affect _Rims cars_, out of the way, heavy rhymes: _e.g._ here Sakáríj
(plur. of Sakrúj, platters, porringers); Tayáhíj (plur. of Tayhúj,
the smaller caccabis-partridge); Tabáhíj (Persian Tabahjah, an omelet
or a stew of meat, onions, eggs, etc.) Ma'áríj ("in stepped piles"
like the pyramids; which Lane ii. 495, renders "on the stairs");
Makáríj (plur. of Makraj, a small pot); Damálíj (plur. of dumlúj, a
bracelet, a bangle); Dayábíj (brocades) and Tafáríj (openings,
enjoyments). In Night cccxxx. we find also Sikábíj (plur. of Sikbáj,
marinated meat elsewhere explained); Faráríj (plur. of farrúj, a
chicken, vulg. farkh) and Dakákíj (plur. of dakújah, a small jar). In
the first line we have also (though not a rhyme) Gharánik Gr.
Τερανὸς, a crane, preserved in Romaic. The weeping and wailing are
caused by the remembrance that all these delicacies have been
demolished like a Badawi camp.
Footnote 243:
This is the _vinum coctum_, the boiled wine, still a favourite in
Southern Italy and Greece.
Footnote 244:
Eastern topers delight in drinking at dawn: upon this subject I shall
have more to say in other Nights.
Footnote 245:
Arab. "Adab," a _crux_ to translators, meaning anything between good
education and good manners. In mod. Turk. "Edibiyyet"
(Adabiyat)=belles lettres and "Edebi" or "Edíb"=a littérateur.
Footnote 246:
The Caliph Al-Maamún, who was a bad player, used to say, "I have the
administration of the world and am equal to it, whereas I am
straitened in the ordering of a space of two spans by two spans." The
"board" was then "a square field of well-dressed leather."
Footnote 247:
The Rabbis (after Matth. xix. 12) count three kinds of Eunuchs; (1)
Seris chammah=of the sun, _i.e._ natural: (2) Seris Adam=manufactured
_per homines_; and (3) Seris Chammayim=of God (_i.e._ religious
abstainer). Seris (castrated) or Abd (slave) is the general Hebrew
name.
Footnote 248:
The "Lady of Beauty."
Footnote 249:
"Káf" has been noticed as the mountain which surrounds earth as a
ring does the finger: it is popularly used like our Alp and Alpine.
The "circumambient Ocean" (Bahr al-muhít) is the Homeric
Ocean-stream.
Footnote 250:
The pomegranate is probably chosen here because each fruit is
supposed to contain one seed from Eden-garden. Hence a host of
superstitions (Pilgrimage iii., 104) possibly connected with the
Chaldaic-Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramanu. Hence Persephone or Ishtar
tasted the "rich pomegranate's seed." Lenormant, loc. cit. pp.
166,182.
Footnote 251:
_i.e._ for the love of God—a favourite Moslem phrase.
Footnote 252:
Arab. "Báb," also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.),
corresponding with the Persian "Dar" as in Sad-dar, the Hundred
Doors. Here, however, it is figurative "I tried a new mode." This
scene is in the Mabinogion.
Footnote 253:
I use this Irish term=crying for the dead; as English wants the word
for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in
Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, "Verily a corpse is sprinkled
with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living,"
_i.e._ punished for not having taken measures to prevent their
profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it
reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system
in the "weeping-song": I have noted this in "The Lake-Regions of
Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chapt. xcvii.) tears
shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.
Footnote 254:
These lines are hardly translateable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience"
as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and
double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to
Burckhardt, is planted in grave-yards as a lesson of patience: it is
also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house-doors to prevent
evil spirits entering; "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane
(M. E., chapt. xi.), "it will live for several years and even
blossom. Hence (?) it is called _Sabr_, which signifies patience."
But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long-sufferance." I hold the
practise to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild
Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that
when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens
of Wák, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350).
Footnote 255:
Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to
Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it
was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the
"River of Peace (or Security)."
Footnote 256:
This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in
difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chapt.
xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden
Wire."
Footnote 257:
The fable is probably based on the currents which, as in Eastern
Africa, will carry a ship fifty miles a day out of her course. We
first find it in Ptolemy (vii. 2) whose Maniólai Islands, of India
extra Gangem, cause iron nails to fly out of ships, the effect of the
Lapis Herculeus (Loadstone). Rabelais (v. c. 37) alludes to it and to
the vulgar idea of magnetism being counteracted by Skordon (_Scordon_
or garlic). Hence too the Adamant (Loadstone) Mountains of Mandeville
(chapt. xxvii.) and the "Magnetic Rock" in Mr. Puttock's clever
"Peter Wilkins." I presume that the myth also arose from seeing craft
built, as on the East African Coast, without iron nails. We shall
meet with the legend again. The word Jabal ("Jebel" in Egypt) often
occurs in these pages. The Arabs apply it to any rising ground or
heap of rocks; so it is not always=our mountain. It has found its way
to Europe _e.g._ Gibraltar and Monte Gibello (or Mongibel in
poetry)="Mt. Ethne that men clepen Mounte Gybelle." Other special
senses of Jabal will occur.
Footnote 258:
As we learn from the Nubian Geographer the Arabs in early ages
explored the Fortunate Islands, Jazírát al-Khálidát (=Eternal Isles),
or Canaries, on one of which were reported a horse and horseman in
bronze with his spear pointing west. Ibn al-Wardi notes "two images
of hard stone, each an hundred cubits high, and upon the top of each
a figure of copper pointing with its hand backwards, as though it
would say:—Return for there is nothing behind me!" But this legend
attaches to older doings. The 23rd Tobba (who succeeded Bilkis),
Malik bin Sharhabíl, (or Sharabíl or Sharahíl) surnamed Náshir
al-Ni'ám=scatterer of blessings, lost an army in attempting the
Western sands and set up a statue of copper upon whose breast was
inscribed in antique characters:—
There is no access behind me,
Nothing beyond,
(Saith) The Son of Sharabíl.
Footnote 259:
_i.e._ I exclaimed "Bismillah!"
Footnote 260:
The lesser ablution of hands, face and feet; a kind of "washing the
points." More in Night ccccxl.
Footnote 261:
Arab. "Ruka'tayn"; the number of these bows which are followed by the
prostrations distinguishes the five daily prayers.
Footnote 262:
The "Beth Kol" of the Hebrews; also called by the Moslems "Hátif";
for which ask the Spiritualists. It is the Hindu "voice divine" or
"voice from heaven."
Footnote 263:
These formulæ are technically called Tasmiyah, Tahlíl (before noted)
and Takbír: the "testifying" is Tashhíd.
Footnote 264:
Arab. "Samn," (Pers. "Raughan" Hind. "Ghi") the "single sauce" of the
East; fresh butter set upon the fire, skimmed and kept (for a century
if required) in leather bottles and demijohns. Then it becomes a hard
black mass, considered a panacea for wounds and diseases. It is very
"filling": you say jocosely to an Eastern threatened with a sudden
inroad of guests, "Go, swamp thy rice with Raughan." I once tried
training, like a Hindu Pahlawan or athlete, on Gur (raw sugar), milk
and Ghi; and the result was being blinded by bile before the week
ended.
Footnote 265:
These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should
apply to women.
Footnote 266:
The Bul. Edit. (i. 43) reads otherwise:—I found a garden and a second
and a third and so on till they numbered thirty and nine; and, in
each garden, I saw what praise will not express, of trees and rills
and fruits and treasures. At the end of the last I sighted a door and
said to myself, "What may be in this place?; needs must I open it and
look in!" I did so accordingly and saw a courser ready saddled and
bridled and picketed; so I loosed and mounted him; and he flew with
me like a bird till he set me down on a terrace-roof; and, having
landed me, he struck me a whisk with his tail and put out mine eye
and fled from me. Thereupon I descended from the roof and found ten
youths all blind of one eye who, when they saw me exclaimed, "No
welcome to thee, and no good cheer!" I asked them, "Do ye admit me to
your home and society?" and they answered, "No, by Allah, thou shalt
not live amongst us." So I went forth with weeping eyes and grieving
heart, but Allah had written my safety on the Guarded Tablet so I
reached Baghdad in safety, etc. This is a fair specimen of how the
work has been curtailed in that issue.
Footnote 267:
Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the
fœtus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel
adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).
Footnote 268:
This is contrary to the commands of Al-Islam; Mohammed expressly said
"The Astrologers are liars, by the Lord of the Ka'abah!"; and his
saying is known to almost all Moslems, lettered or unlettered. Yet,
the further we go East (Indiawards) the more we find these practises
held in honour. Turning westwards we have:
Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto;
Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est;
Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.
Footnote 269:
He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects
his dawn prayers.
Footnote 270:
For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a
checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond
of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games.
Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding
"Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants).
Footnote 271:
Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.
Footnote 272:
We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."
Footnote 273:
The bath first taken after sickness.
Footnote 274:
Arab. "Dikák" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the
meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="_Revalenta Arabica_," which costs
a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England.
Footnote 275:
Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar
in the Bombay Presidency.
Footnote 276:
This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of
"Anagké," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is
highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the
terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama.
Footnote 277:
Having lately been moved by Ajib.
Footnote 278:
Mr. Payne (i. 131.) omits these lines which appear out of place; but
this mode of inappropriate quotation is a characteristic of Eastern
tales.
Footnote 279:
Anglicè "him."
Footnote 280:
This march of the tribe is a _lieu commun_ of Arab verse _e.g._ the
poet Labid's noble elegy on the "Deserted Camp." We shall find scores
of instances in The Nights.
Footnote 281:
I have heard of such sands in the Desert east of Damascus which can
be crossed only on boards or camel furniture; and the same is
reported of the infamous Region "Al-Ahkáf" ("Unexplored Syria").
Footnote 282:
Hence the Arab. saying "The bark of a dog and not the gleam of a
fire;" the tired traveller knows from the former that the camp is
near, whereas the latter shows from great distances.
Footnote 283:
Dark blue is the colour of mourning in Egypt as it was of the Roman
Republic. The Persians hold that this tint was introduced by Kay
Kawús (B.C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyáwush. It was continued
till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month,
then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black.
As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called
"Hidád"), looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and
foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile
women dye their hands with indigo and stain their faces black or
blacker.
Footnote 284:
The older Roc, of which more in the Tale of Sindbad. Meanwhile the
reader curious about the Persian Símurgh (thirty bird) will consult
the Dabistan, i., 55, 191 and iii., 237, and Richardson's Diss. p.
xlviii. For the Anka (Enka or Unka=long-necked bird) see Dab. iii.,
249 and for the Humá (bird of Paradise) Richardson lxix. We still
lack details concerning the Ben or Bennu (nycticorax) of Egypt which
with the Article pi gave rise to the Greek "phœnix."
Footnote 285:
Probably the _Haledj_ of Forskal (p. xcvi. Flor. Ægypt. Arab.),
"lignum tenax, durum, obscuri generis." The Bres. Edit, has
"ákúl"=teak wood, vulg. "Sáj."
Footnote 286:
The knocker ring is an invention well known to the Romans.
Footnote 287:
Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut"
(Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.
Footnote 288:
Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhabá," the words still popularly
addressed to a guest.
Footnote 289:
This may mean "liquid black eyes"; but also, as I have noticed, that
the lashes were long and thick enough to make the eyelids appear as
if Kohl-powder had been applied to the inner rims.
Footnote 290:
A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is
considered a beauty by Arabs; why it is hard to say except for the
racial love of variety. "Sughr" (Thugr) in the text means, primarily,
the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.
Footnote 291:
_i.e._ makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the
gall-bladder" (Marárah) being our "breaking the heart."
Footnote 292:
Almost needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a _lieu
commun_ in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and
became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard."
Footnote 293:
Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in
Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix., 30).
Footnote 294:
Arab. "Al-Barkúk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is
"Burkúk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishmish," and it also denotes a small
plum or damson. In Syria the "side next the sun" shows a glowing red
flush.
Footnote 295:
Arab. "Hazáṙ" (in Persian, a thousand)=a kind of mocking bird.
Footnote 296:
Some Edit. make the doors number a hundred, but the Princesses were
forty and these coincidences, which seem to have significance and
have none save for Arab symmetromania, are common in Arab stories.
Footnote 297:
Arab. "Májúr": hence possibly our "mazer," which is popularly derived
from Masarn, a maple.
Footnote 298:
A compound scent of ambergris, musk and aloes.
Footnote 299:
The ends of the bridle-reins forming the whip
Footnote 300:
The flying horse is Pegasus which is a Greek travesty of an Egyptian
myth developed in India.
Footnote 301:
The Bres. Edit. wrongly says "the seventh."
Footnote 302:
Arab. "Sharmutah" (plur. Sharámít) from the root Sharmat, to shred, a
favourite Egyptian word also applied in vulgar speech to a strumpet,
a punk, a piece. It is also the popular term for strips of jerked or
boucaned meat hung up in the sun to dry, and classically called
"Kadíd."
Footnote 303:
Arab. "Izár," the man's waist-cloth opposed to the Ridá or
shoulder-cloth, is also the sheet of white calico worn by the poorer
Egyptian women out of doors and covering head and hands. See Lane (M.
E., chapt. i). The rich prefer a "Habárah" of black silk, and the
poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.
Footnote 304:
_i.e._ "My dears."
Footnote 305:
Arab. "Lá tawákhizná:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;" the pop.
expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."
Footnote 306:
Arab. "Maskhút," mostly applied to change of shape as man enchanted
to monkey, and in vulgar parlance applied to a statue (of stone,
etc.). The list of metamorphoses in Al-Islam is longer than that
known to Ovid. Those who have seen Petra, the Greek town of the
Haurán and the Roman ruins in Northern Africa will readily detect the
basis upon which these stories are built. I shall return to this
subject in The City of Iram (Night cclxxvi.) and The City of Brass
(dlxvii.).
Footnote 307:
A picturesque phrase enough to express a deserted site, a spectacle
familiar to the Nomades and always abounding in pathos to the
citizens.
Footnote 308:
The olden "Harem" (or gynæceum, Pers. Zenanah, Serraglio): Harím is
also used by synecdoche for the inmates; especially the wife.
Footnote 309:
The pearl is supposed in the East to lose 1% per ann. of its
splendour and value.
Footnote 310:
Arab. "Fass," properly the bezel of a ring; also a gem cut _en
cabochon_ and generally the _contenant_ for the _contenu_.
Footnote 311:
Arab. "Mihráb"=the arch-headed niche in the Mosque-wall facing
Meccah-wards. Here, with his back to the people and fronting
the Ka'abah or Square House of Meccah (hence called the
"Kiblah"=direction of prayer), stations himself the Imám, antistes or
fugleman, lit. "one who stands _before_ others;" and his bows and
prostrations give the time to the congregation. I have derived the
Mihrab from the niche in which the Egyptian God was shrined: the Jews
ignored it, but the Christians preserved it for their statues and
altars. Maundrell suggests that the empty niche denotes an invisible
God. As the niche (symbol of Venus) and the minaret (symbol of
Priapus) date only from the days of the tenth Caliph, Al-Walid (A.H.
86-96=105-115), the Hindus charge the Moslems with having borrowed
the two from their favourite idols—The Linga-Yoni or Cunnus-phallus
(Pilgrimage ii. 140), and plainly call the Mihrab a Bhaga=Cunnus
(Dabistan ii. 152.) The Guebres further term Meccah "Mah-gah," locus
Lunæ, and Al-Medinah, "Mahdinah,"=Moon of religion. See Dabistan i.,
49, etc.
Footnote 312:
Arab. "Kursi," a stool of palm-fronds, etc., ❌-shaped (see Lane's
illustration, Nights i., 197), before which the reader sits. Good
Moslems will not hold the Holy Volume below the waist nor open it
except when ceremonially pure. Englishmen in the East should remember
this, for to neglect the "Adab al-Kúran" (respect due to Holy Writ)
gives great scandal.
Footnote 313:
Mr. Payne (i. 148) quotes the German Zuckerpüppchen.
Footnote 314:
The Persian poets have a thousand conceits in praise of the "mole,"
(Khál or Shámah) for which Hafiz offered "Samarkand and Bokhara"
(they not being his, as his friends remarked). Another "topic" is the
flight of arrows shot by eyelashes.
Footnote 315:
Arab. "Suhá" a star in the Great Bear introduced only to balance
"wushát"=spies, enviers, enemies, whose "evil eye" it will ward off.
Footnote 316:
In Arab tales beauty is always "soft-sided," and a smooth skin is
valued in proportion to its rarety.
Footnote 317:
The myrtle is the young hair upon the side-face.
Footnote 318:
In other copies of these verses the fourth couplet swears "by the
scorpions of his brow" _i.e._ the _accroche-cœurs_, the
beau-catchers, bell-ropes or "aggravators," as the B.P. calls them.
In couplet eight the poet alludes to his love's "Unsur," or element,
his nature made up of the four classicals, and in the last couplet he
makes the nail-paring refer to the moon not the sun.
Footnote 319:
This is regular formula when speaking of Guebres.
