public royal-banquets which were expected from the lieges by Moslem
subjects. The hanging-penalty is, perhaps, a tattle exaggerated; but we
find the same excess in the priestly Gesta Romanorum.
[FN#304] Had he eaten it he would have become her guest. Amongst the
older Badawin it was sufficient to spit upon a man (in entreaty) to
claim his protection: so the horse-thieves when caught were placed in a
hole in the ground covered over with matting to prevent this happening.
Similarly Saladin (Salбh al-Din) the chivalrous would not order a cup
of water for the robber, Reynald de Chвtillon, before putting him to
death
[FN#305] Arab. "Kishk" properly "Kashk"=wheat-meal-coarsely ground and
eaten with milk or broth. It is de rigueur with the Egyptian Copts on
the "Friday of Sorrow" (Good Friday): and Lane gives the recipe for
making it (M. E. chaps. xxvi.)
[FN#306] In those days distinctive of Moslems.
[FN#307] The euphemism has before been noticed: the Moslem reader would
not like to pronounce the words "I am a Nazarene." The same formula
occurs a little lower down to save the reciter or reader from saying
"Be my wife divorced," etc.
[FN#308] Arab, "Hбjj," a favourite Egyptianism. We are wrong to write
Hajji which an Eastern would pronounce Hбj-jн.
[FN#309] This is Cairene "chaff."
[FN#310] Whose shell fits very tight.
[FN#311] His hand was like a raven's because he ate with thumb and two
fingers and it came up with the rice about it like a camel's hoof in
dirty ground. This refers to the proverb (Burckhardt, 756), "He comes
down a crow-claw (small) and comes up a camel-hoof (huge and round)."
[FN#312] Easterns have a superstitious belief in the powers of food: I
knew a learned man who never sat down to eat without a ceremonious
salam to his meat.
[FN#313] Lane (ii. 464), uses the vile Turkish corruption "Rustum,"
which, like its fellow "Rustem," would make a Persian shudder.
[FN#314] Arab. "Darrij" i.e. let them slide (Americanicи).
[FN#315] This tetrastich has occurred before: so I quote Mr. Payne (in
loco).
[FN#316] Shaykh of Al-Butnah and Jбbiyah, therefore a Syrian of the
Hauran near Damascus and grandson to Isъ (Esau). Arab mystics (unlike
the vulgar who see only his patience) recognise that inflexible
integrity which refuses to utter "words of wind" and which would not,
against his conscience, confess to wrong-doing merely to pacify the
Lord who was stronger than himself. The Classics taught this noble
lesson in the case of Prometheus versus Zeus. Many articles are called
after Job e.g. Ra'arб' Ayyub or Ghubayrб (inula Arabica and undulata),
a creeper with which he rubbed himself and got well: the Copts do the
same on "Job's Wednesday," i.e. that before Whit Sunday O.S. Job's
father is a nickname of the camel, etc. etc.
[FN#317] Lane (in loco) renders "I am of their number." But "fн
al-siyбk" means popularly "(driven) to the point of death."
[FN#318] Lit. = "pathway, road"; hence the bridge well known as "finer
than a hair and sharper than a sword," over which all (except Khadijah
and a chosen few) must pass on the Day of Doom; a Persian apparatus
bodily annexed by Al-Islam. The old Guebres called it Puli Chinбvar or
Chinбvad and the Jews borrowed it from them as they did all their
fancies of a future life against which Moses had so gallantly fought.
It is said that a bridge over the grisly "brook Kedron" was called
Sirбt (the road) and hence the idea, as that of hell-fire from
Ge-Hinnom (Gehenna) where children were passed through the fire to
Moloch. A doubtful Hadis says, "The Prophet declared Al-Sirбt to be the
name of a bridge over hell- fire, dividing Hell from Paradise" (pp. 17,
122, Reynold's trans. of Al-Siyuti's Traditions, etc.). In Koran i. 5,
"Sirat" is simply a path, from sarata, he swallowed, even as the way
devours (makes a lakam or mouthful of) those who travel it. The word
was orig. written with Sнn but changed for easier articulation to Sбd,
one of the four Hurъf al-Mutabbakбt, "the flattened," formed by the
broadened tongue in contact with the palate. This Sad also by the
figure Ishmбm (=conversion) turns slightly to a Zб, the intermediate
between Sin and Sad.
[FN#319] The rule in Turkey where catamites rise to the highest rank:
C'est un homme de bonne famille (said a Turkish officer in Egypt) il a
йtй achetй. Hence "Alfi" (one who costs a thousand) is a well-known
cognomen. The Pasha of the Syrian caravan, with which I travelled' had
been the slave of a slave and he was not a solitary instance.
(Pilgrimage i. 90.)
[FN#320] The device of the banquet is dainty enough for any old Italian
novella; all that now comes is pure Egyptian polissonnerie speaking to
the gallery and being answered by roars of laughter.
[FN#321] i.e. "art thou ceremonially pure and therefore fit for
handling by a great man like myself?"
[FN#322] In past days before Egypt was "frankified" many overlanders
used to wash away the traces of travel by a Turkish bath which mostly
ended in the appearance of a rump wriggling little lad who offered to
shampoo them. Many accepted his offices without dreaming of his
usual-use or misuse.
[FN#323] Arab. "Imбm." This is (to a Moslem) a most offensive
comparison between prayer and car. cop.
[FN#324] Arab. "Fi zaman-hi," alluding to a peculiarity highly prized
by Egyptians; the use of the constrictor vaginж muscles, the sphincter
for which Abyssinian women are famous. The "Kabbбzah" ( = holder), as
she is called, can sit astraddle upon a man and can provoke the
venereal-orgasm, not by wriggling and moving but by tightening and
loosing the male member with the muscles of her privities, milking it
as it were. Consequently the cassenoisette costs treble the money of
other concubines. (Arranga-Ranga, p. 127.)
[FN#325] The little eunuchs had evidently studied the Harem.
[FN#326] Lane (ii. 494) relates from Al-Makrizi, that when Khamбrawayh,
Governor of Egypt (ninth century), suffered from insomnia, his
physician ordered a pool of quicksilver 50 by 50 cubits, to be laid out
in front of his palace, now the Rumaylah square. "At the corners of the
pool were silver pegs, to which were attached by silver rings strong
bands of silk, and a bed of skins, inflated with air, being thrown upon
the pool and secured by the bands remained in a continual-state of
agreeable vacillation." We are not told that the Prince was thereby
salivated like the late Colonel Sykes when boiling his mercury for
thermometric experiments,
[FN#327] The name seems now unknown. "Al-Khahн'a" is somewhat stronger
than "Wag," meaning at least a "wicked wit." Properly it is the Span.
"perdido," a youth cast off (Khala') by his friends; though not so
strong a term as "Harfъsh"=a blackguard.
[FN#328] Arab. "Farsakh"=parasang.
[FN#329] Arab. "Nahбs asfar"=yellow copper, brass as opposed to Nahбs
ahmar=copper The reader who cares to study the subject will find much
about it in my "Book of The Sword," chaps. iv.
[FN#330] Lane (ii. 479) translates one stanza of this mukhammas
(pentastich) and speaks of "five more," which would make six.
[FN#331] A servile name. Delicacy, Elegance.
[FN#332] These verses have occurred twice (Night ix. etc.): so I give
Lane's version (ii. 482).
[FN#333] A Badawi tribe to which belonged the generous Ma'an bin
Za'idab, often mentioned The Nights.
[FN#334] Wealthy harems, I have said, are hot-beds of Sapphism and
Tribadism. Every woman past her first youth has a girl whom she calls
her "Myrtle" (in Damascus). At Agbome, capital-of Dahome, I found that
a troop of women was kept for the use of the "Amazons" (Mission to
Gelele, ii. 73). Amongst the wild Arabs, who ignore Socratic and
Sapphic perversions, the lover is always more jealous of his beloved's
girl-friends than of men rivals. In England we content ourselves with
saying that women corrupt women more than men do.
[FN#335] The Hebrew Pentateuch; Roll of the Law.
[FN#336] I need hardly notice the brass trays, platters and
table-covers with inscriptions which are familiar to every reader:
those made in the East for foreign markets mostly carry imitation
inscriptions lest infidel eyes fall upon Holy Writ.
[FN#337] These six distichs are in Night xiii. I borrow Torrens (p.
125) to show his peculiar treatment of spinning out 12 lines to 38.
[FN#338] Arab. "Musбmirah"=chatting at night. Easterns are inordinately
fond of the practice and the wild Arabs often sit up till dawn, talking
over the affairs of the tribe, indeed a Shaykh is expected to do so.
"Early to bed and early to rise" is a civilised, not a savage or a
barbarous saying. Samнr is a companion in night talk; Rafнk of the
road; Rahнb in riding horse or camel, Kб'id in sitting, Sharнb and
Rafнs at drink, and Nadнm at table: Ahнd is an ally. and Sharнk a
partner all on the model of "Fa'нl."
[FN#339] In both lover and beloved the excess of love gave them this
clairvoyance.
[FN#340] The prayer will be granted for the excess (not the purity) of
her love.
[FN#341] This wailing over the Past is one of the common-places of
Badawi poetry. The traveller cannot fail, I repeat, to notice the
chronic melancholy of peoples dwelling under the brightest skies.
[FN#342] Moons=Budъr
[FN#343] in Paradise as a martyr.
[FN#344] i.e. to intercede for me in Heaven; as if the young woman were
the prophet.
[FN#345] The comparison is admirable as the two letters are written. It
occurs in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Ramlah).
"So I embraced him close as Lбm cleaves to Alif:"
And again;
"She laid aside reluctance and I embraced her close
As if I were Lam and my love Alif."
The Lomad Olaph in Syriac is similarly colligated.
[FN#346] Here is a double entendre "and the infirm letters (viz. a, w
and y) not subject to accidence, left him." The three make up the root
"Awi"=pitying, condoling.
[FN#347] Showing that consummation had taken place. It was a sign of
good breeding to avoid all "indecent hurry" when going to bed. In some
Moslem countries the bridegroom does not consummate the marriage for
seven nights; out of respect for (1) father (2) mother (3) brother and
so forth. If he hurry matters he will be hooted as an "impatient man"
and the wise will quote, "Man is created of precipitation" (Koran
chaps. xxi. 38), meaning hasty and inconsiderate. I remark with
pleasure that the whole of this tale is told with commendable delicacy.
O si sic omnia!
[FN#348] Pers. "Nauroz"(=nau roz, new day):here used in the Arab.
plur.'Nawбriz, as it lasted six days. There are only four:
universal-festivals; the solstices and the equinoxes; and every
successive religion takes them from the sun and perverts them to its
own private purposes. Lane (ii. 496) derives the venerable Nauroz whose
birth is hid in the outer glooms of antiquity from the "Jewish
Passover"(!)
[FN#349] Again the "babes" of the eyes.
[FN#350] i.e. whose glance is as the light of the glowing braise or
(embers). The Arab. "Mikbбs"=pan or pot full of small charcoal, is an
article well known in Italy and Southern Europe. The word is apparently
used here because it rhymes with "Anfбs" (souls, spirits).
[FN#351] i.e. martyrdom; a Koranic term "fi sabнli 'llahi" = on the way
of Allah
[FN#352] These rhymes in -y, -ee and -ie are purposely affected, to
imitate the cadence of the Arabic.
[FN#353] Arab. "Sujъd," the ceremonial-prostration, touching the ground
with the forehead So in the Old Testament "he bowed (or fell down) and
worshipped" (Gen. xxiv., 26 Mat. ii., 11), of which our translation
gives a wrong idea.
[FN#354] A girl is called "Alfiyyah " = A-shaped.
[FN#355] i.e. the medial-form of m.
[FN#356] i.e. the inverted n.
[FN#357] It may also mean a "Sevignй of pearls."
[FN#358] Koran xxvii. 12. This was one of the nine "signs" to wicked
"Pharaoh." The "hand of Moses" is a symbol of power and ability (Koran
vii. 105). The whiteness was supernatural-beauty, not leprosy of the
Jews (Exod. iv. 6); but brilliancy, after being born red or black:
according to some commentators, Moses was a negro.
[FN#359] Koran iii. 103; the other faces become black. This explains I
have noticed the use of the phrases in blessing and cursing.
[FN#360] Here we have the naked legend of the negro's origin, one of
those nursery tales in which the ignorant of Christendom still believe
But the deduction from the fable and the testimony to the negro's lack
of intelligence, though unpleasant to our ignorant negrophils, are
factual-and satisfactory.
[FN#361] Koran, xcii. 1, 2: an oath of Allah to reward and punish with
Heaven and Hell.
[FN#362] Alluding to the "black drop" in the heart: it was taken from
Mohammed's by the Archangel Gabriel. The fable seems to have arisen
from the verse ' Have we not opened thy breast?" (Koran, chaps. xciv.
1). The popular tale is that Halнmah, the Badawi nurse of Mohammed, of
the Banu Sa'ad tribe, once saw her son, also a child, running towards
her and asked him what was the matter. He answered, 'My little brother
was seized by two men in white who stretched him on the ground and
opened his bellyl" For a full account and deductions see the Rev. Mr.
Badger's article, "Muhammed" (p. 959) in vol. in. "Dictionary of
Christian Biography."
[FN#363] Arab. "Sumr," lit. brown (as it is afterwards used), but
politely applied to a negro: "Yб Abu Sumrah!" O father of brownness.
[FN#364] Arab. 'Lumб"=dark hue of the inner lips admired by the Arabs
and to us suggesting most umpleasant ideas. Mr. Chenery renders it
"dark red,' and "ruddy" altogether missing the idea.
[FN#365] Arab. "Saudб," feminine of aswad (black), and meaning black
bile (melancholia) as opposed to leucocholia,
[FN#366] i.e. the Magians, Sabians, Zoroastrians.
[FN#367] The "Unguinum fulgor" of the Latins who did not forget to
celebrate the shining of the nails although they did not Henna them
like Easterns. Some, however, have suggested that alludes to colouring
matter.
[FN#368] Women with white skins are supposed to be heating and
unwholesome: hence the Hindu Rajahs slept with dark girls in the hot
season.
[FN#369] Moslems sensibly have a cold as well as a hot Hell, the former
called Zamharir (lit. "intense cold")or AI-Barahъt, after a well in
Hazramaut; as Gehenna (Arab. "Jahannam") from the furnace-like ravine
East of Jerusalem (Night cccxxv.). The icy Hell is necessary in
terrorem for peoples who inhabit cold regions and who in a hot Hell
only look forward to an eternity of "coals and candles" gratis. The
sensible missionaries preached it in Iceland till foolishly forbidden
by Papal-Bull.
[FN#370] Koran ii. 26; speaking of Abraham when he entertained the
angels unawares.
[FN#371] Arab. "Rakb," usually applied to a fast-going caravan of
dromedary riders (Pilgrimage ii. 329). The "Cafilah" is Arab.:
"Caravan" is a corruption of the Pers. "Karwбn."
[FN#372] A popular saying. It is interesting to contrast this dispute
between fat and thin with the Shakespearean humour of Falstaff and
Prince Henry.
[FN#373] Arab. "Dalak" vulg. Hajar al-Hammam (Hammam-stone). The
comparison is very apt: the rasps are of baked clay artificially
roughened (see illustrations in Lane M. E. chaps. xvi.). The rope is
called "Masad," a bristling line of palm-fibre like the coir now
familiarly known in England.
[FN#374] Although the Arab's ideal-of beauty, as has been seen and
said, corresponds with ours the Egyptians (Modern) the Maroccans and
other negrofied races like "walking tun-butts" as Clapperton called his
amorous widow.
[FN#375] Arab. "Khayzar" or "Khayzarбn" the rattan-palm. Those who have
seen this most graceful "palmijuncus" in its native forest will
recognize the neatness of the simile.
[FN#376] This is the popular idea of a bushy "veil of nature" in women:
it is always removed by depilatories and vellication. When Bilkis Queen
of Sheba discovered her legs by lifting her robe (Koran xxvii.),
Solomon was minded to marry her, but would not do so till the devils
had by a depilatory removed the hair. The popular preparation (called
Nъrah) consists of quicklime 7 parts, and Zirnнk or orpiment, 3 parts:
it is applied in the Hammam to a perspiring skin, and it must be washed
off immediately the hair is loosened or it burns and discolours. The
rest of the body-pile (Sha'arat opp. to Sha'ar=hair) is eradicated by
applying a mixture of boiled honey with turpentine or other gum, and
rolling it with the hand till the hair comes off. Men I have said
remove the pubes by shaving, and pluck the hair of the arm-pits, one of
the vestiges of pre-Adamite man. A good depilatory is still a
desideratum, the best perfumers of London and Paris have none which
they can recommend. The reason is plain: the hair bulb can be
eradicated only by destroying the skin.
[FN#377] Koran, ii. 64: referring to the heifer which the Jews were
ordered to sacrifice,
[FN#378] Arab. "kallб," a Koranic term possibly from Kull (all) and lб
(not) =prorsus non-altogether not!
[FN#379] "Habбb" or "Habб," the fine particles of dust, which we call
motes. The Cossid (Arab. "Kбsid") is the Anglo-Indian term for a
running courier (mostly under Government), the Persian "Shбtir" and the
Guebre Rбvand.
[FN#380] Arab. "Sambari" a very long thin lance so called after Samhar,
the maker, or the place of making. See vol. ii. p. 1. It is supposed to
cast, when planted in the ground, a longer shadow in proportion to its
height, than any other thing of the kind.
[FN#381] Arab. "Sulбfah ;" properly prisane which flows from the grapes
before pressure. The plur. "Sawбlif" also means tresses of hair and
past events: thus there is a "triple entendre." And again "he" is used
for "she."
[FN#382] There is a pun in the last line, "Khбlun (a mole) khallauni"
(rid me), etc.
[FN#383] Of old Fustбt, afterwards part of Southern Cairo, a
proverbially miserable quarter hence the saying, "They quoted Misr to
Kбhirah (Cairo), whereon Bab al-Luk rose with its grass," in derision
of nobodies who push themselves forward. Burckhardt, Prov. 276.
[FN#384] Its fruits are the heads of devils; a true Dantesque fancy.
Koran, chaps. xvii. 62, "the tree cursed in the Koran" and in chaps.
xxxvii., 60, "is this better entertainment, or the tree of Al-Zakkъm?"
Commentators say that it is a thorn bearing a bitter almond which grows
in the Tehamah and was therefore promoted to Hell.
[FN#385] Arab. "Lasm" (lathm) as opposed to Bausah or boseh (a buss)
and Kublah (a kiss,
[FN#386] Arab. "Jufъn" (plur. of Jafn) which may mean eyebrows or
eyelashes and only the context can determine which. [FN#387] Very
characteristic of Egyptian manners is the man who loves six girls
equally well, who lends them, as it were, to the Caliph; and who takes
back the goods as if in no wise damaged by the loan.
[FN#388] The moon is masculine possibly by connection with the
Assyrian Lune-god "Sin"; but I can find no cause for the Sun
(Shams) being feminine.
[FN#389] Arab. "Al-Amin," a title of the Prophet. It is usually held
that this proud name "The honest man," was applied by his
fellow-citizens to Mohammed in early life; and that in his twenty-fifth
year, when the Eighth Ka'abah was being built, it induced the tribes to
make him their umpire concerning the distinction of placing in position
the "Black Stone" which Gabriel had brought from Heaven to be set up as
the starting-post for the seven circuitings. He distributed the honour
amongst the clans and thus gave universal satisfaction. His Christian
biographers mostly omit to record an anecdote which speaks so highly in
Mohammed's favour. (Pilgrimage iii. 192.)
[FN#390] The idea is that Abu Nowas was a thought-reader such being the
prerogative of inspired poets in the East. His drunkenness and
debauchery only added to his power. I have already noticed that "Allah
strike thee dead" (Kбtala-k Allah) is like our phrase "Confound the
fellow, how clever he is."
[FN#391] Again said facetiously, "Devil take you!"
[FN#392] In all hot-damp countries it is necessary to clothe dogs,
morning and evening especially: otherwise they soon die of rheumatism
and loin disease.
[FN#393] =Beatrice. A fragment of these lines is in Night cccxv.
See also Night dcclxxxi.
[FN#394] The Moslems borrowed the horrible idea of a "jealous God" from
their kinsmen, the Jews. Every race creates its own Deity after the
fashion of itself: Jehovah is distinctly a Hebrew, the Christian Theos
is originally a Judжo-Greek and Allah a half-Badawi Arab. In this tale
Allah, despotic and unjust, brings a generous and noble-minded man to
beggary, simply because he fed his dogs off gold plate. Wisdom and
morality have their infancy and youth: the great value of such tales as
these is to show and enable us to measure man's development.
[FN#395] In Trйbutien (Lane ii. 501) the merchant says to ex-Dives,
"Thou art wrong in charging Destiny with injustice. If thou art
ignorant of the cause of thy ruin I will acquaint thee with it. Thou
feddest the dogs in dishes of gold and leftest the poor to die of
hunger." A superstition, but intelligible.
[FN#396] Arab. "Sarrбf" = a money changer.
[FN#397] Arab. "Birkah," a common feature in the landscapes of Lower
Egypt: it is either a natural-pool left by the overflow of the Nile;
or, as in the text, a built-up tank, like the "Tбlбb" for which India
is famous. Sundry of these Birkahs are or were in Cairo itself; and
some are mentioned in The Nights.
[FN#398] This sneer at the "military" and the "police" might come from
an English convict's lips.
[FN#399] Lit. "The conquering King;" a dynastic title assumed by Salбh
al-Dнn (Saladin) and sundry of the Ayyъbi (Eyoubite) sovereigns of
Egypt, whom I would call the "Soldans."
[FN#400] "Kбhirah" (i.e. City of Mars the Planet) is our Cairo: Bulak
is the port suburb on the Nile, till 1858 wholly disjoined from the
City; and Fostat is the outlier popularly called Old Cairo. The latter
term is generally translated "town of leathern tents;" but in Arabic
"fustбt" is an abode of Sha'ar=hair, such as horse-hair, in fact any
hair but "Wabar"=soft hair, as the camel's. See Lane, Lex.
[FN#401] Arab. "Adl"=just: a legal-witness to whose character there is
no tangible objection a prime consideration in Moslem law. Here "Adl"
is evidently used ironically for a hypocritical-rascal
[FN#402] Lane (ii. 503) considers three thousand dinars (the figure in
the Bres. Edit.) "a more probable sum." Possibly: but, I repeat,
exaggeration is one of the many characteristics of The Nights.
[FN#403] Calc. Edit. "Kazir:" the word is generally written
"Kazdнr," Sansk. Kastira, born probably from the Greek .
[FN#404] This would have passed for a peccadillo in the "good old
days." As late as 1840 the Arnaut soldiers used to "pot" any peasant
who dared to ride (instead of walking) past their barracks. Life is
cheap in hot countries.
[FN#405] Koran, xii. 46 — a passage expounding the doctrine of free
will: "He who doth right doth it to the advantage of his own soul; and
he who doth evil, doth it against the same; for thy Lord," etc.
[FN#406] Arab. "Suffah"; whence our Sofa. In Egypt it is a raised shelf
generally of stone, about four feet high and headed with one or more
arches. It is an elaborate variety of the simple "Tбk" or niche, a mere
hollow in the thickness of the wall. Both are used for such articles as
basin. ewer and soap; coffee cups, water bottles etc.
[FN#407] In Upper Egypt (Apollinopolis Parva) pronounced "Goos," the
Coptic Kos-Birbir, once an emporium of the Arabian trade.
[FN#408] This would appeal strongly to a pious Moslem.
[FN#409] i.e. "the father of a certain person"; here the merchant whose
name may have been Abu'l Hasan, etc. The useful word (thingumbob, what
d'ye call him, donchah, etc.) has been bodily transferred into Spanish
and Portuguese Fulano. It is of old genealogy, found in the Heb. Fulunн
which applies to a person only in Ruth iv. I, but is constantly so
employed by Rabbinic writers. The Greek use {Greek letters}.
[FN#410] Lit. "by his (i.e. her) hand," etc. Hence Lane (ii. 507) makes
nonsense of the line.
[FN#411] Arab. "Badrah," as has been said, is properly a weight of
10,000 dirhams or drachmas; but popularly used for largesse thrown to
the people at festivals.