the care-taker to make good the purse and bound over sundry of her
debtors to answer for her. So she went forth, confounded and knowing not
her way out of the difficulty. Presently she met a five-year-old boy
who, seeing her troubled, said to her, “What ails thee, O my mother?”
But she gave him no answer, contemning him because of his tender age,
and he repeated his question a second time and a third time till, at
last, she told him all that had passed,[254] not forgetting the
condition that she was to keep the purse until all four had demanded it
of her. Said the boy, “Give me a dirham to buy sweetmeats withal and I
will tell thee how thou mayst acquit thyself.” So she gave him a silver
and said to him, “What hast thou to say?” Quoth he, “Return to the Kazi,
and say to him, It was agreed between myself and them that I should not
give them the purse, except all four of them were present. Let them all
four come and I will give them the purse, as was agreed.” So she went
back to the Kazi and said to him as the boy had counselled; and he asked
the merchants, “Was it thus agreed between you and this woman?”; and
they answered, “Yes.” Quoth the Kazi, “Then bring me your comrade and
take the purse.” So they went in quest of their fellow, whilst the
keeper came off scot-free and went her way without let or hindrance. And
Allah is Omniscient![255] When the King and his Wazir and those present
in the assembly heard the Prince’s words they said to his father, “O our
lord the King, in very sooth thy son is the most accomplished man of his
time;” and they called down blessings upon the King and the Prince. Then
the King strained his son to his bosom and kissed him between the eyes
and questioned him of what had passed between the favourite and himself;
and the Prince sware to him, by Almighty Allah and by His Holy Prophet
that it was she who had required him of love which he refused, adding,
“Moreover, she promised me that she would give thee poison to drink and
kill thee, so should the kingship be mine; whereupon I waxed wroth and
signed to her:—O accursed One, whenas I can speak I will requite thee!
So she feared me and did what she did.” The King believed his words and
sending for the favourite said to those present, “How shall we put this
damsel to death?” Some counselled him to cut out her tongue and other
some to burn it with fire; but, when she came before the King, she said
to him, “My case with thee is like unto naught save the tale of the fox
and the folk.” “How so?” asked he; and she said:—I have heard, O King,
tell a
_STORY OF THE FOX AND THE FOLK_.[256]
A fox once made his way into a city by the wall and, entering a
currier’s storehouse, played havoc with all therein and spoiled the
skins for the owner. One day, the currier set a trap for him and taking
him, beat him with the hides, till he fell down senseless, whereupon the
man deeming him to be dead, cast him out into the road by the city-gate.
Presently, an old woman who was walking by, seeing the fox said, “This
is a fox whose eye, hung about a child’s neck, is salutary against
weeping.” So she pluckt out his right eye and went away. Then passed a
boy, who said, “What does this tail on this fox?”; and cut off his
brush. After a while, up came a man and saying, “This is a fox whose
gall cleareth away film and dimness from the eyes, if they be anointed
therewith like kohl,” took out his knife to slit up the fox’s paunch.
But Reynard said in himself, “We bore with the plucking out of the eye
and the cutting off of the tail; but, as for the slitting of the paunch,
there is no putting up with that!” So saying, he sprang up and made off
through the gate of the city, hardly believing in his escape. Quoth the
King, “I excuse her, and in my son’s hands be her doom. If he will, let
him torture her, and if he will, let him kill her.” Quoth the Prince,
“Pardon is better than vengeance and mercy is of the quality of the
noble;” and the King repeated, “‘Tis for thee to decide, O my son.” So
the Prince set her free, saying, “Depart from our neighbourhood and
Allah pardon what is past!” Therewith the King rose from his throne of
estate and seating his son thereon, crowned him with his crown and bade
the Grandees of his realm swear fealty and commanded them do homage to
him. And he said, “O folk, indeed, I am stricken in years and desire to
withdraw apart and devote myself only to the service of my Lord; and I
call you to witness that I divest myself of the kingly dignity, even as
I have divested myself of my crown and set it on my son’s head.” So the
troops and officers swore fealty to the Prince, and his father gave
himself up to the worship of his Lord nor stinted from this, whilst his
son abode in his kingship, doing justice and righteousness; and his
power was magnified and his sultanate strengthened and he abode in all
delight and solace of life, till there came to him the Certainty.
-----
Footnote 153:
Here begins the Sindibad-namah, the origin of Dolopathos (thirteenth
century by the Trouvère Harbers); of the “Seven Sages” (John Holland
in 1575); the “Seven Wise Masters” and a host of minor romances. The
Persian Sindibád-Námah assumed its present shape in A.D. 1375:
Professor Falconer printed an abstract of it in the Orient. Journ.
(xxxv. and xxxvi. 1841), and Mr. W. A. Clouston reissued the “Book of
Sindibad,” with useful notes in 1884. An abstract of the Persian work
is found in all edits. of The Nights; but they differ greatly,
especially that in the Bresl. Edit. xii. pp. 237–377, from which I
borrow the introduction. According to Hamzah Isfahání (ch. xli.) the
Reguli who succeeded to Alexander the Great and preceded Sapor caused
some seventy books to be composed, amongst which were the Liber Maruc,
Liber Barsínas, Liber Sindibad, Liber Shimás, etc., etc., etc.
Footnote 154:
Eusebius De Præp. Evang. iii. 4, quotes Prophesy concerning the
Egyptian belief in the Lords of the Ascendant whose names are given ἐν
τοῖς ἀλμενιχιακοῖς: in these “Almenichiaka” we have the first almanac,
as the first newspaper in the Roman “Acta Diurna.”
Footnote 155:
“Al-Mas’údi,” the “Herodotus of the Arabs,” thus notices Sindibad the
Sage (in his Murúj etc., written about A.D. 934). “During the reign of
Kurúsh (Cyrus) lived Al-Sindibad who wrote the Seven Wazirs, etc.”
Al-Ya’akúbi had also named him circ. A.D. 880. For notes on the name
Sindibad, see Sindbad the Seaman, Night dxxxvi. I need not enter into
the history of the “Seven Sages,” a book evidently older than The
Nights in present form; but refer the reader to Mr. Clouston, of whom
more in a future page.
Footnote 156:
Evidently borrowed from the Christians, although the latter borrowed
from writers of the most remote antiquity. Yet the saying is the basis
of all morality and in few words contains the highest human wisdom.
Footnote 157:
It is curious to compare the dry and business-like tone of the Arab
style with the rhetorical luxuriance of the Persian: p. 10 of Mr.
Clouston’s “Book of Sindibad.”
Footnote 158:
In the text “Isfídáj,” the Pers. Isped (or Saféd) áb, lit. = white
water, ceruse used for women’s faces suggesting our “Age of Bismuth,”
Blanc Rosati, Crême de l’Impératrice, Perline, Opaline, Milk of
Beauty, etc., etc., etc.
Footnote 159:
Commentators compare this incident with the biblical story of Joseph
and Potiphar’s wife and with the old Egyptian romance and fairy tale
of the brothers Anapon and Saton dating from the fourteenth century,
the days of Pharaoh Ramses Miamun (who built Pi-tum and Ramses) at
whose court Moses or Osarsiph is supposed to have been reared
(Cambridge Essays 1858). The incident would often occur, _e.g._
Phædra-cum-Hippolytus; Fausta-cum-Crispus and Lucinian; Asoka’s wife
and Kunála, etc., etc. Such things happen in every-day life, and the
situation has recommended itself to the folklore of all peoples.
Footnote 160:
Another version of this tale is given in the Bresl. Edit. (vol. viii.
pp. 273–8: Night 675–6). It is the “Story of the King and the Virtuous
Wife” in the Book of Sindibad. In the versions Arabic and Greek
(Syntipas) the King forgets his ring; in the Hebrew Mishlé Sandabar
his staff, and his sandals in the old Spanish Libro de los Engannos et
los Asayamientos de las Mugeres.
Footnote 161:
One might fancy that this is Biblical, Bathsheba and Uriah. But such
“villanies” must often have occurred in the East, at different times
and places, without requiring direct derivation. The learned Prof. H.
H. Wilson was mistaken in supposing that these fictions “originate in
the feeling which has always pervaded the East unfavourable to the
dignity of women.” They belong to a certain stage of civilisation when
the sexes are at war with each other; and they characterise chivalrous
Europe as well as misogynous Asia; witness Jankins, clerk of
Oxenforde; while Æsop’s fable of the Lion and the Man also explains
their frequency.
Footnote 162:
The European form of the tale is “Toujours perdrix,” a sentence often
quoted but seldom understood. It is the reproach of M. l’Abbé when the
Count (proprietor of the pretty Countess) made him eat partridge every
day for a month; on which the Abbé says, “Always partridge is too much
of a good thing!” Upon this text the Count speaks. A correspondent
mentions that it was told by Horace Walpole concerning the Confessor
of a French King who reproved him for conjugal infidelities. The
degraded French (for “toujours de la perdrix” or “des perdrix”)
suggests a foreign origin. Another friend refers me to No. x. of the
“Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles” (compiled in A.D. 1432 for the amusement of
the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI.) whose chief personage “un grand
seigneur du Royaulme d’Angleterre,” is lectured upon fidelity by the
lord’s mignon, a “jeune et gracieux gentil homme de son hostel.” Here
the partridge became pastés d’anguille. Possibly Scott refers to it in
Redgauntlet (chapt. iv.); “One must be very fond of partridge to
accept it when thrown in one’s face.” Did not Voltaire complain at
Potsdam of “toujours perdrix” and make it one of his grievances? A
similar story is that of the chaplain who, weary of the same diet,
uttered “grace” as follows:—
Rabbits hot, rabbits cold,
Rabbits tender, and rabbits tough,
Rabbits young, and rabbits old—
I thank the Lord I’ve had enough.
And I as cordially thank my kind correspondents.
Footnote 163:
The great legal authority of the realm.
Footnote 164:
In all editions the Wazir here tells the Tale of the Merchant’s Wife
and the Parrot which, following Lane, I have transferred to vol. i. p.
52. But not to break the tradition I here introduce the Persian
version of the story from the “Book of Sindibad.” In addition to the
details given in the note to vol. i., 52; I may quote the two
talking-birds left to watch over his young wife by Rajah Rasálú (son
of Shaliváhana the great Indian monarch circ. A.D. 81), who is to the
Punjab what Rustam is to Persia and Antar to Arabia. In the “Seven
Wise Masters” the parrot becomes a magpie and Mr. Clouston, in some
clever papers on “Popular Tales and Fictions” contributed to the
_Glasgow Evening Times_ (1884), compares it with the history, in the
Gesta Romanorum, of the Adulteress, the Abigail, and the Three Cocks,
two of which crowed during the congress of the lady and her lover. All
these evidently belong to the Sindibad cycle.
Footnote 165:
In the days of the Caliph Al-Mustakfí bi ‘llah (A.H. 333 = 944) the
youth of Baghdad studied swimming and it is said that they could swim
holding chafing-dishes upon which were cooking-pots and keep afloat
till the meat was dressed. The story is that of “The Washerman and his
Son who were drowned in the Nile,” of the Book of Sindibad.
Footnote 166:
Her going to the bath suggested that she was fresh from coition.
Footnote 167:
Taken from the life of the Egyptian Mameluke Sultan (No. viii. regn.
A.H. 825 = A.D. 1421) who would not suffer his subjects to prostrate
themselves or kiss the ground before him. See D’Herbelot for details.
Footnote 168:
This nauseous Joe Miller has often been told in the hospitals of
London and Paris. It is as old as the Hitopadesa.
Footnote 169:
Koran iv. 81, “All is from Allah;” but the evil which befals mankind,
though ordered by Allah, is yet the consequence of their own
wickedness (I add, which wickedness was created by Allah).
Footnote 170:
The Bresl. Edit. (xii. 266) says “bathing.”
Footnote 171:
This tale is much like that told in the Fifth Night (vol. i. 54). It
is the story of the Prince and the Lamia in the Book of Sindibad
wherein it is given with Persian rhetoric and diffuseness.
Footnote 172:
Arab “Wa’ar” = rocky, hilly, tree-less ground unfit for riding. I have
noted that the three Heb. words “Year” (_e.g._ Kiryath-Yearim = City
of forest), “Choresh” (now Hirsh, a scrub), and “Pardés” (παράδεισος a
chase, a hunting-park opposed to κῆπος, an orchard) are preserved in
Arabic and are intelligible in Palestine (Unexplored Syria, i. 207).
Footnote 173:
The privy and the bath are favourite haunts of the Jinns.
Footnote 174:
Arab history is full of petty wars caused by trifles. In Egypt the
clans Sa’ad and Harám and in Syria the Kays and Yaman (which remain to
the present day) were as pugnacious as Highland Caterans. The tale
bears some likeness to the accumulative nursery rhymes in “The House
that Jack Built,” and “The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence;” which
find their indirect original in an allegorical Talmudic hymn.
Footnote 175:
This is “The Story of the Old Man who sent his Young Wife to the
Market to buy Rice,” told with Persian reflections in the “Book of
Sindibad.”
Footnote 176:
Koran xii. 28. The words were spoken by Potiphar to Joseph.
Footnote 177:
Koran iv. 78. A mis-quotation, the words are, “Fight therefore against
the friends of Satan, for the craft of Satan shall be weak.”
Footnote 178:
_i.e._ Koranic versets.
Footnote 179:
In the Book of Sindibad this is the “Story of the Prince who went out
to hunt and the stratagem which the Wazir practised on him.”
Footnote 180:
I have noted that it is a dire affront to an Arab if his first cousin
marry any save himself without his formal leave.
Footnote 181:
_i.e._ the flowery, the splendid; an epithet of Fatimah, the daughter
of the Apostle “the bright blooming.” Fátimah is an old Arab name of
good omen, “the weaner:” in Egypt it becomes Fattúmah (an
incrementative = “great weaner”); and so Amínah, Khadíjah and Nafísah
on the banks of the Nile are barbarised to Ammúnah, Khaddúgah and
Naffúsah.
Footnote 182:
_i.e._ his coming misfortune, the phrase being euphemistic.
Footnote 183:
Arab. Ráy: in theology it means “private judgment” and Ráyí (act.
partic.) is a Rationalist. The Hanaff School is called “Asháb al-Ráy”
because it allows more liberty of thought than the other three
orthodox.
Footnote 184:
The angels in Al-Islam ride piebalds.
Footnote 185:
In the Bresl. Edit. “Zájir” (xii. 286).
Footnote 186:
This is the “King’s Son and the Merchant’s Wife” of the Hitopadesa
(chapt. i.) transferred to all the Prakrit versions of India. It is
the Story of the Bath-keeper who conducted his Wife to the Son of the
King of Kanuj in the Book of Sindibad.
Footnote 187:
The pious Caliph Al-Muktadi bi Amri ‘llah (A.H. 467 = A.D. 1075) was
obliged to forbid men entering the baths of Baghdad without drawers.
Footnote 188:
This peculiarity is not uncommon amongst the so-called Aryan and
Semitic races, while to the African it is all but unknown. Women
highly prize a conformation which (as the prostitute described it) is
always “either in his belly or in mine.”
Footnote 189:
Easterns, I have said, are perfectly aware of the fact that women
corrupt women much more than men do. The tale is the “Story of the
Libertine Husband” in the Book of Sindibad; blended with the “Story of
the Go-between and the Bitch” in the Book of Sindibad. It is related
in the “Disciplina Clericalis” of Alphonsus (A.D. 1106); the fabliau
of _La vieille qui séduisit la jeune fille_; the Gesta Romanorum
(thirteenth century) and the “Cunning Siddhikari” in the
Kathá-Sarit-Ságara.
Footnote 190:
The Kashmír people, men and women, have a very bad name in Eastern
tales, the former for treachery and the latter for unchastity. A
Persian distich says:
If folk be scarce as food in dearth ne’er let three lots come near ye:
First Sindi, second Jat, and third a rascally Kashmeeree.
The women have fair skins and handsome features but, like all living
in that zone, Persians, Sindis, Afghans, etc., their bosoms fall after
the first child and become like udders. This is not the case with
Hindú women, Rajpúts, Maráthís, etc.
Footnote 191:
By these words she appealed to his honour.
Footnote 192:
These vehicles suggest derivation from European witchery. In the
Bresl. Edit. (xii. 304) one of the women rides a “Miknasah” or broom.
Footnote 193:
_i.e._ a recluse who avoids society.
Footnote 194:
“Consecrated ground” is happily unknown to Moslems.
Footnote 195:
This incident occurs in the “Third Kalandar’s Tale.” See vol. i, 157;
and note to p. 145.
Footnote 196:
The Mac. Edit. has “Nahr” = river.
Footnote 197:
_i.e._ marked with the Wasm or tribal sign to show their blood. The
subject of Wasm is extensive and highly interesting, for many of these
brands date doubtless from prehistoric ages. For instance, some of the
great Anazah nation (not tribe) uses a circlet, the initial of their
name (an Ayn-letter), which thus shows the eye from which it was
formed. I have given some specimens of Wasm in The Land of Midian (i.
320) where, as amongst the “Sinaitic” Badawin, various kinds of
crosses are preserved long after the death and burial of Christianity.
Footnote 198:
_i.e._ from the heights. The “Sayl” is a dangerous feature in Arabia
as in Southern India, where many officers have lost their lives by
trying to swim it.
Footnote 199:
Arab. “‘Ujb.” I use arrogance in the Spanish sense of “arrogante,” gay
and gallant.
Footnote 200:
In this rechauffé Paul Pry escapes without losing an eye.
Footnote 201:
Eastern tale-tellers always harp upon this theme, the cunning
precautions taken by mankind and their utter confusion by “Fate and
Fortune.” In such matters the West remarks, “Ce que femme veut, Dieu
veut.”
Footnote 202:
As favourite an occupation in Oriental lands as in Southern Europe and
the Brazil, where the Quinta or country villa must be built by the
road-side to please the mistress.
Footnote 203:
The ink-case would contain the pens; hence called in India Kalamdán =
reed (pen) box. I have advised travellers to prefer the strong
Egyptian article of brass to the Persian, which is of wood or
papier-mâché, prettily varnished, but not to wear it in the
waist-belt, as this is a sign of being a scribe (Pilgrimage i. 353).
Footnote 204:
The vulgar Eastern idea is that women are quite knowing enough without
learning to read and write: and at all events they should not be
taught anything beyond reading the Koran, or some clearly-written
book. The contrast with modern Europe is great; greater still in
Anglo-America of our day, and greatest with the new sects which
propose “biunes” and “bisexuals” and “women robed with the sun.”
Footnote 205:
In the Bresl. Edit. the Prince ties a key to a second arrow and shoots
it into the pavilion.
Footnote 206:
The “box-trick” has often been played with success, by Lord Byron
amongst a host of others. The readiness with which the Wazir enters
into the scheme is characteristic of oriental servility: an honest
Moslem should at least put in a remonstrance.
Footnote 207:
This story appears familiar, but I have not found it easy to trace. In
“The Book of Sindibad” (p. 83) it is apparently represented by a
lacuna. In the Squire’s Tale of Chaucer Canace’s ring enables the
wearer to understand bird-language, not merely to pretend as does the
slave-boy in the text.
Footnote 208:
The crow is an ill-omened bird in Al-Islam and in Eastern Christendom.
“The crow of cursed life and foul odour,” says the Book of Kalilah and
Dimna (p. 44). The Hindus are its only protectors, and in this matter
they follow suit with the Guebres. I may note that the word belongs to
the days before “Aryan” and “Semitic” speech had parted; we find it in
Heb. Oreb; Arab. Ghuráb; Lat. Corvus; Engl. Crow, etc.
Footnote 209:
Again in the Hibernian sense of being “kilt.”
Footnote 210:
Quoted in Night dlxxxii.; said by Kitfír or Itfír (Potiphar) when his
wife (Ráil or Zulaykha) charged Joseph with attempting her chastity
and he saw that the youth’s garment was whole in front and rent in
rear (Koran, chapt. xii.).
Footnote 211:
This witty tale, ending somewhat grossly here, has over-wandered the
world. First we find it in the Kathá (S. S.) where Upakoshá, the merry
wife of Vararuchi, disrobes her suitors, a family priest, a commander
of the guard and the prince’s tutor, under plea of the bath and stows
them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff’s “buck-basket.” In Miss
Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales” the fair wife of an absent merchant plays
a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the
King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Rámákistnan, the
Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his
life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H. Damant (pp. 357–360
of the “Indian Antiquary” of 1873) relates the “Tale of the
Touchstone,” a legend of Dinahpur, wherein a woman “sells” her four
admirers. In the Persian Tales ascribed to the Dervish “Mokles”
(Mukhlis) of Isfahan, the lady Aruyá tricks and exposes a Kazi, a
doctor and a governor. Boccaccio (viii. 1) has the story of a lady who
shut up her gallant in a chest with her husband’s sanction; and a
similar tale (ix. 1) of Rinuccio and Alexander with the corpse of
Scannadeo (Throkh-god). Hence a Lydgate (circ. A.D. 1430) derived the
plot of his metrical tale of the “Lady Prioress and her Three
Sisters”; which was modified in the Netherlandish version by the
introduction of the Long Wapper, a Flemish Robin Goodfellow. Followed
in English the metrical tale of “The Wright’s Chaste Wife,” by Adam of
Cobham (edited by Mr. Furnivall from a MS. of circ. A.D. 1460) where
the victims are a lord, a steward and a proctor. See also “The
Master-Maid” in Dr. (now Sir George) Dasent’s “Popular Tales from the
Norse.” Mr. Clouston, who gives these details more fully, mentions a
similar Scottish story concerning a lascivious monk and the chaste
wife of a miller.
Footnote 212:
When Easterns sit down to a drinking bout, which means to get drunk as
speedily and pleasantly as possible, they put off dresses of dull
colours and robe themselves in clothes supplied by the host, of the
brightest he may have, especially yellow, green and red of different
shades. So the lady’s proceeding was not likely to breed suspicion;
although her tastes were somewhat fantastic and like Miss
Julia’s—peculiar.
Footnote 213:
Arab. “Najásah,” meaning anything unclean which requires ablution
before prayer. Unfortunately mucus is not of the number, so the common
Moslem is very offensive in the matter of nose.
Footnote 214:
Here the word “la’an” is used which most Moslems express by some
euphemism. The vulgar Egyptian says “Na’al” (_Sapré_ and _Sapristi_
for _Sacre_ and _Sacristie_); the Hindostani express it “I send him
the three letters”—lám, ayn and nún.
Footnote 215:
The Mac. Edit. is here very concise; better the Bresl. Edit. (xii.
326). Here we have the Eastern form of the Three Wishes which dates
from the earliest ages and which amongst us has been degraded to a
matter of “black pudding.” It is the grossest and most brutal satire
on the sex, suggesting that a woman would prefer an additional inch of
penis to anything this world or the next can offer her. In the Book of
Sindibad it is the story of the Peri and Religious Man; his learning
the Great Name; and his consulting with his wife. See also La
Fontaine’s “Trois Souhaits,” Prior’s “Ladle,” and “Les quatre Souhaits
de Saint-Martin.”
Footnote 216:
Arab. “Laylat al-Kadr” = Night of Power or of Divine Decrees. It is
“better than a thousand months” (Koran xcvii. 3), but unhappily the
exact time is not known although all agree that it is one of the last
ten in Ramazan. The latter when named by Kiláb ibn Murrah, ancestor of
Mohammed, about two centuries before Al-Islam, corresponded with
July-August and took its name from “Ramzá” or intense heat. But the
Prophet, in the tenth Hijrah year, most unwisely forbade “Nasy” =
triennial intercalation (Koran ix. 36) and thus the lunar month went
round all the seasons. On the Night of Power the Koran was sent down
from the Preserved Tablet by Allah’s throne, to the first or lunar
Heaven whence Gabriel brought it for opportunest revelation to the
Apostle (Koran xcvii.). Also during this night all Divine Decrees for
the ensuing year are taken from the Tablet and are given to the angels
for execution whilst, the gates of Heaven being open, prayer (as in
the text) is sure of success. This mass of absurdity has engendered a
host of superstitions everywhere varying. Lane (Mod. Egypt, chapt.
xxv.) describes how some of the Faithful keep tasting a cup of salt
water which should become sweet in the Night of Nights. In (Moslem)
India not only the sea becomes sweet, but all the vegetable creation
bows down before Allah. The exact time is known only to Prophets; but
the pious sit through the Night of Ramazan 27th (our 26th) praying and
burning incense-pastilles. In Stambul this is officially held to be
the Night of Power. So in mediæval Europe on Christmas Eve the cattle
worshipped God in their stalls and I have met peasants in France and
Italy who firmly believed that brute beasts on that night not only
speak but predict the events of the coming year.
Footnote 217:
Hence the misfortune befel her: the pious especially avoid temporal
palaces.
Footnote 218: