simplicity the old nursery idea of "possession" by evil spirits.
[FN#29] Arab. "Nafahαt"=breathings, benefits, the Heb. Neshamah opp. to
Nephesh (soul) and Ruach (spirit). Healing by the breath is a popular
idea throughout the East and not unknown to Western Magnetists and
Mesmerists. The miraculous cures of the Messiah were, according to
Moslems, mostly performed by aspiration. They hold that in the days of
Isa, physic had reached its highest development, and thus his miracles
were mostly miracles of medicine; whereas, in Mohammed's time,
eloquence had attained its climax and accordingly his miracles were
those of eloquence, as shown in the Koran and Ahαdνs.
[FN#30] Lit. "The rose in the sleeves or calyces." I take my English
equivalent from Jeremy Taylor, "So I have seen a rose newly springing
from the clefts of its hood," etc.
[FN#31] These lines are from the Bresl. Edit. (v. 35). The four
couplets in the Mac. Edit. are too irrelevant.
[FN#32] Polo, which Lane calls "Goff."
[FN#33] Arab. "Muffawak"=well-notched, as its value depends upon the
notch. At the end of the third hemistitch Lane's Shaykh very properly
reads "baghtatan" (suddenly) for "burhatan"=during a long time.
[FN#34] "Uns" (which the vulgar pronounce Anas) "al- Wujud"=Delight of
existing things, of being, of the world. Uns wa jud is the normal
pun=love-intimacy and liberality; and the caranomasia (which cannot
well be rendered in English) re-appears again and again. The story is
throughout one of love; hence the quantity of verse.
[FN#35] The allusion to a "written N" suggests the elongated not the
rounded form of the letter as in Night cccxxiv.
[FN#36] The fourteenth Arabic letter in its medial form resembling an
eye.
[FN#37] This is done by the man passing his fingers over the brow as if
to wipe off perspiration; the woman acknowledges it by adjusting her
head-veil with both hands. As a rule in the Moslem East women make the
first advances; and it is truly absurd to see a great bearded fellow
blushing at being ogled. During the Crimean war the fair sex of
Constantinople began by these allurements but found them so readily
accepted by the Giaours that they were obliged to desist.
[FN#38] The greatest of all explorers and discoverers of the world will
be he who finds a woman confessing inability to keep a secret.
[FN#39] The original is intensely prosaicand so am I.
[FN#40] Arab. "Sunnat," the practice of the Prophet. For this prayer
and other silly and superstitious means of discovering the "right
direction" (which is often very wrongly directed) see Lane, M.E. chapt.
xi.
[FN#41] Arab. "Bahr (sea or river) al-Kunuz": Lane (ii. 576)
ingeniously identifies the site with the Upper Nile whose tribes,
between Assouan (Syene) and Wady al-Subu'a are called the "Kunuz"lit.
meaning "treasures" or "hoards." Philae is still known as the "Islet of
Anas (for Uns) al-Wujud;" and the learned and accurate Burckhardt
(Travels in Nubia p. 5) records the local legend that a mighty King
called Al-Wujud built the Osirian temples. I can give no information
concerning Jabal al-Sakla (Thakla), the Mount of the woman bereft of
children, beyond the legend contained in Night ccclxxix.
[FN#42] A religious mendicant (lit. a pauper), of whom there are two
great divisions. The Shara'i acts according to the faith: the others
(La Shara'i, or irreligious) are bound by no such prejudices and are
pretty specimens of scoundrels. (Pilgrimage i.22.)
[FN#43] Meaning his lips and palate were so swollen by drought.
[FN#44] It is a pious act in time of mortal danger to face the
Kiblah or Meccan temple, as if standing in prayer.
[FN#45] Still the belief of the Badawi who tries to work upon the
beast's compassion: "O great King I am a poor man, with wife and
family, so spare me that Allah spare thee!" and so forth. If not
famished the lion will often stalk off looking behind him as he goes;
but the man will never return by the same path; "for," says he, "haply
the Father of Roaring may repent him of a wasted opportunity." These
lion-tales are very common, witness that of Androcles at Rome and a
host of others. Una and her lion is another phase. It remained for M.
Jules Gerard, first the chasseur and then the tueur, du lion, to assail
the reputation of the lion and the honour of the lioness.
[FN#46] Abu Haris=Father of spoils: one of the lion's hundred titles.
[FN#47] "They" again for "she."
[FN#48] Jaxartes and Oxus. The latter (Jayhun or Amu, Oxus or
Bactros) is famous for dividing Iran from Turan, Persia from
Tartaria. The lands to its north are known as Ma wara al-Nahr
(Mawerannahar) or "What is behind the stream,"=Transoxiana and
their capitals were successively Samarcand and Bokhara.
[FN#49] Arab. "Dani was gharib"=friend and foe. The lines are partly
from the Mac. Edit. and partly from the Bresl. Edit., v. 55.
[FN#50] Arab. "Wa Rahmata-hu!" a form now used only in books.
[FN#51] Before noted. The relationship, like that of foster- brother,
has its rights, duties and privileges.
[FN#52] Arab. "Istikharah," before explained as praying for direction
by omens of the rosary, opening the Koran and reading the first verse
sighted, etc., etc. At Al-Medinah it is called Khirah and I have
suggested (Pilgrimage, ii. 287) that it is a relic of the Azlam or
Kidah (divining arrows) of paganism. But the superstition is not local:
we have the Sortes Virgilianae (Virgil being a magician) as well as
Coranicae.
[FN#53] Arab. "Wujud al-Habib," a pun, also meaning, "Wujud my
beloved."
[FN#54] Arab. "Khilal," as an emblem of attenuation occurring in
Al-Hariri (Ass. of Alexandria, etc.); also thin as a spindle (Maghzal),
as a reed, and dry as a pair of shears. In the Ass. of Barka'id the
toothpick is described as a beautiful girl. The use of this cleanly
article was enjoined by Mohammed:—"Cleanse your mouths with toothpicks;
for your mouths are the abode of the guardian angels; whose pens are
the tongues, and whose ink is the spittle of men; and to whom naught is
more unbearable than remains of food in the mouth." A mighty apparatus
for a small matter; but in very hot lands cleanliness must rank before
godliness.
[FN#55] The sense is ambiguous. Lane renders the verse:—"Thou
resemblest it (rose) not of my portion" and gives two explanations
"because HE is of my portion," or, "because HIS cheek cannot be rosy if
MINE is not." Mr. Payne boldly translates
"If the rose ape his cheek, 'Now God forfend,' I say, 'That of my
portion aught to pilfer thou shouldst try'."
[FN#56] Arab. "lif" (not "fibres which grow at the top of the trunk,"
Lane ii. 577); but the fibre of the fronds worked like the cocoa-nut
fibre which forms the now well-known Indian "coir." This "lif" is also
called "filfil" or "fulfil" which Dr. Jonathan Scott renders "pepper"
(Lane i. 8) and it forms a clean succedaneum for one of the uncleanest
articles of civilisation, the sponge. It is used in every Hammam and is
(or should be) thrown away after use.
[FN#57] Arab. "Shinf;" a course sack, a "gunny-bag;" a net compared
with such article.
[FN#58] The eunuch tells him that he is not a "Sandali"=one whose penis
and testes are removed; and consequently the highest valued. There are
many ways of making the castrato; in some (as here) only the penis is
removed, in other the testes are bruised or cut off; but in all cases
the animal passion remains, for in man, unlike other animals, the fons
veneris is the brain. The story of Abelard proves this. Juvenal derided
the idea of married eunuchs and yet almost all of these neutrals have
wives with whom they practise the manifold plaisirs de la petite oie
(masturbation, tribadism, irrumation, tete-beche, feuille-de- rose,
etc.), till they induce the venereal orgasm. Such was the account once
given to me by a eunuch's wife; and I need hardly say that she, like
her confrerie, was to be pitied. At the critical moment she held up a
little pillow for her husband to bite who otherwise would have torn her
cheeks or breasts.
[FN#59] In real life the eunuch, as a rule, avoids all allusion to his
misfortune, although the slave will often describe his being sold
merrily enough.
[FN#60] The visits are in dreamland. The ringdove thanks the
Lord for her (his?) suffering in the holy martyrdom of love.
[FN#61] Arab. "Hazar;" I have explained it as meaning "(the bird of) a
thousand (songs)."
[FN#62] The "Bulbul" had his day with us but he departed with Tommy
Moore. We usually English the word by "nightingale;" but it is a kind
of shrike or butcher-bird (Lanius Boulboul. Lath.).
[FN#63] The "Hamam" is a lieu commun in Arabic poetry. I have noticed
the world-wide reverence for the pigeon and the incarnation of the
Third Person of the Hindu Triad (Shiva), as Kapoteshwara
(Kapota-ishwara)"=pigeon or dove-god (Pilgrimage iii. 218).
[FN#64] Arab. "Hamam al-Ayk." Mr. Payne's rendering is so happy that we
must either take it from him or do worse.
[FN#65] All primitive peoples translate the songs of birds with human
language; but, as I have noticed, the versions differ widely. The
pigeon cries, "Allah! Allah!" the dove "Karim, Tawwa" (Bountiful,
Pardoner!) the Kata or sand-grouse "Man sakat salam" (who is silent is
safe) yet always betrays itself by its lay of "Kat-ta" and lastly the
cock "Uzkuru 'llah ya ghafilun" (Remember, or take the name of Allah,
ye careless!).
[FN#66] "Nay," the Dervish's reed pipe, symbol of the sighing absent
lover (i.e. the soul parted from the Creator) so famed by the
Mullah-i-Rum and Sir William Jones.
[FN#67] Ba'albak=Ba'al (the God)-city (bek in Coptic and ancient
Egyptian.) Such, at least, is the popular derivation which awaits a
better. No cloth has been made there since the Kurd tribe of gallant
robbers known as the "Harfush" (or blackguards) lorded it over old
"Heliopolis."
[FN#68] Thinking her to be a Jinn or Ghul in the shape of a fair woman.
This Arab is a strange contrast to the English fisherman, and yet he is
drawn with truth.
[FN#69] Arab. "Habbaza!" (good this!) or "Habba" (how good!): so
"Habba bihi," how dear he is to me.
[FN#70] Arab. "Zind," and "Zindah" the names of the two sticks, upper
and lower, hard and soft, by which fire was kindled before flint and
steel were known. We find it in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Banu Haram) "no one
sought ire from my fire-stick (i.e. from me as a fire-stick) and
failed." See Night dccciii.
[FN#71] Arab. "Nazih" i.e. travelled far and wide.
[FN#72] "Rajab," lit.="worshipping:" it is the seventh lunar month and
still called "Shahr-i-Khuda" (God's month) by the Persians because in
pre-Islamitic times it formed with Muharram (or in its stead Safar), Zu
'l-ka'adah and Zu-'l-Hijjah (Nos. 1 or 2; 7,11 and 12) the yearly
peace, during which a man might not kill his father's murderer. The
idea must have taken deep root, as Arab history records only six
"impious (or sacrilegious) wars," waged despite the law. Europeans
compare it with the Treuga Dei (truce of God) a seven-years peace
established about A.D. 1032, by a Bishop of Aquitaine; and followed in
A.D. 1245 by the Pax Regis (Royal Peace) under Louis VIII. of France.
This compelled the relations of a murdered man to keep the peace for
forty days after the offence was committed.
[FN#73] His Majesty wrote sad doggrel. He is better at finessing, and
his message was a trick because Rose-in-Hood had told him that at home
there were special obstacles to the marriage.
[FN#74] Arab. "Majzub"=drawn, attracted (literally); the popular term
for one absorbed in the contemplation of the Deity. During this process
the soul is supposed to quit the body leaving the latter irresponsible
for its actions. I remember a scandal being caused in a village near
Tunis by one of these men who suddenly started up from his seat in a
dusty corner and, in presence of a small crowd of people, had
connection with a she-donkey. The supporters of the holy man declared
that the deed was proof positive of his exceptional holiness; but there
were lewd fellows, Moslems Voltaireans, who had their doubts and held
that the reverend man had so acted "for the gallery." A similar story
is told with due reserve by the late Abbe Hamilton in his book on the
Cyrenaic. There are three grand divisions of the Sufis; (1) Mukiman,
the stationaries; (2) Salikan, the travellers, or progressives, and (3)
Wasilan, those who reach the desired end. And No. 2 has two classes:
the Salik-i-majzub, one progressing in Divine Love; and the other, who
has made greater progress, is the Majzub-i-Salik (Dabistan iii. 251).
[FN#75] Arab. "Sundus," a kind of brocade (low Lat. brocare to figure
cloth), silk worked in high relief with gold and silver. The idea is
figurative meaning it was hung outside and inside with fine stuff, like
the Ka'abah, the "Bride of Meccah." The "lords" means simply the lost
girl.
[FN#76] Arab. "Ayn" lit. eye, also a fount, "the eye of the landscape"
(a noble simile); and here a helper, guard, assistant.
[FN#77] "Lord" for lady, i.e. she.
[FN#78] Arab. "Fi'l-khawafik"=in the four quarters or among the
flappers (standards) or amid palpitations of heart. The bride alludes
to a festal reception in a town, with burning incense, drums, flags,
etc., etc.
[FN#79] In Egypt the shorter "honey-moon" lasts a week; and on the
seventh day (pop. called Al-Subu'a) bride and bridegroom receive visits
with all ceremony, of course in separate apartments. The seventh day
(like the fortieth, the end of six months and the anniversary) is kept
for births and deaths with Khatmahs (perlections) of the Koran "Saylah"
family gatherings and so forth. The fortieth day ends the real
honey-moon. See Night dccxcii.
[FN#80] I have noted the popular practice, amongst men as well as
women, of hiring the Hammam for private parties and picnicking in it
during the greater part of the day. In this tale the bath would belong
to the public and it was a mere freak of the bride to bathe with her
bridegroom. "Respectable" people do not.
[FN#81] She speaks in the last line as the barber or the bathman.
[FN#82] Here the "Ana" begin; and they mostly date themselves. Of the
following forty-nine, Lane (vol. Ii. P. 578 et seq.) gives only
twenty-two and transforms them to notes in chapt. xviii. He could
hardly translate several of them in a work intended to be popular. Abu
Nowαs is a person carefully to be avoided; and all but anthropological
students are advised to "skip" over anecdotes in which his name and
abominations occur.
[FN#83] Arab. "Ghilmαn," the counter part, I have said, of the
so-called "Houris."
[FN#84] Mosul boasts of never having been polluted with idolatrous
worship, an exemption which it owes to being a comparatively modern
place.
[FN#85] The Aleppines were once noted for debauchery; and the saying is
still "Halabi Shelebi" (for Chelebi)=the Aleppine is a fellow fine.
[FN#86] Mr. Payne omits the last line. It refers to what Persian boys
call, in half-Turkish phrase, "Alish Takish," each acting woman after
he has acted man. The best wine is still made in monasteries and the
co-called Sinai convent is world-famous for its "Rαki" distilled from
raisins.
[FN#87] i.e. what a difference there is between them!
[FN#88] Arab. "Salli ala 'l-Nabi," a common phrase; meaning not only
praise hm to avert the evil eye; but also used when one would impose
silence upon a babbler. The latter will shuffle off by ejaculating "Al"
and continue his chatter. (Pilgrimage ii.279.)
[FN#89] Arab. "Sukαt" (plur. of Sαki, cupbearer, our old "skinker"):
the pure gold (tibr) is the amber-coloured wine, like the Vino d'oro of
the Libanus.
[FN#90] That is, fair, white and read: Turkish slaves then abounded at
Baghdad.
[FN#91] A Wady near Meccah where one of Mohammed's battles was fought.
The line means his waist is a thread connected broad breast and large
hind quarters.
[FN#92] Arab. "Zaurα" which may mean crooked, alluding to the
well-known rib.
[FN#93] A pun. Bakr was the name of the eponymus chief and it also
means virgin, as in Abu Bakr.
[FN#94] Arab. "Jαmi'ayn"=two cathedrals, any large (and consequently
vicious) city.
[FN#95] Arab. "Almα," before noticed: I cannot translate
"damask-lipped" to suit European taste.
[FN#96] Sherbet flavoured with musk or apple to cool the mouth of "hot
coppers."
[FN#97] Arab. "In'αsh" lit. raising from his bier. The whole tone is
rollicking and slangy.
[FN#98] i.e. In spite of himself: the phrase often occurs.
[FN#99] Europeans usually write "Beni" for "Banu;" the oblique for the
nominative. I prefer "Odhrah" or "Ozrah" to Udhrah; because the Ayn
before the Zαl takes in pronunciation the more open sound.
[FN#100] Possibly meaning that they were shrouded together; this would
be opposed to Moslem sense of decorum in modern days, but the ancient
were not so squeamish. See Night cccxi.
[FN#101] This phase of passion in the "varium et mutabile" is often
treated of by Oriental storytellers, and not unoften seen in real
Eastern life.
[FN#102] As has been said, "Sαhib" (preceding the name not following it
as in India) is a Wazirial title in mediζval Islam.
[FN#103] This parapet was rendered obligatory by Moses (Deut. xxii. 8)
on account of the danger of leaving a flat roof without garde-fou.
Eastern Christians neglect the precaution and often lose their children
by the neglect.
[FN#104] Arab. "Lauh." A bit of thin board washed white used for
lessons as slates are amongst us, and as easily cleaned because the
inks contain no minerals. It is a long parallelogram with triangular
ears at the short sides; and the shape must date from ages immemorial
as it is found, throughout Syria and its adjoinings, in the oldest rock
inscriptions to which the form serves as a frame. Hence the "abacus" or
counting table derived from the Gr. , a slab (or in Phenician "sand"),
dust or sand in old days having been strewed on a table or tablet for
school- boys' writings and mathematical diagrams.
[FN#105] A pre-Islamic bard and friend to Tarafah the poet of the
Suspended or "Prize Poem." The tale is familiar to all the Moslem East.
Tarafah's Laura was one Khaulα.
[FN#106] King of Hirah in Chaldζa, a drunken and bloodthirsty tyrant.
When offended by the lampoons of the two poets he sent them with
litterζ Bellerophontiζ to the Governor of Al-Bahrayn. Al-Mutalammis
"smelt a rat" and destroyed his charged, but Tarafah was mutilated and
buried alive, the victim of a trick which is old as (and older than)
good King David and Uriah. Of course neither poet could read.
[FN#107] On this occasion, and in presence of the women only, the groom
first sees or is supposed to see the face of his wife. It is, I have
said, the fashion for both to be greatly overcome and to appear as if
about to faint: the groom looks especially ridiculous when so
attitudinising.
[FN#108] This leisurely operation of the "deed of kind" was sure to be
noticed; but we do not find in The Nights any allusion to that
systematic prolongatio veneris which is so much cultivated by Moslems
under the name Imsαk = retention, withholding i.e. the semen. Yet
Eastern books on domestic medicine consist mostly of two parts; the
first of general prescriptions and the second of aphrodisiacs
especially those qui prolongent le plaisir as did the Gaul by thinking
of sa pauvre mθre. The Ananga-Ranga, by the Reverend Koka Pandit before
quoted, gives a host of recipes which are used, either externally or
internally, to hasten the paroxysm of the woman and delay the orgasm of
the man (p. 27). Some of these are curious in the extreme. I heard of a
Hindi who made a candle of frogs' fat and fibre warranted to retain the
seed till it burned out; it failed notably because, relying upon it, he
worked too vigorously. The essence of the "retaining art" is to avoid
over-tension of the muscles and to pre-occupy the brain: hence in
coition Hindus will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut and even smoke.
Europeans ignoring the science and practice, are contemptuously
compared with village-cocks by Hindu women who cannot be satisfied,
such is their natural coldness, increased doubtless by vegetable diet
and unuse of stimulants, with less than twenty minutes. Hence too while
thousands of Europeans have cohabited for years with and have had
families by "native women," they are never loved by them:—at least I
never heard of a case.
[FN#109] Abu 'l Abbas al-Rakαshi, a poet of the time. The saying became
proverbial (Burckhardt's A. Proverbs No. 561) and there are variants,
e.g. The night's promise is spread with butter that melteth when day
ariseth.
[FN#110] Koran xxvi. 5,6 or "And those who err (Arab. Al- ghαwϊn)
follow the footsteps of the poets," etc.
[FN#111] Half-brother of Abdullah bin al-Zubayr, the celebrated
pretender.
[FN#112] Grand-daughter of the Caliph Abu Bakr and the most beautiful
woman of her day.
[FN#113] The Calc. Edit. by mistake reads "Izzah." Torrens (notes
i.-xi.) remarks "The word Ghoonj is applied to this sort of
blandishment (i.e. an affected gait), and says Burckhardt (Prov. No.
685), "The women of Cairo flatter themselves that their Ghoonj is
superior to that of all other females in the Levant." But Torrens did
not understand and Burckhardt would not explain "Ghunj" except by
"assumed airs" (see No. 714). It here means the art of moving in
coition, which is especially affected, even by modest women, throughout
the East and they have many books teaching the genial art. In China
there are professors, mostly old women, who instruct young girls in
this branch of the gymnastic.
[FN#114] When reciting the Fαtihah (opening Koranic chapter), the hands
are held in this position as if to receive a blessing falling from
Heaven; after which both palms are passed down the face to distribute
it over the eyes and other organs of sense.
[FN#115] The word used is "bizα'at" = capital or a share in a
mercantile business.
[FN#116] This and the following names are those of noted traditionists
of the eighth century, who derive back to Abdallah bin Mas'ϊd, a
"Companion of the Apostle." The text shows the recognised formula of
ascription for quoting a "Hadνs" = saying of Mohammed; and sometimes it
has to pass through half a dozen mouths.
[FN#117] Traditionists of the seventh and eighth centuries who refer
back to the "Father of the Kitten" (Abu Horayrah), an uncle of the
Apostle.
[FN#118] Eastern story-books abound in these instances. Pilpay says in
"Kalilah was Dimnah," "I am the slave of what I have spoken and the
lord of what I keep hidden." Sa'adi follows suit, "When thou speakest
not a word, thou hast thy hand upon it; when it is once spoken it hath
laid its hand on thee." Caxton, in the "Dyctes, or Sayings of
Philosophers" (printed in 1477) uses almost the same words.
[FN#119] i.e. for her husband's and her sin in using a man like a
beast.
[FN#120] See the Second Lady's story (tantτt Kadi, tantτt bandit), pp.
20-26 by my friend Yacoub Artin Pasha in the Bulletin before quoted,
series ii. No. 4 of 1883. The sharpers' trick is common in Eastern
folk-lore, and the idea that underlies is always metempsychosis or
metamorphosis. So, in the Kalilah wa Dimnah (new Syriac), the three
rogues persuade the ascetic that he is leading a dog not a sheep.
[FN#121] This is the popular prejudice and it has doubtless saved many
a reputation. The bat is known to Moslems as the Bird of Jesus, a
legend derived by the Koran from the Gospel of Infancy (1 chapt. xv.
Hone's Apocryphal New Testament), in which the boy Jesus amuses herself
with making birds of clay and commanding them to fly when (according to
the Moslems) they became bats. These Apocryphal Gospels must be
carefully read, if the student would understand a number of Moslem
allusions to the Injνl which no Evangel contains.
[FN#122] Because it quibbled away out of every question, a truly
diplomatic art.
[FN#123] This Caliph, the orthodox Abbaside of Egypt (A.D. 1261) must
not be confounded with the Druze-god, the heretical Fatimite (A.D.
996-1021). D'Herbelot (Hakem") gives details. Mr. S.L. Poole (The
Academy, April 26, '79) is very severe on the slip of Mr. Payne.