Footnote 320:
Arab. "Faráiz"; the orders expressly given in the Koran which the
reader will remember, is Uncreate and Eternal. In India "Farz" is
applied to injunctions thrice repeated; and "Wájib" to those given
twice over. Elsewhere scanty difference is made between them.
Footnote 321:
Arab. "Kufr"=rejecting the True Religion, _i.e._ Al-Islam, such
rejection being "Tughyán" or rebellion against the Lord. The
"terrible sound" is taken from the legend of the prophet Sálih and
the proto-historic tribe of Thámúd which for its impiety was struck
dead by an earthquake and a noise from heaven. The latter, according
to some commentators, was the voice of the Archangel Gabriel crying
"Die all of you" (Koran, chapts. vii. xviii., etc.). We shall hear
more of it in the "City of many-coloured Iram." According to some,
Salih, a mysterious Badawi prophet, is buried in the Wady al-Shaykh
of the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula.
Footnote 322:
Yet they kept the semblance of man, showing that the idea arose from
the basaltic statues found in Hauranic ruins. Mohammed in his various
marches to Syria must have seen remnants of Greek and Roman
settlements; and as has been noticed "Sesostris" left his mark near
Meccah. (Pilgrimage iii. 137).
Footnote 323:
Arab. "Shuhadá"; highly respected by Moslems as by other
religionists; although their principal if not only merit seems as a
rule to have been intense obstinacy and devotion to one idea for
which they were ready to sacrifice even life. The Martyrs-category is
extensive including those killed by falling walls; victims to the
plague, pleurisy and pregnancy; travellers drowned or otherwise lost
when journeying honestly, and chaste lovers who die of "broken
hearts" _i.e._ impaired digestion. Their souls are at once stowed
away in the crops of green birds where they remain till Resurrection
Day, "eating of the fruits and drinking of the streams of Paradise,"
a place however, whose topography is wholly uncertain. Thus the young
Prince was rewarded with a manner of anti-Purgatory, a preparatory
heaven.
Footnote 324:
Arab. "Su 'ubán:" the Badawin give the name to a variety of serpents
all held to be venomous; but in tales the word, like "Tannín."
expresses our "dragon" or "cockatrice."
Footnote 325:
She was ashamed to see the lady doing servile duty by rubbing her
feet. This _massage_, which B. de la Brocquière describes in 1452 as
"kneading and pinching," has already been noticed. The French term is
apparently derived from the Arab. "Mas-h."
Footnote 326:
Alluding to the Most High Name, the hundredth name of God, the Heb.
Shem hamphorash, unknown save to a favoured few who by using it
perform all manner of miracles.
Footnote 327:
_i.e._ the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
Footnote 328:
_i.e._ Settled by the Koran.
Footnote 329:
The uglier the old woman the better procuress she is supposed to
make. See the Santa Verdiana in Boccaccio v., 10. In Arab. "Ajuz"
(old woman) is highly insulting and if addressed to an Egyptian,
whatever be her age she will turn fiercely and resent it. The polite
term is Shaybah (Pilgrimage iii., 200).
Footnote 330:
The four ages of woman, considered after Demosthenes in her
three-fold character, prostitute for pleasure, concubine for service
and wife for breeding.
Footnote 331:
Arab. "Jilá" (the Hindostani Julwa)=the displaying of the bride
before the bridegroom for the first time, in different dresses, to
the number of seven which are often borrowed for the occasion. The
happy man must pay a fee called "the tax of face-unveiling" before he
can see her features. Amongst Syrian Christians he sometimes tries to
lift the veil by a sharp movement of the sword which is parried by
the women present, and the blade remains entangled in the cloth. At
last he succeeds, the bride sinks to the ground covering her face
with her hands and the robes of her friends: presently she is raised
up, her veil is readjusted and her face is left bare.
Footnote 332:
Arab. "Ishá"=the first watch of the night, twilight, supper-time,
supper. Moslems have borrowed the four watches of the Romans from 6
(a.m. or p.m.) to 6; and ignore the three original watches of the
Jews, even, midnight and cockcrow (Sam. ii. 19, Judges vii. 19, and
Exodus xiv. 24).
Footnote 333:
A popular Arab hyperbole.
Footnote 334:
Arab. "Shakáik al-Nu'umán," lit. the fissures of Nu'uman, the
beautiful anemone, which a tyrannical King of Hirah, Nu'uman ibn
Al-Munzir, a contemporary of Mohammed, attempted to monopolize.
Footnote 335: