongue not
Arabic, the allusion being to foreign mercenaries, probably
Turks. In later days Turkish was called Muwalla', a pied horse,
from its mixture of languages.
[FN#214] This is the rule; to guard against the guet-apens.
[FN#215] Arab. "Wálidati," used when speaking to one not of the family
in lieu of the familiar "Ummi"=my mother. So the father is Wálid=the
begetter.
[FN#216] This is one of the many euphemistic formulć for such
occasions: they usually begin "May thy head live." etc.
[FN#217] Arab. "Kánún," an instrument not unlike the Austrian zither;
it is illustrated in Lane (ii. 77).
[FN#218] This is often done, the merit of the act being transferred to
the soul of the deceased.
[FN#219] The two amourists were martyrs; and their amours, which appear
exaggerated to the Western mind, have many parallels in the East. The
story is a hopeless affair of love; with only one moral (if any be
wanted) viz., there may be too much of a good thing. It is given very
concisely in the Bul. Edit. vol. i.; and more fully in the Mac. Edit.
aided in places by the Bresl. (ii. 320) and the Calc. (ii. 230).
##
[FN#220] Lane is in error (vol. ii. 78) when he corrects this to "Sháh
Zemán"; the name is fanciful and intended to be old Persian, on the
"weight" of Kahramán. The Bul. Edit. has by misprint "Shahramán."
[FN#221] The "topothesia" is worthy of Shakespeare's day. "Khálidán" is
evidently a corruption of "Khálidatáni" (for Khálidát), the Eternal, as
Ibn Wardi calls the Fortunate Islands, or Canaries, which owe both
their modern names to the classics of Europe. Their present history
dates from A.D. 1385, unless we accept the Dieppe-Rouen legend of Labat
which would place the discovery in A.D. 1326. I for one thoroughly
believe in the priority on the West African Coast, of the gallant
descendants of the Northmen.
[FN#222] Four wives are allowed by Moslem law and for this reason. If
you marry one wife she holds herself your equal, answers you and "gives
herself airs"; two are always quarrelling and making a hell of the
house; three are "no company" and two of them always combine against
the nicest to make her hours bitter. Four are company, they can quarrel
and "make it up" amongst themselves, and the husband enjoys comparative
peace. But the Moslem is bound by his law to deal equally with the
four, each must have her dresses her establishment and her night, like
her sister wives. The number is taken from the Jews (Arbah Turim Ev.
Hazaer, i.) "the wise men have given good advice that a man should not
marry more than four wives." Europeans, knowing that Moslem women are
cloistered and appear veiled in public, begin with believing them to be
mere articles of luxury, and only after long residence they find out
that nowhere has the sex so much real liberty and power as in the
Moslem East. They can possess property and will it away without the
husband's leave: they can absent themselves from the house for a month
without his having a right to complain; and they assist in all his
counsels for the best of reasons: a man can rely only on his wives and
children, being surrounded by rivals who hope to rise by his ruin. As
regards political matters the Circassian women of Constantinople really
rule the Sultanate and there soignez la femme! is the first lesson of
getting on in the official world.
[FN#223] This two-bow prayer is common on the bride-night; and at all
times when issue is desired.
[FN#224] The older Camaralzaman="Moon of the age." Kamar is the moon
between her third and twenty-sixth day: Hilál during the rest of the
month: Badr (plur. Budúr whence the name of the Princess) is the full
moon.
[FN#225] Arab "Ra'áyá" plur. of 'Ra'íyat" our Anglo-Indian Ryot, lit. a
liege, a subject; secondarily a peasant, a Fellah.
[FN#226] Another audacious parody of the Moslem "testification" to the
one God, and to Mohammed the Apostle.
[FN#227] Showing how long ago forts were armed with metal plates which
we have applied to war-ships only of late years.
[FN#228] The comparison is abominably true—in the East.
[FN#229] Two fallen angels who taught men the art of magic. They are
mentioned in the Koran (chaps. ii.), and the commentators have
extensively embroidered the simple text. Popularly they are supposed to
be hanging by their feet in a well in the territory of Babel, hence the
frequent allusions to "Babylonian sorcery" in Moslem writings; and
those who would study the black art at head-quarters are supposed to go
there. They are counterparts of the Egyptian Jamnes and Mambres, the
Jannes and Jambres of St. Paul (2 Tim. iii. 8).
[FN#230] An idol or idols of the Arabs (Allat and Ozza) before Mohammed
(Koran chaps. ii. 256). Etymologically the word means "error" and the
termination is rather Hebraic than Arabic.
[FN#231] Arab. "Khayt hamayán" (wandering threads of vanity), or
Mukhát al-Shaytan (Satan's snivel),=our "gossamer"=God's summer
(Mutter Gottes Sommer) or God's cymar (?).
[FN#232] These lines occur in Night xvii.; so I borrow from
Torrens (p. 163) by way of variety.
[FN#233] A posture of peculiar submission; contrasting strongly with
the attitude afterwards assumed by Prince Charming.
[FN#234] A mere term of vulgar abuse not reflecting on either parent: I
have heard a mother call her own son, "Child of adultery."
[FN#235] Arab. "Ghazá," the Artemisia (Euphorbia ?) before noticed. If
the word be a misprint for Ghadá it means a kind of Euphorbia which,
with the Arák (wild caper-tree) and the Daum palm (Crucifera thebiaca),
is one of the three normal growths of the Arabian desert (Pilgrimage
iii. 22).
[FN#236] Arab. "Banát al-Na'ash," usually translated daughters of the
bier, the three stars which represent the horses in either Bear,
"Charles' Wain," or Ursa Minor, the waggon being supposed to be a bier.
"Banát" may be also sons, plur. of Ibn, as the word points to
irrational objects. So Job (ix. 9 and xxxviii. 32) refers to U. Major
as "Ash" or "Aysh" in the words, "Canst thou guide the bier with its
sons?" (erroneously rendered "Arcturus with his sons") In the text the
lines are enigmatical, but apparently refer to a death parting.
[FN#237] The Chapters are: 2, 3, 36, 55, 67 and the two last
("Daybreak" cxiii. and "Men" cxiv.), which are called Al-Mu'izzatáni
(vulgar Al-Mu'izzatayn), the "Two Refuge-takings or Preventives,"
because they obviate enchantment. I have translated the two latter as
follows:—
"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of the Day-break *
from mischief of what He did make *
from mischief of moon eclipse-showing *
and from mischief of witches on cord-knots blowing *
and from mischief of envier when envying."
"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of men *
the sovran of men *
the God of men *
from the Tempter, the Demon *
who tempteth in whisper the breasts of men *
and from Jinnis and (evil) men."
[FN#238] The recitations were Náfilah, or superogatory, two short
chapters only being required and the taking refuge was because he slept
in a ruin, a noted place in the East for Ghuls as in the West for
ghosts.
[FN#239] Lane (ii. 222) first read "Múroozee" and referred it to the
Murúz tribe near Herat he afterwards (iii. 748) corrected it to
"Marwazee," of the fabric of Marw (Margiana) the place now famed for
"Mervousness." As a man of Rayy (Rhages) becomes Rází (e.g. Ibn Fáris
al-Razí), so a man of Marw is Marázi, not Murúzi nor Márwazi. The
"Mikna' " was a veil forming a kind of "respirator," defending from
flies by day and from mosquitos, dews and draughts by night. Easterns
are too sensible to sleep with bodies kept warm by bedding, and heads
bared to catch every blast. Our grandfathers and grandmothers did well
to wear bonnets-de-nuit, however ridiculous they may have looked.
[FN#240] Iblis, meaning the Despairer, is called in the Koran (chaps.
xviii. 48) "One of the genii (Jinnis) who departed from the command of
his Lord." Mr. Rodwell (in loco) notes that the Satans and Jinnis
represent in the Koran (ii. 32, etc.) the evil-principle and finds an
admixture of the Semitic Satans and demons with the "Genii from the
Persian (Babylonian ?) and Indian (Egyptian ?) mythologies."
[FN#241] Of course she could not see his eyes when they were shut; nor
is this mere Eastern inconsequence. The writer means, "had she seen
them, they would have showed," etc.
[FN#242] The eyes are supposed to grow darker under the influence of
wine and sexual passion.
[FN#243] To keep off the evil eye.
[FN#244] Like Dahnash this is a fanciful P. N., fit only for a Jinni.
As a rule the appellatives of Moslem "genii" end inús (oos), as Tarnús,
Huliyánus, the Jewish in—nas, as Jattunas; those of the Tarsá (the
"funkers" i.e. Christians) in—dús, as Sidús, and the Hindus in—tús, as
Naktús (who entered the service of the Prophet Shays, or Seth, and was
converted to the Faith). The King of the Genii is Malik Katshán who
inhabits Mount Kaf; and to the west of him lives his son-in-law, Abd
al-Rahman with 33,000 domestics: these names were given by the Apostle
Mohammed. "Baktanús" is lord of three Moslem troops of the wandering
Jinns, which number a total of twelve bands and extend from Sind to
Europe. The Jinns, Divs, Peris ("fairies") and other pre-Adamitic
creatures were governed by seventy-two Sultans all known as Sulayman
and the last I have said was Ján bin Ján. The angel Háris was sent from
Heaven to chastise him, but in the pride of victory he also revolted
with his followers the Jinns whilst the Peris held aloof. When he
refused to bow down before Adam he and his chiefs were eternally
imprisoned but the other Jinns are allowed to range over earth as a
security for man's obedience. The text gives the three orders. flyers.
walkers and divers.
[FN#245] i.e. distracted (with love); the Lakab, or poetical name, of
apparently a Spanish poet.
[FN#246] Nothing is more "anti-pathetic" to Easterns than lean hips and
flat hinder-cheeks in women and they are right in insisting upon the
characteristic difference of the male and female figure. Our modern
sculptors and painters, whose study of the nude is usually most
perfunctory, have often scandalised me by the lank and greyhound-like
fining off of the frame, which thus becomes rather simian than human.
[FN#247] The small fine foot is a favourite with Easterns as well as
Westerns. Ovid (A.A.) is not ashamed "ad teneros Oscula (not basia or
suavia) ferre pedes." Ariosto ends the august person in
Il breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piece,
(The short-sized, clean-cut, roundly-moulded foot).
And all the world over it is a sign of "blood," i.e. the fine nervous
temperament.
[FN#248] i.e. "full moons": the French have corrupted it to
"Badoure"; we to "Badoura." winch is worse.
[FN#249] As has been said a single drop of urine renders the clothes
ceremoniously impure, hence a Stone or a handful of earth must be used
after the manner of the torche-cul. Scrupulous Moslems, when squatting
to make water, will prod the ground before them with the point o f
stick or umbrella, so as to loosen it and prevent the spraying of the
urine.
[FN#250] It is not generally known to Christians that Satan has a wife
called Awwá ("Hawwá" being the Moslem Eve) and, as Adam had three sons,
the Tempter has nine, viz., Zu 'l-baysun who rules in bazars. Wassin
who prevails in times of trouble. Awan who counsels kings; Haffan
patron of wine-bibbers; Marrah of musicians and dancers; Masbut of
news-spreaders (and newspapers ?); Dulhán who frequents places of
worship and interferes with devotion. Dasim, lord of mansions and
dinner tables, who prevents the Faithful saying "Bismillah" and
"Inshallah," as commanded in the Koran (xviii. 23), and Lakís, lord of
Fire worshippers (Herklots, chap. xxix. sect. 4).
[FN#251] Strong perfumes, such as musk (which we Europeans dislike and
suspect), are always insisted upon in Eastern poetry, and Mohammed's
predilection for them is well known. Moreover the young and the
beautiful are held (justly enough) to exhale a natural fragrance which
is compared with that of the blessed in Paradise. Hence in the
Mu'allakah of Imr al-Keys:—
Breathes the scent of musk when they rise to rove, *
As the Zephyr's breath with the flavour o'clove.
It is made evident by dogs and other fine-nosed animals that every
human being has his, or her, peculiar scent which varies according to
age and health. Hence animals often detect the approach of death.
[FN#252] Arab. "Kahlá." This has been explained. Mohammed is said to
have been born with "Kohl'd eyes."
[FN#253] Hawá al-'uzrí, before noticed (Night cxiv.).
[FN#254] These lines, with the Názir (eye or steward), the Hájib (Groom
of the Chambers or Chamberlain) and Joseph, are also repeated from
Night cxiv. For the Nazir see Al-Hariri (Nos. xiii. and xxii.)
[FN#255] The usual allusion to the Húr (Houris) from "Hangar," the
white and black of the eye shining in contrast. The Persian Magi also
placed in their Heaven (Bihisht or Minu) "Huran," or black-eyed nymphs,
under the charge of the angel Zamiyád.
[FN#256] In the first hemistich, "bi-shitt 'it wády" (by the
wady-bank): in the second, "wa shatta 'l wády" ("and my slayer"— i.e.
wády act. part. of wady, killing—"hath paced away").
[FN#257] The double entendre is from the proper names Budúr and Su'ád
(Beatrice) also meaning "auspicious (or blessed) full moons."
[FN#258] Arab. "Házir" (also Ahl al-hazer, townsmen) and Bádi, a
Badawi, also called "Ahl al-Wabar," people of the camel's hair (tent)
and A'aráb (Nomadic) as opposed to Arab (Arab settled or not). They
still boast with Ibn Abbas, cousin of Mohammed, that they have
kerchiefs (not turbands) for crowns, tents for houses, loops for walls,
swords for scarves and poems for registers or written laws.
[FN#259] This is a peculiarity of the Jinn tribe when wearing hideous
forms. It is also found in the Hindu Rakshasa.
[FN#260] Which, by the by, are small and beautifully shaped. The animal
is very handy with them, as I learnt by experience when trying to
"Rareyfy" one at Bayrut.
[FN#261] She being daughter of Al-Dimiryát, King of the Jinns.
Mr. W. F. Kirby has made him the subject of a pretty poem.
[FN#262] These lines have occurred in Night xxii. I give
Torrens's version (p. 223) by way of variety.
[FN#263] Arab. "Kámat Alfiyyah," like an Alif, the first of the Arabic
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 Phnician, 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 medićval 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.
[FN#264] The young man must have been a demon of chastity.
[FN#265] Arab. "Kirát" from 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."
[FN#266] Names of women.
[FN#267] Arab. "Amsa" (lit. he passed the evening) like "asbaha" (he
rose in the morning) "Azhá" (he spent the forenoon) and "bata" (he
spent the night), are idiomatically used for "to be in any state, to
continue" without specification of time or season.
[FN#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.
[FN#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 versa.
[FN#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. Pact, 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.
[FN#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 "bard 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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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 Kusehnishín (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. Iii.). This is the Italian
Giorno delle Vecchie, Thursday in Mid Lent, March 12 (1885),
celebrating the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.
[FN#274] I quote Torrens (p. 400) as these lines have occurred in
Night xxxviii.
[FN#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.
[FN#276] Our last night.
[FN#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 tile 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.
[FN#278] Mr. Payne (iii. 133) omits the lines which are ŕpropos de rein
and read much like "nonsense verses." I retain them simply because they
are in the text.
[FN#279] The first two couplets are the quatrain (or octave) in
Night xxxv.
[FN#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).
[FN#281] In the old version and the Bresl. Edit. (iii. 220) the
Princess beats the "Kahramánah," but does not kill her.
[FN#282] 'This is still the popular Eastern treatment of the insane.
[FN#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.
[FN#284] The moderns believe most in the dawn-dream.
—Quirinus
Post mediam noctem visus, quum somnia vera.
(Horace Sat. i. 10, 33,)
[FN#285] The Bresl. Edit. (iii. 223) and Galland have "Torf:"
Lane (ii. 115) "El-Tarf."
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#289] i.e. wine. The distich is highly fanciful and the conceits
would hardly occur to a
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#292] There were two Lukmans, of whom more in a future page.
[FN#293] This symbolic action is repeatedly mentioned in The
Nights.
[FN#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.
[FN#295] The first bath after sickness, I have said, is called
"Ghusl al-Sihhah,"—the Washing of Health.
[FN#296] The words "malady" and "disease" are mostly avoided during
these dialogues as ill-omened words which may bring on a relapse.
[FN#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. chaps 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.
[FN#298] The absolute want of morality and filial affection in the
chaste young man is supposed to be caused by the violence of his
passion, and he would be pardoned because he "loved much."
[FN#299] I have noticed the geomantic process in my "History of Sindh"
(chaps. vii.). It is called "Zarb al-Ram!" (strike the 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 e 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.
[FN#300] Translators understand this of writing marriage contracts; I
take it in a more general sense.
[FN#301] These lines are repeated from Night Ixxv.: with Mr. Payne's
permission I give his rendering (iii. 153) by way of variety.
[FN#302] The comparison is characteristically Arab.
[FN#303] Not her "face": the head, and especially the back of the head,
must always be kept covered, even before the father.
[FN#304] Arab. "Siwák"=a tooth-stick; "Siwá-ka"=lit. other than thou.
[FN#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, chaps. 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.
[FN#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 Haydan. 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.
[FN#307] Arab. "Khaznah"=a thousand purses; now about Ł5000. 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.
[FN#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.).
[FN#309] Ubi aves ibi angel). 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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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 obsolete. The portals
much resemble the entrances of old Norman castles—Arques for instance.
(Pilgrimage i. 185.)
[FN#312] Arab. "Lisám"; before explained.
[FN#313] i.e. Life of Souls (persons, etc.).
[FN#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-Aye";
the Persians "Mardumak-i-chashm" (mannikin of the eye); the Greeks
and the Latins pupa, pupula, pupilla. I have noted this in the Lyricks
of Camoens (p. 449).
[FN#315] Ma'an bin Zá'idah, a soldier and statesman of the eighth
century.
[FN#316] The mildness of the Caliph Mu'áwiyah, the founder of the
Ommiades, proverbial among the Arabs, much resembles the "meekness" of
Moses the Law-giver, which commentators seem to think has been foisted
into Numbers xii. 3.
[FN#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.
[FN#318] I have noticed this notable desert-growth.
[FN#319] 'The "situation" is admirable, solution appearing so difficult
and catastrophe imminent.
[FN#320] This quatrain occurs in Night ix.: I have borrowed from
Torrens (p. 79) by way of variety.
[FN#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 practiced 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.
[FN#322] Not meaning the two central divisions commanded by the
King and his Wazir.
[FN#323] Ironicč.
[FN#324] Arab. "Rasy"=praising in a funeral sermon.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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 "phnix") 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 or vengeance.
[FN#329] To obtain a blessing and show how he valued it.
[FN#330] Well-known tribes of proto-historic Arabs who flourished
before the time of Abraham: see Koran (chaps. xxvi. et passim). They
will be repeatedly mentioned in The Nights and notes.
[FN#331] Arab. "Amtár"; plur. of "Matr," a large vessel of leather or
wood for water, etc.
[FN#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,
[FN#333] Arab. "Tamer 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.
[FN#334] Moslems are not agreed upon the length of the Day of Doom when
all created things, marshalled by the angels, await final judgment; 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.
[FN#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.
[FN#336] Alluding to the angels who appeared to the Sodomites in the
shape of beautiful youths (Koran xi.).
[FN#337] Koran xxxiii. 38.
[FN#338] "Niktu-hu taklidan" 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.
[FN#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, Caeciliane, tuos.
And Modern Italian preserves a difference between fico and fica.
[FN#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).
[FN#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-git un Jesuite:
Passant, serre les fesses et passe vite!
[FN#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.
[FN#343] The Koran says (chaps. 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 be 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 law-giver 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 wive 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.
[FN#344] Koran lit 9: "He will be turned aside from the Faith (or
Truth) who shall be turned aside by the Divine decree;" alluding, in
the text, to the preposterous venery her lover demands.
[FN#345] Arab. "Futúh" meaning openings, and also victories, benefits.
The lover congratulates her on her mortifying self in order to please
him.
[FN#346] "And the righteous work will be exalt": (Koran xxxv. 11)
applied ironically.
[FN#347] A prolepsis of Tommy Moore:—
Your mother says, my little Venus,
There's something not quite right between us,
And you're in fault as much as I,
Now, on my soul, my little Venus,
I swear 'twould not be right between us,
To let your mother tell a lie.
But the Arab is more moral than Mr. Little. as he purposes to repent.
[FN#348] Arab. "Khunsa" flexible or flaccid, from Khans=bending
inwards, i.e. the mouth of a water-skin before drinking. Like
Mukhannas, it is also used for an effeminate man, a passive sodomite
and even for a eunuch. Easterns still believe in what Westerns know to
be an impossibility, human beings with the parts and proportions of
both sexes equally developed and capable of reproduction; and Al-Islam
even provides special rules for them (Pilgrimage iii. 237). We hold
them to be Buffon's fourth class of (duplicate) monsters belonging
essentially to one or the other sex, and related to its opposite only
by some few characteristics. The old Greeks dreamed, after their
fashion, a beautiful poetic dream of a human animal uniting the
contradictory beauties of man and woman. The duality of the generative
organs seems an old Egyptian tradition, at least we find it in Genesis
(i. 27) where the image of the Deity is created male and female, before
man was formed out of the dust of the ground (ii. 7). The old tradition
found its way to India (if the Hindus did not borrow the idea from the
Greeks); and one of the forms of Mahadeva, the third person of their
triad, is entitled "Ardhanárí"=the Half-woman, which has suggested to
them some charming pictures. Europeans, seeing the left breast
conspicuously feminine, have indulged in silly surmises about the
"Amazons."
[FN#349] This is a mere phrase for our "dying of laughter": the queen
was on her back. And as Easterns sit on carpets, their falling back is
very different from the same movement off a chair.
[FN#350] Arab. "Ismid," the eye-powder before noticed.
[FN#351] When the Caliph (e.g. Al-Tá'i li'llah) bound a banner to a
spear and handed it to an officer, he thereby appointed him Sultan or
Viceregent.
[FN#352] Arab. "Sháib al-ingház"=lit. a gray beard who shakes head in
disapproval.
[FN#353] Arab. "Ayát" = the Hebr. "Ototh," signs, wonders or
Koranic verses.
[FN#354] The Chapter "Al-Ikhlás" i.e. clearing (oneself from any faith
but that of Unity) is No. cxii. and runs thus:—
Say, He is the One God!
The sempiternal God,
He begetteth not, nor is He begot,
And unto Him the like is not.
It is held to be equal in value to one-third of the Koran, and is daily
used in prayer. Mr. Rodwell makes it the tenth.
[FN#355] The Lady Budur shows her noble blood by not objecting to her
friend becoming her Zarrat (sister-wife). This word is popularly
derived from "Zarar"=injury; and is vulgarly pronounced in Egypt
"Durrah" sounding like Durrah = a parrot (see Burckhardt's mistake in
Prov. 314). The native proverb says, "Ayshat al-durrah murrah," the
sister-wife hath a bitter life. We have no English equivalent; so I
translate indifferently co-wife, co-consort, sister-wife or sister in
wedlock.
[FN#356] Lane preserves the article "El-Amjad" and "El-As'ad;" which is
as necessary as to say "the John" or "the James," because neo-Latins
have "il Giovanni" or "il Giacomo." In this matter of the article,
however, it is impossible to lay down a universal rule: in some cases
it must be preserved and only practice in the language can teach its
use. For instance, it is always present in Al-Bahrayn and al-Yaman; but
not necessarily so with Irak and Najd.
[FN#357] It is hard to say why this ugly episode was introduced.
It is a mere false note in a tune pretty enough.
[FN#358] The significance of this action will presently appear.
[FN#359] An "Hadís."
[FN#360] Arab. "Sabb" = using the lowest language of abuse. chiefly
concerning women-relatives and their reproductive parts.
[FN#361] The reader will note in the narration concerning the two
Queens the parallelism of the Arab's style which recalls that of the
Hebrew poets. Strings of black silk are plaited into the long locks (an
"idiot-fringe" being worn over the brow) because a woman is cursed "who
joineth her own hair to the hair of another" (especially human hair).
Sending the bands is a sign of affectionate submission; and, in
extremes" cases the hair itself is sent.
[FN#362] i.e., suffer similar pain at the spectacle, a phrase often
occurring.
[FN#363] i.e., when the eye sees not, the heart grieves not.
[FN#364] i.e., unto Him we shall return, a sentence recurring in almost
every longer chapter of the Koran.
[FN#365] Arab. "Kun," the creative Word (which, by the by, proves the
Koran to be an uncreated Logos); the full sentence being "Kun fa kána"
= Be! and it became. The origin is evidently, "And God said, Let there
be light: and there was light" (Gen. i. 3); a line grand in its
simplicity and evidently borrowed from the Egyptians, even as Yahveh
(Jehovah) from "Ankh"=He who lives (Brugsch Hist. ii. 34).
[FN#366] i.e. but also for the life and the so-called "soul."
[FN#367] Arab. "Layáli"=lit. nights which, I have said, is often
applied to the whole twenty-four hours. Here it is used in the sense of
"fortune" or "fate ;" like "days" and "days and nights."
[FN#368] Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr a nephew of Ayishah, who had rebuilt
the Ka'abah in A.H. 64 (A.D. 683), revolted (A.D. 680) against Yezid
and was proclaimed Caliph at Meccah. He was afterwards killed (A.D.
692) by the famous or infamous Hajjáj general of Abd al-Malik bin
Marwan, the fifth Ommiade, surnamed "Sweat of a stone" (skin-flint) and
"Father of Flies," from his foul breath. See my Pilgrimage, etc. (iii.
192-194), where are explained the allusions to the Ka'abah and the holy
Black Stone.
[FN#369] These lines are part of an elegy on the downfall of one of the
Moslem dynasties in Spain, composed in the twelfth century by Ibn Abdun
al-Andalúsi. The allusion is to the famous conspiracy of the Khárijites
(the first sectarians in Mohammedanism) to kill Ah, Mu'awiyah and Amru
(so written but pronounced "Amr") al-As, in order to abate intestine
feuds m Al-Islam. Ali was slain with a sword-cut by Ibn Muljam a name
ever damnable amongst the Persians; Mu'awiyah escaped with a wound and
Kharijah, the Chief of Police at Fustat or old Cairo was murdered by
mistake for Amru. After this the sectarian wars began.
[FN#370] Arab. "Saráb"= (Koran, chaps. xxiv.) the reek of the Desert,
before explained. It is called "Lama," the shine, the loom, in
Al-Hariri. The world is compared with the mirage, the painted eye and
the sword that breaks in the sworder's hand.
[FN#371] Arab. "Dunyá," with the common alliteration "dániyah" (=Pers.
"dún"), in prose as well as poetry means the things or fortune of this
life opp. to "Akhirah"=future life.
[FN#372] Arab. "Walgh," a strong expression primarily denoting the
lapping of dogs; here and elsewhere "to swill, saufen."
[FN#373] The lines are repeated from Night ccxxi. I give Lane's version
(ii. 162) by way of contrast and—warning.
[FN#374] "Sáhirah" is the place where human souls will be gathered on
Doom-day: some understand by it the Hell Sa'ír (No. iv.) intended for
the Sabians or the Devils generally.
[FN#375] His eyes are faded like Jacob's which, after weeping for
Joseph, "became white with mourning" (Koran, chaps. xxi.). It is a
stock comparison.
[FN#376] The grave.
[FN#377] Arab. "Sawwán" (popularly pronounced Suwán) ="Syenite" from
Syrene; generally applied to silex, granite or any hard stone.
[FN#378] A proceeding fit only for thieves and paupers: "Alpinism" was
then unknown. "You come from the mountain" (al-Jabal) means, "You are a
clod-hopper"; and "I will sit upon the mountain"=turn anchorite or
magician. (Pilgrimage i. 106.)
[FN#379] Corresponding with wayside chapels in Catholic countries. The
Moslem form would be either a wall with a prayer niche (Mibráb)
fronting Meccah-wards or a small domed room. These little oratories are
often found near fountains, streams or tree-clumps where travellers
would be likely to alight. I have described one in Sind ("Scinde or the
Unhappy Valley" i. 79), and have noted that scrawling on the walls is
even more common in the East than in the West; witness the monuments of
old Egypt bescribbled by the Greeks and Romans. Even the paws of the
Sphinx are covered with such graffiti; and those of Ipsambul or Abu
Símbal have proved treasures to epigraphists.
[FN#380] In tales this characterises a Persian; and Hero Rustam is
always so pictured.
[FN#381] The Parsis, who are the representatives of the old Guebres,
turn towards the sun and the fire as their Kiblah or point of prayer;
all deny that they worship it. But, as in the case of saints' images,
while the educated would pray before them for edification (Labia) the
ignorant would adore them (Dulia); and would make scanty difference
between the "reverence of a servant" and the "reverence of a slave."
The human sacrifice was quite contrary to Guebre, although not to
Hindu, custom; although hate and vengeance might prompt an occasional
murder.
[FN#382] These oubliettes are common in old eastern houses as in the
medieval Castles of Europe, and many a stranger has met his death in
them. They are often so well concealed that even the modern inmates are
not aware of their existence.
[FN#383] Arab. "Bakk"; hence our "bug" whose derivation (like that of
"cat" "dog" and "hog") is apparently unknown to the dictionaries,
always excepting M. Littré's.
[FN#384] i.e. thy beauty is ever increasing.
[FN#385] Alluding, as usual, to the eye-lashes, e.g.
An eyelash arrow from an eyebrow bow.
[FN#386] Lane (ii. 168) reads:—"The niggardly female is protected by
her niggardness;" a change of "Nahílah" (bee-hive) into "Bakhílah" (she
skin flint).
[FN#387] Koran iv. 38. The advantages are bodily strength,
understanding and the high privilege of Holy War. Thus far, and thus
far only, woman amongst Moslems is "lesser
[FN#388] Arab. "Amir Yákhúr," a corruption of "Akhor"=stable
(Persian).
[FN#389] A servile name in Persian, meaning "the brave," and a title of
honour at the Court of Delhi when following the name. Many English
officers have made themselves ridiculous (myself amongst the number) by
having it engraved on their seal-rings, e.g. Brown Sáhib Bahádur. To
write the word "Behadir" or "Bahádir" is to adopt the wretched Turkish
corruption.
[FN#390] "Jerry Sneak" would be the English reader's comment; but in
the East all charges are laid upon women.
[FN#391] Here the formula means "I am sorry for it, but I couldn't help
it."
[FN#392] A noble name of the Persian Kings (meaning the planet
Mars) corrupted in Europe to Varanes.
[FN#393] Arab. "Jalláb," one of the three muharramát or forbiddens, the
Hárik al-hajar (burner of stone) the Káti' al-shajar (cutter of trees,
without reference to Hawarden N. B.) and the Báyi' al-bashar (seller of
men, vulg. Jalláb). The two former worked, like the Italian Carbonari,
in desert places where they had especial opportunities for crime.
(Pilgrimage iii. 140.) None of these things must be practiced during
Pilgrimage on the holy soil of Al-Hijaz—not including Jeddah.
[FN#394] The verses contain the tenets of the Murjiy sect which
attaches infinite importance to faith and little or none to works. Sale
(sect. viii.) derives his "Morgians" from the "Jabrians" (Jabari), who
are the direct opponents of the "Kadarians" (Kadari), denying free will
and free agency to man and ascribing his actions wholly to Allah. Lane
(ii. 243) gives the orthodox answer to the heretical question:—
Water could wet him not if God please guard His own; *
Nor need man care though bound of hands in sea he's thrown:
But if His Lord decree that he in sea be drowned; *
He'll drown albeit in the wild and wold he wone.
It is the old quarrel between Predestination and Freewill which cannot
be solved except by assuming a Law without a Lawgiver.
[FN#395] Our proverb says: Give a man luck and throw him into the sea.
[FN#396] As a rule Easterns, I repeat, cover head and face when
sleeping especially in the open air and moonlight. Europeans find the
practice difficult, and can learn it only by long habit.
[FN#397] Pers. = a flower-garden. In Galland, Bahram has two daughters,
Bostama and Cavam a. In the Bres. Edit. the daughter is "Bostan" and
the slave-girl "Kawám."
[FN#398] Arab. "Kahíl"=eyes which look as if darkened with antimony:
hence the name of the noble Arab breed of horses "Kuhaylat" (Al-Ajuz,
etc.).
[FN#399] "As'ad"=more (or most) fortunate.
[FN#400] This is the vulgar belief, although Mohammed expressly
disclaimed the power in the Koran (chaps. xiii. 8), "Thou art
commissioned to be a preacher only and not a worker of miracles."
"Signs" (Arab. Ayát) may here also mean verses of the Koran, which the
Apostle of Allah held to be his standing miracles. He despised the
common miracula which in the East are of everyday occurrence and are
held to be easy for any holy man. Hume does not believe in miracles
because he never saw one. Had he travelled in the East he would have
seen (and heard of) so many that his scepticism (more likely that
testimony should be false than miracles be true) would have been based
on a firmer foundation. It is one of the marvels of our age that whilst
two-thirds of Christendom (the Catholics and the "Orthodox" Greeks)
believe in "miracles" occurring not only in ancient but even in our
present days, the influential and intelligent third (Protestant)
absolutely "denies the fact."
[FN#401] Arab. "Al-Shahádatáni"; testifying the Unity and the
Apostleship.