All that we can we do, and who ne'er swerves
From best endeavour much of praise deserves.
Farewell!
Richard F. Burton
United Service Club, September 30, 1888.
Opinions of the Press.
Morning Advertiser, September 15th, 1885.
As the holiday season draws to a close the publishers' announcements of "new
books" fill column after column of the organs chosen from these special
communiqué's. But there is one work which is not entered in these lists,
though for years scholars, and many people who are not scholars, have been
looking for it with an eagerness which has left far behind the ordinary
curiosity which is bestowed on the greatest of contributions to current
literasure. And to-day the chosen few who are in possession of the volume in
question are examining it with an interest proportionate to the long toil
which has been bestowed on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's
translation of The Arabian Nights Entertainments, now entitled The Book of The
Thousand Nights and a Night, of which the first tome has just been issued. *
* * * Captain Burton scorns any namby pambyism. In the Arabic a spade is
usually called a spade, and in the latest English translation it is never
designated an agricultural implement. Moreover the endless footnotes which the
editor appends speak with much freedom of many things usually avoided as
themes for conversation in polite society, though they throw a flood of light
on hundreds of features of Oriental life on which, since travellers have been
compelled to write for "refined" audiences the student has failed to be
informed. * * * * *
Yet, admitting that The Nights are often coarse and indelicate, and sometimes
even gross it is a mistake to suppose that they are demoralising in the same
way that a French novel of the Zola type is, or might be. Indeed, what we
would call its impropriety is only a reflection of the naïve freedom with
which talk is to this day carried on in the family circles of the East. They
see no harm in what we should regard as indecency. So that when Captain Burton
prefaces his unbowdlerised version with the Arab proverb, "To the pure in
heart all things are pure," he presents perhaps the best defence he could
against the attack which it is quite possible may be made on him for devoting
many years of his life to what he terms "a labour of love." * * * Captain
Burton, thirty-three years ago, went in the disguise of an Indian pilgrim to
Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving the world the result of his
experience has so minute, so exhaustive a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life
generally. Hence the work now begun--only a limited number of students can
ever see--is simply priceless to any one who concerns himself with such
subjects, and may be regarded as marking an era in the annals of Oriental
translation.
St. James' Gazette, September 12th, 1885.
One of the most important translations to which a great English scholar has
ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three decades Captain Burton has
been more or less engaged on his translation of the Arabian Nights, the latest
of the many versions of that extraordinary story which has been made into
English, the only one at all worthy of a great original.
Whitehall Review, September 17th, 1885.
The publication of the first volume of Captain Burton's translation of the
Alif Laïla enriches the world of Oriental investigation with a monument of
labour and scholarship and of research. * * * * * In the name of the
whole world of Oriental scholarship, we offer our heartfelt thanks and
congratulations to Captain Burton upon the appearance of this first volume;
and we look forward with the keenest interest for its successors.
Home News, September 18th, 1885.
Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription translation
of the Arabian Nights, and its fortunate possessors will now be able to
realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling. They will now have the great
storehouse of Eastern folk-lore opened to them, and Captain Burton's minute
acquaintance with Eastern life makes his comments invaluable. In this respect,
as well as in the freeness of the translation, the version will be
distinguished from its many predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be
observed, bears traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed it seems
curious that his services could not have been utilised in the Soudan, when the
want of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt.
Nottingham Journal, September 19th, 1885.
But to scholars and men who have sufficient love of the soul of these sweet
stories to discern the form in its true proportions, the new edition will be
welcome. From an Oriental point of view the work is masterly to a degree. The
quatrains and couplets, reading like verses from Elizabethan mantels, and
forming a perfect rosary of Eastern lore, the constant succession of brilliant
pictures, and the pleasure of meeting again our dear old friend Shahrázád, all
these combine to give a unique charm and interest to this "perfect expositor
of the mediæval Moslem mind."
The Bat, September 29th, 1885.
Captain Burton, in his way, renders a gigantic service to all students of
literature who are not profound Orientalists, and to many who are, by giving
them a literal, honest, and accurate translation of the Arabian Nights. * *
* Some idiotic persons here and there, and certain journals which have earned
an infamous notoriety by doing their best to deprave public morals, have
raised a foolish clamour against Captain Burton and his translation.
Journalists, who had no objection to pandering to the worst tastes of humanity
at a penny a copy, are suddenly inspired by much righteous indignation at a
privately printed work which costs a guinea a volume, and in which the
manners, the customs, and the language of the East are boldly represented as
they were and as they are. Such critics Captain Burton, and the readers of
Captain Burton's translation, can afford to despise and to ignore. The Arabian
Nights Entertainment has been the playbook of generations, the delight of the
nursery and the school-room for nearly two hundred years. Now it is high time
that scholars and students should be allowed to know what the Arabian Nights
Entertainment really is. Lovers of Arabic have long since known something of
the truth concerning the Alif Laila. It needs no Burton, it needed no Payne to
tell the masters of Oriental languages that The Thousand Nights and a Night
was a very different thing from what either Galland or Lane had made it out to
be. Mr. Payne in his way, rendered no slight service, Captain Burton, in his
way, renders a gigantic service to all students of literature who are not
profound Orientalists, and to many who are, by giving them a literal, honest,
and accurate translation of the "Arabian Nights."
The Academy, October 3rd, 1885.
As Capt. Richard F. Burton's translation of The Thousand and One Nights is
likely for several reasons to awaken a literary controversy, the following
letter from Mr. John Addington Symonds in the Academy of October 3 will be
read with interest. The subject upon which it touches is an important one, and
one which must be regarded from a scholarly as well as a moral point of view.
Mr. Symonds writes like the scholar that he is; we shall soon see how the
moralists write, and if they say anything to the point we shall copy it:--
Am Hof, Davos Platz, Switzerland, September 27th, 1885.
"There is an outcry in some quarters against Capt. Burton's translation of the
Arabian Nights. Only one volume of the work has reached me, and I have not as
yet read the whole of it. Of the translator's notes I will not speak, the
present sample being clearly insufficient to judge by, but I wish to record a
protest against the hypocrisy which condemns his text. When we invite our
youth to read an unexpurgated Bible (in Hebrew and Greek, or in the authorised
version), an unexpurgated Aristophanes, an unexpurgated Juvenal, an
unexpurgated Boccaccio, an unexpurgated Rabelais, an unexpurgated collection
of Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, and an unexpurgated Plato
(in Greek or in Prof. Jowett's English version), it is surely inconsistent to
exclude the unexpurgated Arabian Nights, whether in the original or in any
English version, from the studies of a nation who rule India and administer
Egypt.
"The qualities of Capt. Burton's translation are similar to those of his
previous literary works, and the defects of those qualities are also similar.
Commanding a vast and miscellaneous vocabulary, he takes such pleasure in the
use of it that sometimes he transgresses the unwritten laws of artistic
harmony. From the point of view of language, I hold that he is too eager to
seize the mot propre of his author, and to render that by any equivalent which
comes to hand from field or fallow, waste or warren, hill or hedgerow, in our
vernacular. Therefore, as I think, we find some coarse passages of the Arabian
Nights rendered with unnecessary crudity and some poetic passages marred by
archaisms and provincialisms. But I am at a loss to perceive how Burton's
method of translation should be less applicable to the Arabian Nights than to
the Lusiad. So far as I can judge, it is better suited to the naïveté combined
with stylistic subtlety of the former than to the smooth humanistic elegancies
of the latter.
"This, however, is a minor point. The real question is whether a word for word
version of the Arabian Nights, executed with peculiar literary vigor, exact
scholarship, and rare insight into Oriental modes of thought and feeling, can
under any shadow of presence be classed with 'the garbage of the brothels.' In
the lack of lucidity, which is supposed to distinguish English folk, our
middle-class censores morum strain at the gnat of a privately circulated
translation of an Arabic classic, while they daily swallow the camel of higher
education based upon minute study of Greek and Latin literature. When English
versions of Theocritus and Ovid, of Plato's Phaedrus and the Ecclesiazusae,
now within the reach of every school-boy, have been suppressed, then and not
till then can a 'plain and literal' rendering of the Arabian Nights be denied
with any colour of consistency to adult readers. I am far from saying that
there are not valid reasons for thus dealing with Hellenic and Graeco-Roman
and Oriental literature in its totality. But let folk reckon what Anglo Saxon
Puritanism logically involves. If they desire an Anglo-Saxon Index Librorum
Prohibitorum, let them equitably and consistently apply their principles of
inquisitorial scrutiny to every branch of human culture.
"John Addington Symonds."
The Lincoln Gazette, Saturday, October 10th, 1885.
Thousand Nights and a Night.
First Notice
Everything comes to him who waits--even the long-promised, eagerly-expected
"Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights," by Richard F. Burton.
It is a whole quarter of a century since this translation of one of the most
famous books of the world was contemplated, and we are told it is the natural
outcome of the well-known Pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton's
fitness for the task who can doubt. It was during that celebrated journey to
the tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab--indeed, he says,
in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he not for months at a
stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful, eat, drink, sleep dress,
speak, pray like his brother devotees, the sharpest eyes failing to pierce his
disguise. He knows the ways of Eastern men--and women--as he does the society
of London or Trieste. How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren
he showed at Cairo when, to the amazement of some English friends who were
looking on at the noisy devotions of some "howling" Dervishes, he suddenly
joined the shouting, gesticulating circle and behaved as if to the manner
born. He has qualified as a "Howler," he holds a diploma as a master Dervish
(see vol. iii. of his "Pilgrimage"), and he can initiate disciples. Clearly to
use a phrase of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning, and
fate and fortune have arranged, that Captain Burton should be the one of all
others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine unsophisticated
Thousand Nights and a Night. In the whole of our literature no book is more
widely known. It is spread broadcast like the Bible, Bunyan and Shakespeare;
yet although it is in every house, and every soul in the kingdom knows
something about it, yet nobody knows it as it really exists. We have only had
what translators have chosen to give--selected, diluted and abridged
transcripts. And of late some so-called "original" books have been published
containing minor tales purloined bodily from the Nights. There have been many
versions, beginning with the beautiful Augustan French example of Professor
Galland, but all have failed, or rather no one has attempted, to reproduce the
great Oriental masterpiece. Judged by the number of editions--a most
fallacious test of merit--Lane's three volumes, on the whole, have found
greatest favour with the British public. He was too timid to give to the world
the full benefit of his studies, and he kept a drawing-room audience in view.
He was careful to adapt his picture to the English standard of propriety, and
his suppressions and omissions are on a wholesale scale. Lord Byron said of
English novelists that they give a full length of courtship and but a bust of
marriage. Mr. Lane thought it expedient to draw a tight veil, to tell only
half the truth--in short he stops at the bust. Moreover he destroyed all the
mécanique of his original, and cruelly altered the form. He did away with the
charming and dramatic framework of the tales, turned the Arabian Nights into
the Arabian Chapters, and too often into the Arabian Notes. The first sole and
complete translation was furnished recently by Mr. John Payne, whose "Book of
the Thousand Nights and One Night" is dedicated to Captain Burton. Mr. Payne
printed 500 copies for private circulation, a mere drop in the ocean. His
edition was instantly absorbed, clutched with avidity, and is
unprocurable--unless, as has happened several times, a stray copy finds its
way into the market, and is snatched up at a fancy price. It so happened that
Mr. Payne and Captain Burton applied themselves to the same task quite
unconscious of each other's labour. They were running on the same rails, like
Adams and Leverrier, the joint discoverers of Neptune, or like Darwin and
Wallace, who simultaneously evolved the theory of Natural Selection. Hearing
of a competitor, Captain Burton, who was travelling to the Gold Coast, freely
offered his fellow worker precedence. Mr. Payne's production served to whet
curiosity, and the young scholars of the day applied themselves to Arabic in
order to equip their minds, and to be in a more blissful state of preparation
for the triumphant edition to follow. Captain Burton's first volume in sombre
black and dazzling gold--the livery of the Abbasides--made its appearance
three weeks ago, and divided attention with the newly-discovered Star. It is
the first volume of ten, the set issued solely to subscribers. And already, as
in the case of Mr. Payne's edition, there has been a scramble to secure it,
and it is no longer to be had for love or money. The fact is, it fills a void,
the world has been waiting for this chef d'æuvre, and all lovers of the
Arabian Nights wonder how they have got on without it. We must break off from
remarks to give some idea of the originality of the style, of the incomparable
way in which the very essence and life of the East is breathed into simple,
straightforward Anglo-Saxon English. In certain of Captain Burton's books he
borrows words from all languages, there are not enough for his use, and he is
driven to coin them. But in the character of Arabian story-teller he is
simplicity itself, and whilst avoiding words of length, he introduces just
enough of antique phrase as gives a bygone and poetic flavour. The most
exacting and the most fastidious will be satisfied at the felicitous handling
of immortal themes. A delightful characteristic is the division of the text
into Nights. Lane and Payne, for peculiar reasons of their own, have both
omitted to mark the breaks in the recital. But now for the first time the
thread on which all is strung is clearly kept in view, and justice is done to
the long drawn-out episode of the young wife who saves her own neck and averts
a wholesale massacre of maidens by her round of stories within stories.
The reader most familiar with the ordinary versions at once is in a new
atmosphere. The novelty is startling as it is delightful. We are face to face
with the veritable East, where Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad are known to us as
London or Lincoln. The whole life of the people is represented, nothing is
passed over or omitted. The picture is complete, and contains everything as
the "white contains the black of the eye," a phrase which, by- the-bye, in
Arabic is all contained in one word. We have before alluded to the strength
and beauty of the style. The felicities of expression are innumerable. What
could be better than the terms to express grief and joy, "his breast
broadened," "his breast straitened," or the words used of a person in abject
terror, "I died in my skin," or the cruelty of the scourger who persevered
"till her forearm failed," or the expression of despair "The light before his
face became night," or the grand account of the desert storm "when behold a
dust cloud up-flew and grew until it walled the horizon from view." Another
speciality of Captain Burton's edition is the Notes. He is celebrated for
sowing the bottom of his pages with curiously illuminating remarks, and he has
here carried out his custom in a way to astonish. He tells us that those who
peruse his notes in addition to those of Lane would be complete proficients in
the knowledge of Oriental practices and customs. Lane begins with Islam from
Creation to the present day, and has deservedly won for his Notes the honour
of a separate reprint. Captain Burton's object in his annotations is to treat
of subjects which are completely concealed from the multitude. They are
utterly and entirely esoteric, and deal with matters of which books usually
are kept clear. Indeed he has been assured by an Indian officer who had been
40 years in the East, that he was entirely ignorant of the matters revealed in
these Notes. Without these marvellous elucidations the Arabian Nights would
remain only half understood, but by their aid we may know as much of the
Moslems as the Moslems know of themselves.
The Lincoln Gazette, Saturday, October 17th, 1885.
Second Notice.
In bringing out his Arabian Nights Captain Burton has made a bold attempt to
dispense with the middleman the publisher. He has gone straight to the
printer, he himself undertaking the business of distribution. It is time
somebody should be energetic. With curious submission authors go on bearing
their grievances, and sow that others may reap. Whole editions of travels are
issued, and the person most concerned, the author, gets a pittance of £5. And
only the other day Walt Whitman, most illustrious of American poets, and in
the opinion of capable judges the most illustrious man of letters across the
Atlantic, publicly that the profits on his writings for a whole year amounted
to a few dollars. Captain Burton has broken through the bondage, and the
result promises to be highly satisfactory. But he has been threatened with
pains and penalties, one trade journal, the Printing Times and Lithographer,
under the immediate direction of an eminent bookseller, known for his vast
purchases of rare publications, announced that The Arabian Nights would be
suppressed unless its tone and morals were unexceptionable! In short,
publishers are exasperated, and, like the Peers, they do not see the force of
being abolished. The authors, however, who sigh to be independent, must not
take it for granted that the experiment is easy, or likely to be often
successful. In this particular instance it is a case of the Man and the Book.
There is only one Arabian Nights in the world, and only one Captain Burton.
The Thousand Nights and a Night offers a complete picture of Eastern peoples.
But the English reader must be prepared to find that the manners of Arabs and
Moslems differ from his own. Eastern people look at things from a more natural
and primitive point of view, and they say what they think with all the
unrestraint of children. At times their plain speaking is formidable, but they
are not conscious of impropriety, and their coarseness is not intentional. It
is their nature to be downright, and to be communicative on subjects about
which the Saxon is shy or silent, and it must be remembered that the
separation of the sexes adds considerably to this freedom of expression. Their
language is material in quality, every root is objective; as an instance, for
the word soul they have no more spiritual equivalent than breath. Even the
conversation between parents and children is of incredible frankness, and the
Wazir of Egypt talks to his daughter "the Lady of Beauty," in a fashion
astonishing to the West. But the Arabs are a great mixture. They are keenly
alive to beauty, and every youth and every damsel is described in glowing,
rapturous terms. We have heard in our own country, so far north as chilly
Scotland, of a whole audience standing up in a theatre to applaud the entrance
and acknowledge the charms of a beautiful woman. In the East they are far more
readily subjugated, and the event is of everyday occurrence, and not a wonder.
"When the people of Damascus saw Ajib's beauty and brilliancy and perfect
grace and symmetry (for he was a marvel of comeliness and winning loveliness,
softer than the cool breeze of the North, sweeter than limpid waters to man in
drouth, and pleasanter than the health for which sick man sueth), a mighty
many followed him, whilst others ran on before and sat down on the road until
he should come up, that they might gaze on him." The Arabs are highly
imaginative, and their world is peopled with supernatural beings, whilst Ovid
is surpassed in the number and ingenuity of their metamorphoses. Their nerves
are highly strung, they are emotional to the hysteric degree, and they do
everything in the superlative fashion. They love at first sight, and one
glimpse of a face is enough to set them in flames; they cease to sleep or to
eat until they are admitted to the adored presence, they weep till they faint,
they rend their garments, pluck their beards, buffet their faces, and after
paroxysms of passion they recover sufficiently to recite verses--"and he beat
his face and head and recited these couplets"--"then she recited, weeping
bitterly the while"--"When the young man heard these words he wept with sore
weeping, till his bosom was drenched with tears and began reciting." All this
effervescence, so different to our rigid repression, all this exuberance of
feeling is the gift of a hot climate. And, besides this easy stirring of their
passions, they always live in supreme consciousness that every impulse, every
act is decreed, that they drift without will of their own, and are the
helpless creatures of destiny. Half their talk consists of invocations to
Allah, the All-ruling, All-gracious Allah! This fatalistic element is a
leading feature in the Nights. All that happens is accepted with submission,
and with the conviction that nothing can be averted. The Wazir's eye is
knocked out, "as fate and fortune decreed," the one pomegranate seed escapes
destruction, and the Princess dies in consequence; the beautiful lad secreted
in a cave under the earth to keep him from harm, because it is foretold by the
astrologers that he will die on a certain day, meets with his death at the
appointed hour despite all precautions. This is one of the myriad instances,
says Captain Burton, showing "that the decrees of Anagké, Fate, Destiny, Weird
are inevitable." And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence that Moslems in
all things bow to the stroke of destiny, it is singular to note that a Turkish
scholar like Mr. Redhouse, translator of the "Mesnevi," fails to realise this
most characteristic trait of Mahometan belief, and confuses it with the
Christian idea of Providence and Premonition. The folk in Arabian tales, as
might be expected, meet calamity in the shape of death with fortitude. The end
of life is not a terror acutely feared as with us. They die easily, and when
the time comes they give up the ghost without repining, although the mourning
by survivors is often loud and vehement, and sometimes desperately prolonged.
This facility in dying is partly due to their fatalistic philosophy, and
partly it is the effect of climate. It is in rugged climes that death is
appalling, and comes as the King of Terrors, but the hotter the country the
easier it is to enter the Door of Darkness. All these things which make the
difference between Orientals and ourselves must be taken into account by
readers of Arabian story, and the coarseness, as Captain Burton shows, is but
the shade of a picture which otherwise would be all light;" the general tone
of the Nights "is exceptionally high and pure, and the devotional fervour
often rises to boiling point." We have shown how Captain Burton has rendered
the prose of the Nights, how vigorous, yet simple, is the language, how
pleasant is his use of antique phrase, serving as it often does to soften the
crudity of Oriental expression. In translating the poetry, which finally will
amount to nearly 10,000 lines, he has again started on a path of his own. He
has closely preserved the Arab form, although, as he says, an absolutely exact
copy of Arabic metres is an impossibility.
A striking novelty in Captain Burton's translation is the frequent occurrence
of passages in cadenced prose, called in Arabic "Saj'a," or the cooing of a
dove. These melodious fragments have a charming effect on the ear. They come
as dulcet-surprises, and mostly occur in highly-wrought situations, or they
are used to convey a vivid sense of something exquisite in art or nature. We
give one or two instances of these little eddies of song set like gems in the
prose. Their introduction seems due to whim or caprice, but really is due to
profound study of the situation, as if the tale-teller felt suddenly compelled
to break into the rhythmic strain. The prose ripples and rises to dancing
measure when the King of the Age, wandering in a lonely palace, comes upon the
half-petrified youth, "the Ensorcelled Prince."
"Now when the Sultan heard the mournful voice he sprang to his feet, and
following the sound found a curtain let down over the chamber door. He raised
it and saw behind it a young man sitting upon a couch about a cubic above the
ground: he fair to the sight, a well- shaped wight, with eloquence dight, his
forehead was flower-white, his cheek rosy bright, and a mole on his cheek
breadth like an ambergris mite."
It is broken again to bring into fuller notice the perfections of one of the
three merry ladies of Baghdad, sitting under a silken canopy, the curtains
"looped up with pearls as big as filberts and bigger." We are told to note how
eastern are the metaphors, how confused the flattery.
"Thereupon sat a lady bright of blee, with brow-beaming brilliancy, and her
eyebrows were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and
perfumery, and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see. Her stature
was straight as the letter I (the letter Alif a straight perpendicular
stroke), and her face shamed the noon sun's radiancy; and she was even as a
galaxy or a dome with golden marquetry, or a bride displayed on choicest
finery, or a noble maid of Araby."
And prose is not thought adequate to do justice to the natural beauty of a
garden "like one of the pleasaunces of Paradise."
"It was a garden with trees of freshest green and ripe fruits of yellow sheen;
and its birds were singing clear and keen, and rills ran wimpling through the
fair terrene."
It is a marvel that these cadences have never been reproduced before. They
have been faintly attempted by Eastwick, in his "Gulistan," whilst Mr. Payne
simply passed them over, rejected them as of no account. They fall in with
Captain Burton's plan of omitting nothing; of giving the Nights intact in the
precise form in which they are enjoyed by the Oriental. Beside the verses so
characteristic of exaggerated Arabic sentiment, and the rhymed cadences, let
like precious stones into the gold of the prose, the proverbs embodying the
proverbial wit and wisdom are all rhymed as in the original Arabic. What
Arabists think of this translation we may learn from a professed Arabist
writing to this effect:--"I am free to confess, after many years study of
Arabic, a comparison of your translation with the text has taught me more than
many months of dry study," whilst Englishmen who for years have lived in the
East are making the discovery that, after all, they have known little or
nothing, and their education is only beginning with this version of the
Arabian Nights. It is only knowledge that knows how to observe; and it is
satisfactory to observe that Captain Burton's amazing insight into Eastern
peculiarities has been put to its best use in giving a true idea of the People
of the Sun and a veritable version of their Book of Books. The labour expended
on this edition has been enormous. The work could only have been completed by
the most excessive and pertinatious application. All the same we are told it
has been "a labour of love," a task that has brought its own exceeding great
reward.
Arabian Nights, Volume 16
Footnotes
[FN#1] Tome xii. is dated 1789, the other three, 1788, to include
them in the "Cabinet."
[FN#2] The titles of all the vols. are dated alike, 1793, the
actual date of printing.
[FN#3] This name is not in the Arabic text, and I have vainly
puzzled my brains about its derivation or meaning.
[FN#4] This P.N. is, I presume, a corruption of "Shawalán"=one
falling short. The wife "Oitba" is evidently "Otbá" or "Utbá."
[FN#5] See my Supplemental volume i. pp. 37-116, "The Ten
Wazirs; or, the History of King Azádbakht and his Son."
[FN#6] MS. pp. 140-182. Gauttier, vol. ii., pp. 313-353, Histoire
du sage Heycar translated by M. Agoub: Weber, "History of
Sinkarib and his two Viziers" (vol. ii. 53): the "Vizier" is
therein called Hicar.
[FN#7] This form of the P.N. is preferred by Prof. R. Hoerning in
his "Prisma des Sanherib," etc. Leipsic, 1878. The etymology is
"Sin akhi-irib"=Sini (Lunus, or the Moon-God) increaseth
brethren. The canon of Ptolemy fixes his accession at B.C. 702,
the first year of Elibus or Belibus. For his victories over
Babylonia, Palestine, Judea, and Egypt see any "Dictionary of the
Bible," and Byron for the marvellous and puerile legend--
The Assyrian came down as a wolf on the fold,
which made him lose in one night 185,000 men, smitten by the
"Angel of the Lord" (2 Kings xix. 35). Seated upon his throne
before Lachish he is represented by a bas-relief as a truly noble
and kingly figure.
[FN#8] I presume that the author hereby means a "fool," Pers.
nádán. But in Assyrian story Nadan was=Nathan, King of the people
of Pukudu, the Pekod of Jeremiah (i. 21) and other prophets.
[FN#9] In text always "Atúr," the scriptural "Asshur"=Assyria,
biblically derived from Asshur, son of Shem (Gen. x. 22), who was
worshipped as the proto-deity. The capital was Niniveh. Weber
has "Nineveh and Thor," showing the spelling of his MS.
According to the Arabs, "Ashur" had four sons; Iran (father of
the Furs=Persians, the Kurd, or Ghozzi, the Daylams, and the
Khazar), Nabít, Jarmúk, and Basíl. Ibn Khaldun (iii. 413), in
his "Universal History," opposes this opinion of Ibn Sa'id.
[FN#10] i.e. "Fish-town" or "town of Nin" =Ninus, the founder. In
mod. days "Naynawah" was the name of a port on the east bank of
the Tigris; and moderns have unearthed the old city at Koyunjik,
Nabi Yunas, and the Tall (mound of) Nimrud.
[FN#11] The surroundings suggest Jehovah, the tribal deity of the
Jews. The old version says, "Hicar was a native of the country of
Haram (Harrán), and had brought from thence the knowledge of the
true God; impelled, however, by an irresistible decree," etc.
[FN#12] i.e. a woollen cloth dyed red. Hence Pyrard (i. 244) has
"red scarlet," and (vol. ii.) "violet scarlet"; Froissart (xvth
centy.) has "white scarlet," and Marot (xvith) has "green
scarlet." The word seems to be French of xiith century, but is
uncertain: Littré proposes Galaticus, but admits the want of an
intermediate form. Piers Plowman and Chaucer use "cillatún, which
suggests Pers. "Sakalat, or "Saklatún", whence Mr. Skeat would
derive "scarlet." This note is from the voyage of F. Pyrard, etc.
London. Hakluyts, M.dccc.lxxxvii.; and the editor quotes Colonel
Yule's M. Polo (ii. chapt. 58) and his "Discursive Glossary s. v.
Suclát."
[FN#13] i.e."Al-Kirm," Arab. and Pers. =a worm, as in Kirmán (see
Supplem. vol. i. 40); the coccus ilicis, vulg. called cochineal.
[FN#14] Arab. "Arz", from the Heb. Arz or Razah (raz=to vibrate),
the root {Greek} (cedrus conifera), the Assyrian "Erimu of
Lebanon," of which mention is so often made. The old controversy
as to whether "Razah"=cedar or fir, might easily have been
settled if the disputants had known that the modern Syrians still
preserve the word for the clump called "The Cedars" on the
seaward slope of the Libanus.
[FN#15] We should say "reading and writing," but the greater
difficulty of deciphering the skeleton eastern characters places
reading in the more honourable place. They say of a very learned
man, "He readeth it off (readily) as one drinketh water."
[FN#16] Arab. "Al-Sáhib al-jayyid." ["Jayyid" is, by the measure
"Fay'il," derived from the root, "Jaud," to excel, like "Kayyis,"
from "Kaus" (see Suppl. vol. iv., p.277), "Mayyit" from "Maut,"
"Sayyid" from "Saud." The form was originally "Jaywid;" then the
Wáw became assimilated to the preceding Já, on account of the
following Kasrah, and this assimilation or "Idghám" is indicated
by Tashdíd. As from "Kayyis" the diminutive "Kuwayyis" is formed,
so "Jayyid" forms the Tasghír, "Juwayyid," which, amongst the
Druzes, has the specific meaning of "deeply versed in religious
matters."--ST.]
[FN#17] "Kúl," vulg. for "Kul"; a form constant in this MS.
[FN#18] Gauttier "Sarkhadom," the great usurper Sargon, a
contemporary of Merodach Baladan of Babylon and of Sabaco 1st of
Ethiopia, B.C. 721-702: one of the greatest Assyrian Kings, whose
place has been determined to be between Shalmaneser and his son,
the celebrated Sennacherib, who succeeded him. The name also
resembles the biblical Ezarhaddon (Asaridanus), who, however, was
the son of Sennacherib, and occupied the throne of Babylon in
B.C. 680.
[FN#19] Gauttier, pp. 317-319, has greatly amplified and modified
these words of wisdom.
[FN#20] In text "Yá Bunayya" =lit. "O my little son," a term of
special fondness.
[FN#21] Arab. "Jamrah," a word of doubtful origin, but applied to
a tribe strong enough to be self-dependent. The "Jamarát of the
Arabs" were three, Banú Numayr, Banú Háris (who afterwards
confederated with Mashíj) and Banú Dabbah (who joined the Rikáb),
and at last Nomayr remained alone. Hence they said of it:
"Nomayr the jamrah (also "a live coal") of Arabs are; * And
ne'er cease they to burn in fiery war."
See Chenery's Al-Hariri, pp. 343-428.
[FN#22] In the Arab. "Ta'arkalak," which M. Houdas renders
"qu'elle ne te retienne dans ses filets."
[FN#23] A lieu commun in the East. It is the Heb. "Sháked" and
the fruit is the "Loz" (Arab. Lauz)=Amygdalus communis, which the
Jews looked upon as the harbinger of spring and which, at certain
feasts, they still carry to the synagogue, as representing the
palm branches of the Temple.
[FN#24] The mulberry-tree in Italy will bear leaves till the end
of October and the foliage is bright as any spring verdure.
[FN#25] Gauttier omits this: pas poli, I suppose.
[FN#26] The barbarous sentiment is Biblical-inspired, "He that
spareth his rod hateth his son" (Prov. xiii. 24), and "Chasten
thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his
crying" (Prov. xix. 18). Compare the Arab equivalent, "The green
stick is of the trees of Paradise" (Pilgrimage i. 151). But the
neater form of the saw was left to uninspired writers; witness
"Spare the rod and spoil the child," which appears in Ray's
proverbs, and is immortalised by Hudibras:--
Love is a boy by poets styled,
Then spare the rod and spoil the child. (ii. 1, 843.)
It is to the eternal credit of John Locke, the philosopher, that
in an age of general brutality he had the moral courage to
declare, "Beating is the worst and therefore the last means to be
used in the correction of children."
[FN#27] Arab. "Dahn" (oil, ointment) which may also mean "soft
sawder."
[FN#28] Aucun roi ne peut gouverner sans armée et on ne peut
avoir une armée sans argent. For a treatise on this subject see
the "Chronique de Tabari," ii. 340.
[FN#29] M. Agoub, in Gauttier (vi. 321) remarks of these
prosings, "Ces maximes qui ne seraient pas indignes, pour la
plupart, des beaux temps de la philosophie grecque, appartiennent
toutes au texte arabe; je n'ai fait que les disposer dans un
ordre plus méthodique. J'ai dû aussi supprimer quelques unes,
soit parce qu'elles n'offraient que des préceptes d'une morale
banale, soit que traduites en frangais, elles eussent pû paraître
bizarres à des lecteurs européens. Ce que je dis ici, s'applique
également à celles qui terminent le conte et qui pourraient
fournir le sujet de plusieurs fables." One would say that the
translator is the author's natural enemy.
[FN#30] Arab. "Ammál," now vulgarly written with initial Hamzah,
a favourite expression in Egypt and meaning "Verily," "I believe
you, my boy," and so forth. But "'Ammál" with the Ayn may also
mean "he intended," or "he was about to."
[FN#31] In Gauttier the name is Ebnazadan, but the Arab. text has
"Naudán," which I take to be the Persian "New of knowledge" as
opp. to Nádán, the "unknowing."
[FN#32] In Chavis (Weber ii. 58) and Gauttier (p. 323) Akis, roi
de Perse. The second name may be "Shah of the Ebna" or Persian
incolæ of Al-Yaman; aristocratie Persane naturalisée Arabe
(Al-Mas'udi, iv. 188, etc.).
[FN#33] i.e. the Lowland of the Eglantine or Narcissus; Nisrín is
also in dictionaries an island where amber abounds. There is a
shade of difference between Buk'ah and Bak'ah. The former which
is the corrector form=a patch of ground, a plain (hence the
Buká'a= Coelesyria), while Bak'ah=a hollow where water collects.
In Chavis we find "the plain of Harrim" and in Gauttier la plaine
de Baschrin; and the appointment was "for the first of the month
Niram" (Naysán).
[FN#34] "Pharaoh," which Hebrew Holy Writ left so vague and
unsatisfactory, has become with the Arabs "Fir'aun", the dynastic
name of Egyptian kings, as Kisrà (Chosroës) of the Persians,
Tobba of the Himyarites, Kaysar (Cæsar) of the Romans, Jalut
(Goliath) of the Phoenicians, Faghfur of the Chinese, Khákán of
the Tartars, Adfonsh (Alfonso) of the Spanish, and Aguetíd of the
Berbers. Ibn Khaldún iv. 572.
[FN#35] "Mizr" in Assyrian="Musur," in Heb. "Misraim" (the dual
Misrs, whose duality permeated all their polity), and in Arab.
"Misr," the O. Egypt. "Há káhi Ptáh" (the Land of the great God,
Ptah), and the Coptic "Tá-mera"=the Land of the Nile flood,
ignoring, I may add, all tradition of a Noachian or general
deluge.
[FN#36] The simplicity of old Assyrian correspondence is here
well preserved, as we may see by comparing those letters with the
cuneiform inscriptions, etc., by S. Abden Smith (Pfeiffer,
Leipsic, 1887). One of them begins thus, "The will of the King to
Sintabni-Uzur. Salutation from me to thee. May it be well with
thee. Regarding Sinsarra-utzur whom thou hast sent to me, how is
thy report?" etc. We find such expressions as "May the great
Gods, lovers of thy reign, preserve thee an hundred years;" also
"Peace to the King, my lord," etc.
[FN#37] Arab. "Yaum al-Khamís." For the week-days see vol. vi.
190, and for a longer notice, Al-Mas'udi, iii. 422-23.
[FN#38] In the text "Kál" (al-Ráwí), "the Reciter saith"--which
formula I omit here and elsewhere.
[FN#39] i.e. "The Father of the little Fish," in Gauttier (vii.
329) "Abou Soméika."
[FN#40] By way of insult; as I have before noticed.
[FN#41] He had now learned that Nadan had ruined him.
[FN#42] The wife (in p. 155; "Ashghaftíní") is called "Thou hast
enamoured me" from the root "Shaghaf"=violent love, joy, grief.
Chavis has Zefagnie: Gauttier suppresses the name, which is not
pretty. In the old version she is made aunt (father's sister) to
Sankharib.
[FN#43] The old version attributes all this device to "Zefagnie;"
thus injuring the unity and the interest of the tale.
[FN#44] Arab. "Jund" plur. "Junúd," a term mostly applied to
regular troops under the Government, as opposed to soldiers who
took service with the Amirs or great barons--a state of things
still enduring in non-British India.
[FN#45] Who thus makes a "Ma'adabah"=wake or funeral feast before
his death. See vol. viii. 231.
[FN#46] i.e. "Father of the Fishlet", in the old version
"Yapousmek" (Yá Abú Sumayk).
[FN#47] In Chavis he becomes "an old slave, a magician, stained
with the greatest crimes, who has the air and figure of Hicar."
[FN#48] A formula which announces the death of his supposed
enemy.
[FN#49] Arab. " Matmúrah"=Sardábah (i. 340), a silo for storing
grain, an underground cell (ii. 39).
[FN#50] See text "Náhú" from "Nauh"=ceremonious keening for the
dead. The general term for the wail is "Walwalah" or "Wilwál" (an
onomatopoy) and for the public wailing-woman "Naddábah."
[FN#51] Here we find the Doric form "Rahúm" for "Rahím," or it
may simply be the intensive and emphatic form, as "Nazúr"=one who
looks intently for "Názir," a looker.
[FN#52] In the old version "a tenth part of the revenues." The
"Kasím" of the text is an unusual word which M. Houdas would
render revenues en nature, as opposed to Khiráj, revenues en
argent. I translate it by "tax tribute."
[FN#53] In text "'Azzámín, "i.e. men who recite "'Azm," mostly
Koranic versets which avert evil.
[FN#54] This may either be figurative or literal--upon the ashes
where the fire had been; even as the father of Sayf al-Mulúk sat
upon the floor of his audience-hall (vol. vii. 314).
[FN#55] In text "Ya'tadir"--from 'Adr=heavy rain, boldness. But
in this MS. the dots are often omitted and the word may be
Ya'tazir=find excuse.
[FN#56] In the old version the wife is made to disclose the
secret of her husband being alive--again a change for the worse.
[FN#57] Here "Wayha-v." and before "Wayla-k": see vols. v. 258;
vii. 127 and iii. 82.
[FN#58] The King, after the fashion of Eastern despots, never
blames his own culpable folly and hastiness: this was decreed to
him and to his victim by Destiny.
[FN#59] The older version reads "Roc" and informs us that "it is
a prodigious bird, found in the deserts of Africa: it will bear
two hundred pounds weight; and many are of opinion that the idea
of this bird is visionary." In Weber ii. 63, this is the device
of "Zafagnie," who accompanies her husband to Egypt.
[FN#60] This name appears to be a corruption. The sound, however,
bears a suspicious resemblance to "Dabshalim" (a name most proper
for such a Prince, to wit, meaning in their tongue a mighty
King), who appears in chapt. i. of the "Fables of Pilpay"
(Bidpai=Bidyapati=Lord of Lore?). "Dabshalímat"=the Dabshalíms,
was the dynastic title of the Kings of Somanáth (Somnauth) in
Western India.
[FN#61] Arab. "Tín"=clay, mud, which would be used with the Tob
(adobe, sun-dried brick) forming the walls of Egypt and Assyria.
M.G. Maspero, in his excellent booklet "L'Archéologie Egyptienne"
(p. 7. Paris, Quantin, 1887), illustrates this ancient industry
which endures with all its gear to the present day. The average
measured 22 X 11 X 14 cm.; the larger was 38 X 18 X 14 cm., with
intermediate sizes. These formed the cores of temple walls, and,
being revetted with granite, syenite, alabaster and other stones,
made a grand show; but when the outer coat was removed they were
presently weathered to the external semblance of mud-piles. Such
was mostly the condition of the ruins of grand Bubastis
("Pi-Pasht") hod. Zagázig, where excavations are still being
pushed on.
[FN#62] The old version has "Masser, Grand Cairo (in the days of
the Pharaohs!); so called from having been built by Misraim, the
son of Cham."
[FN#63] In Chavís, "Abicam, a Chaldæan astrologer;" in Gauttier
"Abimacam."
[FN#64] In Al-Harírí (p. 409) we read, "Hospitality is three
days;" and a Hadís of the Prophet confirms the liberal practice
of The Ignorance:--"The entertainment of a guest is three days,
and the viaticum ("Jáizah") is a day and a night, and whatso
exceedeth is an alms-gift." On the first day is shown largesse
and courtesy; on the second and third the stranger is treated
after the usual custom of the household, and then he is provided
with rations for a day and a night. See Lane: A. Nights, i. 486;
also The Nights, vol. i. 3.
[FN#65] i.e. Not standing astraddle, or in other such indecorous
attitude.
[FN#66] Chavis, "Bilelsanam, the oracle of Bel, the chief God of
the Assyrian: "Gauttier, Une idole Bíl. Bel (or Ba'al or Belus,
the Phoenician and Canaanite head-god) may here represent Hobal
the biggest idol in the Meccan Pantheon, which used to be borne
on raids and expeditions to give plunder a religious
significance. Tabari iii. 17. Evidently the author holds it to be
an idol.
[FN#67] The Syro-solar month=April; much celebrated by poets and
fictionists: rain falling at such time into shells becomes pearls
and upon serpents poison.
[FN#68] The text has "Baybúnah," prop. Bábúnaj in Arab., and in
Pers. "Bábúk," or "Bábúnak"=the white camomile-flower. See vol.
iii. 58.
[FN#69] "Khabata"="He (the camel) pawed the ground." The prim.
sig. is to beat, secondly, it is applied to a purblind camel
which beats or strikes the ground and so stumbles, or to him who
bashes a tree for its leaves; and lastly to him who gets alms by
begging. See Chenery's Al-Hariri, p. 447.
[FN#70] Arab. "Karz"=moneys lent in interest and without fixed
term of payment, as opp. to "Dayn."
[FN#71] In text "Kintár"=a quintal, 98 to 99 lbs. avoir.: in
round numbers a cwt. a hundred weight: see vol. ii. 233. The old
version explains it by "A golden coin, equivalent to three
hundred livres French (?)." About the value of the Kintár of
gold, doctors differ. Some value it at 40 ounces, others make it
a leathern bag containing 1,080 to 1,100 dinars, and others 100
rotls (lbs.) of precious metal; while Al-Makrizi relates that
Mohammed the Apostle declared, "The Kintár of gold is twelve
hundred ounces." Baron de Slane (Ibn Khaldun i. 210) computes 100
Kintárs=1 million of francs.
[FN#72] In the text "wa lá ahad tafawwaha fina."
[FN#73] Arab. "Falsafah"=philosophy: see vols. v. 234 and vii.
145.
[FN#74] In the text "Fa-yatrahúna," masc. for fem.
[FN#75] The writer probably remembered that the cat was a sacred
animal amongst the Egyptians: see Herod., ii. 66, and Diod. Sic.,
who tells us (vol. i. p. 94) of a Roman put to death under
Ptolemy Auletes for accidentally killing one of these holy
beasts. The artists of Bubastis, whose ruins are now for the
first time being scientifically explored, modelled the animal in
bronze with an admirable art akin to nature.
[FN#76] M. Houdas explains this miswritten passage, Quand le
soleil fut levé et qu'il pénétra par ces ouvertures (lis.
abkhásh, trou de flûte), il répandit le sable dans ces cylindres
formés par la lumière du soleil. It is not very intelligible. I
understand that the Sage went behind the Palace and drove through
a mound or heap of earth a narrow hole bearing east-west, which
he partially filled up with sand; and so when the sun rose the
beams fell upon it and made it resemble a newly made cord of
white flax. M. Agoub (in Gauttier vol. vi. 344) shirks, as he is
wont to do, the whole difficulty. [The idea seems to me to be,
and I believe this is also the meaning of M. Houdas, that Haykar
produced streaks of light in an otherwise dark room by boring
holes in the back wall, and scattered the sand over them, so
that, while passing through the rays of the sun, it assumed the
appearance of ropes. Hence he says mockingly to Pharaoh, "Have
these ropes taken up, and each time you please I will twist thee
the like of them"--reading "Aftilu," lst p. aor. instead of
"Iftil", 2nd imper.--ST.)
[FN#77] Gauttier (vi. 347), Ces présens ne sont pas dignes de
lui; mais peu de chose contents les rois.
[FN#78] Haykar is a Sage who follows the religion of nature,
"Love thy friends and hate thy foes." Gauttier (vii. 349)
embroiders all this with Christian and French sentiment--
L'intention secrète de Heycar était de sauver la vie à l'ingrat
qui avait conspiré contre la sienne. Il voulait pour toute
vengeance, le mettre désormais dans l'impossibilité de nuire et
l'abandonner ensuite à ses remords, persuadé que le remords n'est
pas le moindre châtiment du coupable. True nonsense this when
talking of a character born bad: its only remorse is not to have
done worse than bad.
[FN#79] Striking the nape being the Moslem equivalent for "boxing
ears."
[FN#80] With this formula compare Chaucer, "The Manciple's Tale."
[FN#81] In the text "Znnákt-ha," which is unintelligible,
although the sense be clear.
[FN#82] A bird unknown to the dictionaries, apparently a species
of hawk.
[FN#83] In the text "Júrah Syán" for "Júrah Sayyál."
[FN#84] The tree having furnished the axe-helve.
[FN#85] M. Houdas translates Tu as médit de moi et tu m'as
accablé de tes méchancetés.
[FN#86] In text "Alif, bá, tá, sá," the latter written with a Sin
instead of a Thá, showing the vulgar use which extends from
Alexandria to Meccah.
[FN#87] So in French, deriding the difference between written and
spoken English, Ecrivez Salmonassar, prononcez crocodile.
[FN#88] Because he owes thee more than a debt of life.
[FN#89] i.e. "Tammat"=She (the tale) is finished.
[FN#90] MSS. pp.217-265. See the "Arabian Tales," translated by
Robert Heron (Edinburgh M.DCC.XCII.), where it is "The Robber-
Caliph; or Adventures of Haroun Alraschid, with the Princess of
Persia, and the fair Zutulbé," vol. i. pp. 2-69. Gauttier,
Histoire du Khalyfe de Baghdad, vol. vii. pp.117-150.
[FN#91] In text "Ahádís," esp. referred to the sayings of
Mohammed, and these are divided into two great sections, the
"Ahádís al-Nabawí," or the actual words pronounced by the
Apostle; and the "Ahádís al-Kudus," or the sentences attributed
to the Archangel Gabriel.
[FN#92] Heron has "the Festival of Haraphat," adding a power of
nonsense. This is the day of the sermon, when the pilgrims sleep
at Muzdalifah (Pilgrimage iii. 265). Kusayy, an ancestor of the
Apostle, was the first to prepare a public supper at this
oratory, and the custom was kept up by Harun al-Rashid, Zubaydah
and Sha'ab, mother of the Caliph al-Muktadir (Tabari ii. 368).
Alms are obligatory on the two great 'I'ds or festivals, al-Fitr
which ends the Ramazán fast and al-Kurbán during the annual
Pilgrimage. The dole must consist of at least a "Sa'" = 7 lbs. in
grain, dates, &c.
[FN#93] i.e. habited themselves in the garments of little people:
so to "enlarge the turband" is to assume the rank of an 'Álim or
learned man. "Jayb," the breast of a coat is afterwards used in
the sense of a pocket.
[FN#94] Either the Caliph was persuaded that the white wrist was
a "promise of better things above and below," or he proposed
marriage as a mere freak, intelligible enough when divorce costs
only two words.
[FN#95] In text "Nakdí" = the actual as opposed to the contingent
dowry: sec vols. vii. 126; ix. 32.
[FN#96] This is said in irony.
[FN#97] In text "Bashákhín" plur. of "Bashkhánah:" see Suppl.
vols. ii. 119; iii. 87.
[FN#98] In Heron he becomes "Kassera-Abocheroan." Anushirwan (in
full Anúshínrawán = sweet of soul) is popularly supposed to have
begun his rule badly after the fashion of Eastern despots, and
presently to have become the justest of monarchs. Nothing of
this, however, is found in Tabari (ii. 159).
[FN#99] He was indignant because twitted with having married a
beggar-maid like good King Cophetua. In Heron he is "moved by so
sensible a reply."
[FN#100] Plur. "Katáif," a kind of pancake made of flour and
sugar (or honey) and oil or butter.
[FN#101] Arab. "Sakká" = a water-carrier, generally a bad lot. Of
the "Sakká Sharbah," who supplies water to passengers in the
streets, there is an illustration in Lane; M. E. chapt. xiv.
[FN#102] In the text "Kahbah" an ugly word = our whore (i.e.
hired woman): it is frightfully
common in every-day speech. See vol. ii. 70.
[FN#103] Arab. "Sibák" usually = a leash (for falconry, etc.).
[FN#104] I have emphasised this detail which subsequently becomes
a leading incident.
[FN#105] Usual formulæ when a respectable person is seen
drinking: the same politeness was also in use throughout the
civilised parts of mediæval Europe. See the word "Hanian" (vol.
ii. 5), which at Meccah and elsewhere is pronounced also
"Haniyyan."
[FN#106] In text "Yá Ta'ís," a favorite expression in this MS.
Page 612 (MS.) has "Tá'ish," a clerical error, and in page 97 we
have "Yá Ta'ásat-ná" = O our misery!
[FN#107] As might a "picker-up of unconsidered trifles."
[FN#108] In text "Akbá' wa Zarábíl." I had supposed the first to
be the Pers. Kabá = a short coat or tunic, with the Arab. 'Ayn
(the second is the common corruption for "Zarábín" = slaves'
shoes, slippers: see vol. x. 1), but M. Hondas translates Ni
calottes ni calecons, and for the former word here and in MS.
p.227 he reads "'Arakiyah" = skull-cap: see vol. i. 215. ["Akbá'"
is the pi. of "Kub'," which latter occurs infra, p.227 of the Ar.
MS., and means, in popular language, any part of a garment
covering the head, as the hood of a Burnus or the top-piece of a
Kalansuwah; also a skull-cap, usually called "'Araqíyah." --ST.]
[FN#109] Heron dubs him "Hazeb (Hájib) Yamaleddin." In text
"'Alái al-Dín;" and in not a few places it is familiarly
abbreviated to "'Ali" (p. 228, etc.). For the various forms of
writing the name see Suppl. vol. iii. 30. The author might have
told us the young Chamberlain's name Arabicè earlier in the tale;
but it is the Ráwi's practice to begin with the vague and to end
in specification. I have not, however, followed his example
here or elsewhere.
[FN#110] i.e. Destiny so willed it. For the Pen and the Preserved
Tablet see vol. v. 322.
[FN#111] This was the custom not only with Harun as Mr. Heron
thinks, but at the Courts of the Caliphs generally.
[FN#112] In text "Ghiyár," Arab. = any piece of dress or uniform
which distinguishes a class, as the soldiery: in Pers. = a strip
of yellow cloth worn by the Jews subject to the Shah.
[FN#113] Arab. "Zarbúl tákí," the latter meaning "high-heeled."
Perhaps it may signify also "fenestrated, or open-worked like a
window." So "poules" or windows cut in the upper leathers of his
shoes. Chaucer, The Miller's Tale.
[FN#114] "Mayzar," in Pers. = a turband: in Arab. "Miizar" = a
girdle; a waistcloth.
[FN#115] Arab. "Kaus al-Bundúk" (or Banduk) a pellet-bow, the
Italian arcobugio, the English arquebuse; for which see vol. i.
10. Usually the "Kís" is the Giberne or pellet-bag; but here it
is the bow-cover. Gauttier notes (vii. 131):--Bondouk signifie en
Arabe harquebuse, Albondoukani signifie l'arquebusier; c'était
comme on le voit, le mot d'ordre dit Khalyfe. He supposes, then,
that firelocks were known in the days of Harun al-Rashid (A.D.
786-809). Al-Bundukáni = the cross-bow man, or rather the man of
the pellet-bow was, according to the Ráwí, the name by which the
Caliph was known in this disguise. Al-Zahir Baybars al-
Bundukdárí, the fourth Baharite Soldan (A.D. 1260-77), was so
entitled because he had been a slave to a Bundukdár, an officer
who may be called the Grand Master of Artillery. In Chavis and
Cazotte the Caliph arms himself with a spear, takes a bow and
arrow (instead of the pellet-bow that named him), disguises his
complexion, dyes beard and eyebrows, dons a large coarse turband,
a buff waistcoat with a broad leathern belt, a short robe of
common stuff and half-boots of strong coarse leather, and thus
"assumes the garb of an Arab from the desert." (!)
[FN#116] See vol. i. 266.
[FN#117] i.e. by the Archangel Gabriel.
[FN#118] Arab. "Habbah" = a grain (of barley, etc.), an obolus, a
mite: it is also used for a gold bead in the shape of a cube
forming part of the Egyptian woman's headdress (Lane M.E.,
Appendix A). As a weight it is the 48th of a dirham, the third of
a kírát (carat) or 127/128 of an English grain, avoir.
[FN#119] In text "Mahmá" = as often as = kullu-má. This is the
eleventh question of the twelve in Al-Hariri, Ass. xxiv., and the
sixth of Ass. xxxvi. The former runs, "What is the noun (kullu-
má) which gives no sense except by the addition thereto of two
words, or the shortening thereof to two letters (i.e. má); and in
the first case there is adhesion and in the second compulsion?"
(Chenery, pp. 246-253).
[FN#120] In Chavis and Cazotte he looks through the key-hole
which an Eastern key does not permit, the holes being in the
bolt. See Index, Suppl. vol. v.
[FN#121] In text "Kábal-ki," which I suspect to be a clerical
error for "Kátal-ki" = Allah strike thee dead. See vol. iv. 264,
265. [One of the meanings of "Mukábalah," the third form of
"kabila," is "requital," "retaliation." The words in the text
could therefore be translated: "may God requite thee."--ST.]
[FN#122] In Chavis and Cazotte she swears "by the name of God
which is written on our Great
Prophet's forehead."
[FN#123] Arab. "Yá Luss"; for this word = the Gr. {Greek}; see
Suppl. vol. v. index.
[FN#124] "Al-Nátúr," the keeper, esp. of a vineyard, a word
naturalized in Persian. The Caliph asks, Is this a bon> fide
affair and hast thou the power to settle the matter definitely?
M. Houdas translates as Les raisins sont-ils à toi, ou bien es-tu
seulement la gardienne de la vigne? [The verb záraba, 3rd form,
followed by the accusative, means "to join one in partnership."
The sense of the passage seems therefore to be: Dost thou own
grapes thyself, or art thou ("tuzáribí," 2 fem. sing.) in
partnership with the vineyard-keeper. The word may be chosen
because it admits of another interpretation, the double entendre
of which might be kept up in English by using the expression
"sleeping" partnership. Perhaps, however, "tuzáribí" means here
simply: "Dost thou play the part of."--ST.]
[FN#125] The innuendo is intelligible and I may draw attention to
the humorous skill with which the mother-in-law's character is
drawn.
[FN#126] In text "Aská-hu 'alakah" = gave him a good sound
drubbing ('alakah), as a robber would apply to a Judge had he the
power.
[FN#127] Lest he happen to meet an unveiled woman on the stairs;
the usual precaution is to cry "Dastúr!" by your leave (Persian).
[FN#128] Arab. "Khayr"--a word of good omen.
[FN#129] In Chavis and Cazotte the mother gives her daughter's
name as Zutulbé (?) and her own Lelamain (?).
[FN#130] In text "Waliyah" or "Waliyáh" = and why?
[FN#131] The "Wronged" (Al-Mazlúm) refers to the Caliph who was
being abused and to his coming career as a son-in-law. Gauttier,
who translates the tale very perfunctorily, has Dieu protège les
malheureux et les orphelins (vii. 133).
[FN#132] This again is intended to show the masterful nature of
the Caliph, and would be as much admired by the average coffee-
house audience as it would stir the bile of the free and
independent Briton.
[FN#133] The "Street of the Copperas-maker": the name, as usual,
does not appear till further on in the tale.
[FN#134] In text "Rukhám" = marble or alabaster, here used for
building material: so "Murakhkhim" = a marble-cutter, means
simply a stone-mason. I may here note the rediscovery of the
porphyry quarries in Middle Egypt, and the gypsum a little inland
of Ras Gharíb to the West of the Suez Gulf. Both were much used
by the old Egyptians, and we may now fairly expect to rediscover
the lost sites, about Tunis and elsewhere in Northern Africa,
whence Rosso antico and other fine stones were quarried.
[FN#135] Arab. "Al-Hásil" also meaning the taxes, the revenue.
[FN#136] In text "Ká'ah" = a saloon: see vols. i. 85; i. 292; and
vii. 167.
[FN#137] In the sing. "Sikálah."
[FN#138] The Jinn here was Curiosity, said to be a familiar of
the sex feminine, but certainly not less intimate with "the
opposite."
[FN#139] In text "Kinnab" which M. Houdas translates étoupe que
l'on fixe an bout d'un roseau pour blanchir les murs.
[FN#140] Impossible here not to see a sly hit at the Caliph and
the Caliphate.
[FN#141] The writer has omitted this incident which occurs in
Chavis and Cazotte.
[FN#142] In the text, "Samd" = carpets and pots and pans.
[FN#143] The Katá grouse (Tetrao alchata seu arenarius of Linn.)
has often been noticed by me in Pilg. I. 226 (where my indexer
called it "sand goose") and in The Nights (vols. i. 131; iv.
111). De Sacy (Chrestom. Arab. iii pp. 416, 507-509) offers a
good literary account of it: of course he cannot speak from
personal experience. He begins with the Ajáib al-Makhlúkát by Al-
Kazwini (ob. A.H. 674 = A.D. 1274) who tells us that the bird
builds in the desert a very small nest (whence the Hadís, "Whoso
shall build to Allah a mosque, be it only the bigness of a Katá's
nest, the Lord shall edify for him a palace in Paradise"); that
it abandons its eggs which are sometimes buried in sand, and
presently returns to them (hence the saying, "A better guide than
the Katá"); that it watches at night (?) and that it frequents
highways to reconnoitre travellers (? ?), an interpretation
confirmed by the Persian translator. Its short and graceful steps
gave rise to the saying, "She hath the gait of a Katá," and makes
De Sacy confound the bird with the Pers. Káhú or Kabk-i-dari
(partridge of the valley), which is simply the francolin, the
Ital. francolino, a perdrix. The latter in Arab. Is "Durráj" (Al-
Mas'udi, vii. 347): see an affecting story connected with it in
the Suppl. Nights (ii. 4O-43). In the xxiiid Ass. of Al-Hariri
the sagacity of the Katá is alluded to, "I crossed rocky places,
to which the Katá would not find its way." See also Ass. viii.
But Mr. Chenery repeats a mistake when he says (p. 339) that the
bird is "never found save where there is good pasturage and
water:" it haunts the wildest parts of Sind and Arabia, although
it seldom strays further than 60 miles from water which it must
drink every evening. I have never shot the Katá since he saved my
party from a death by thirst on a return-ride from Harar (First
Footsteps in E. Africa, p. 388). The bird is very swift, with a
skurrying flight like a frightened Pigeon; and it comes to water
regularly about dusk when it is easily "potted."
[FN#144] In text "Samman" for "Sammán": Dozy gives the form
"Summun" (Hondas). The literary name is "Salwà."
[FN#145] For Wali (at one time a Civil Governor and in other ages
a Master of Police) see vol. i. 259.
[FN#146] Prob. a corruption of the Pers. "Názuk," adj. delicate,
nice.
[FN#147] In text "Jaftáwát," which is, I presume, the Arab. plur.
of the Turk. "Chifút" a Jew, a mean fellow. M. Hondas refers to
Dozy s.v. "Jaftáh." [The Turkish word referred to by Dozy is
"Chifte" from the Persian "Juft" = a pair, any two things coupled
together. "Mashá'ilíyah jaftáwát wa fánúsín" in the text would
therefore be "(cresset-) bearers of double torches and lanterns,"
where the plural fánúsín is remarkable as a vulgarism, instead of
the Dictionary form "Fawánís."--ST.]
[FN#148] So in Chavis and Cazotte: Gauttier and Heron prefer
(vol. i. 38) "Chamama." They add, "That dæmon incarnate gave out
himself that Satan was his father and the devil Camos (?) his
brother." The Arab word is connected with shamma = he smelt, and
suggests the policeman smoking plots.
[FN#149] i.e. concealing the secret sins of the people. This
sketch of the cad policeman will find many an original in the
London force, if the small householder speak the truth.
[FN#150] Qui n'ait un point de contact aver l'une de ces
catégories--(Houdas).
[FN#151] In the old translations "The Hazen" (Kházin =
treasurer?) which wholly abolishes the double entendre.
[FN#152] In text "Darbisí al-báb" from the Persian, "Dar bastan"
= to tie up, to shut.
[FN#153] In text "Ghaush" for "Ghaushah" = noise, row.
[FN#154] "Akkál bula'hu" i.e. commit all manner of abominations.
"To eat skite" is to talk or act foolishly.
[FN#155] In the old translations "Ilamir Youmis."
[FN#156] In text "Dabbús bazdaghání," which I have translated as
if from the Pers. "Bazdagh"
= a file. But it may be a clerical error for "Bardawáni," the
well-known city in Hindostan whose iron was famous.
[FN#157] "Nahs" means something more than ill-omened, something
nasty, foul, uncanny: see vol. i. 301.
[FN#158] In Chavis, Heron and Co. there are two ladders to scale
the garden wall and descend upon the house-terrace which
apparently they do not understand to be the roof.
[FN#159] Arab. "Al-Káfi'ah" = garde-fou, rebord d'une terrasse--
(Houdas).
[FN#160] Our vulgar "Houri": see vols. i. 90; iii. 233. There are
many meanings of Hawar; one defines it as intense darkness of the
black of the eye and corresponding whiteness; another that it is
all which appears of the eye (as in the gazelle) meaning that the
blackness is so large as to exclude the whiteness; whilst a third
defines "Haurá" as a woman beautiful in the "Mahájir" (parts
below and around the eyes which show when the face is veiled),
and a fourth as one whose whiteness of eye appears in contrast
with the black of the Kohl-Powder. See Chenery's Al-Hariri, pp.
354-55.
[FN#161] Arab. "Zalamah" = tyrants, oppressors (police and
employés): see vols. i. 273, and vi. 214.
[FN#162] In text "Kunná nu'tíhu li-ahad" = we should have given
him to someone; which makes very poor sense. [The whole passage
runs: "Házá allazí kasam alláh bi-hi fa-lau kána rajul jayyid
ghayr luss kunná nu'tí-hu li-ahad," which I would translate: This
is he concerning whom Allah decreed (that he should be my
portion, swearing:) "and if he were a good man and no thief we
would have bestowed him on someone." In "kasama" the three ideas
of decreeing, giving as a share, and binding one's self by oath
are blended together. If it should appear out of place to
introduce Divinity itself as speaking in this context, we must
not forget that the person spoken of is no less illustrious
individual than Harun al-Rashíd, and that a decidedly satirical
and humorous vein runs through the whole tale. Moreover, I doubt
that "li-ahad" could be used as equivalent for "li-ghayrí," "to
some other than myself," while it frequently occurs in the
emphatic sense of "one who is somebody, a person of consequence."
The damsel and her mother, on the other hand, allude repeatedly
to the state of utter helplessness in which they find themselves
in default of their natural protector, and which has reduced them
from an exalted station to the condition of nobodies. I speak, of
course, here as elsewhere, "under correction."--ST.]
[FN#163] In text "Hmsh." The Dicts. give Himmas and Himmis, forms
never heard, and Forsk. (Flora Ægypt.-Arab. p. lxxi.) "Homos,"
also unknown. The vulg. pron. is, "Hummus" or as Lane (M.E.
chapt. v.) has it "Hommus" (chick-peas). The word applies to the
pea, while "Malán" is the plant in pod. It is the cicer arietinum
concerning which a classical tale is told. "Cicero (pron. Kikero)
was a poor scholar in the University of Athens, wherewith his
enemies in Rome used to reproach him, and as he passed through
the streets would call out 'O Cicer, Cicer, O,' a word still used
in Cambridge, and answers to a Servitor in Oxford." Quaint this
approximation between "Cicer" the vetch and "Sizar" which comes
from "size" = rations, the Oxford "battel."
[FN#164] Arab. "Yulakkimu," from "Lukmah" = a mouthful: see vols.
i. 266; vii. 367.
[FN#165] Arab. "Jarazat Kuzbán" (plur. or "Kazíb," see vol. ii.
66) = long and slender sticks.
[FN#166] i.e. a witch; see vol. viii. 131.
[FN#167] So in the phrase "Otbah hath the colic," first said
concerning Otbah b. Rabí'a by Abú Jahl when the former advised
not marching upon Badr to attack Mohammed. Tabari, vol. ii. 491.
[FN#168] Compare the French "Brr!"
[FN#169] i.e. to whom thou owest a debt of apology or excuse,
"Gharím" = debtor or creditor.
[FN#170] Arab. "Juráb al-'uddah," i.e. the manacles, fetters,
etc.
[FN#171] The following three sentences are taken from the margin
of (MS.) p. 257, and evidently belong to this place.
[FN#172] In text "Bghb" evidently for "Baght" or preferably
"Baghtatan."
[FN#173] This is a twice-told tale whose telling I have lightened
a little without omitting any important detail. Gauttier reduces
the ending of the history to less than five pages.
[FN#174] The normal idiom for "I accept."
[FN#175] In text Khila't dakk al-Matrakah," which I have rendered
literally: it seems to signify an especial kind of brocade.
[FN#176] The Court of Baghdad was, like the Urdú (Horde or Court)
of the "Grand Mogul," organised after the ordinance of an army in
the field, with its centre, the Sovran, and two wings right and
left, each with its own Wazir for Commander, and its vanguard and
rearguard.
[FN#177] Being the only son he had a voice in the disposal of his
sister. The mother was the Kabírah = head of the household, in
Marocco Al-Sídah = Madame mère; but she could not interfere
single-handed in affairs concerning the family. See Pilgrimage,
vol. iii. 198. Throughout Al-Islam in default of a father the
eldest brother gives away the sisters, and if there be no brother
this is done by the nearest male relation on the "sword" side.
The mother has no authority in such matters nor indeed has anyone
on the "spindle" side.
[FN#178] Alluding to the Wali and his men.
[FN#179] Arab. "Kunyah" (the pop. mispronunciation of "Kinyah")
is not used here with strict correctness. It is a fore-name or
bye-name generally taken from the favourite son, Abú (father of)
being prefixed. When names are written in full it begins the
string, e.g., Abu Mohammed (fore-name), Kásim (true name), ibn
Ali (father's name), ibn Mohammed (grandfather's), ibn Osman
(great-grandfather), Al-Hariri (= the Silkman from the craft of
the family), Al-Basri (of Bassorah). There is also the "Lakab"
(sobriquet), e.g. Al-Bundukání or Badí'u'l-Zamán (Rarity of the
Age), which may be placed either before or after the "Kunyah"
when the latter is used alone. Chenery (Al-Hariri, p.315)
confines the "Kunyah" to fore-names beginning with Abú; but it
also applies to those formed with Umm (mother), Ibn (son), Bint
(daughter), Akh (brother) and Ukht (sister). See vol. iv. 287. It
is considered friendly and graceful to address a Moslem by this
bye-name.
-Gaudent prænomine molles Auriculæ.
[FN#180] In text "Yá Kawákí," which M. Houdas translates "O
piailleur," remarking that here it would be = poule mouillée.
[FN#181] "'Alakah khárijah" = an extraordinary drubbing.
[FN#182] In text "Ij'alní fí kll," the latter word being
probably, as M. Houdas suggests, a clerical error for "Kal-a" or
"Kiláa" = safety, protection.
[FN#183] I am surprised that so learned and practical an Arabist
as the Baron de Slane in his Fr. translation of Ibn Khaldún
should render le surnom d'Er-Rechid (le prudent), for "The
Rightly Directed," the Orthodox (vol. ii. 237), when (ibid. p.
259) he properly translates "Al-Khulafá al-rashidín" by Les
Califes qui marchent dans la voie droite.
[FN#184] MSS. pp. 476-504. This tale is laid down on the same
lines as "Abú al-Husn and his Slave-girl Tawaddud," vol. vi. 189.
It is carefully avoided by Scott, C. de Perceval, Gauttier, etc.
[FN#185] Lit. an interpreter woman; the word is the fem. of
Tarjumán, a dragoman whom Mr. Curtis calls a Drag o' men; see
vol. i. 100. It has changed wonderfully on its way from its
"Semitic" home to Europe which has naturalised it as Drogman,
Truchman and Dolmetsch.
[FN#186] For this word of many senses, see vols. i. 231; ix.
221. M. Caussin de Perceval (viii. 16), quoting d'Herbelot
(s.v.), notes that the Abbasides thus entitled the chief guardian
of the Harem.
[FN#187] See vols. iv. 100; viii. 268. In his Introduction (p.
22) to the Assemblies of Al-Hariri Chenery says, "This prosperity
had now passed away, for God had brought the people of Rum (so
the Arabs call the Byzantines, whom Abú Zayd here confounds with
the Franks) on the land," etc. The confusion is not Abu Zayd's:
"Rumí" in Marocco and other archaic parts of the Moslem world is
still synonymous with our "European."
[FN#188] This obedience to children is common in Eastern
folk-lore: see Suppl. vol. i. 143, in which the royal father
orders his son to sell him. The underlying idea is that the
parents find their offspring too clever for them; not, as in the
"New World," that Youth is entitled to take precedence and
command of Age.
[FN#189] In text "Fa min tumma" for "thumma"--then, alors.
[FN#190] Such as the headstall and hobbles the cords and chains
for binding captives, and the mace and sword hanging to the
saddle-bow.
[FN#191] i.e. not a well-known or distinguished horseman, but a
chance rider.
[FN#192] These "letters of Mutalammis," as Arabs term our
Litteræ Bellerophonteæ, or "Uriah's letters," are a lieu commun
in the East and the Prince was in luck when he opened and read
the epistle here given by mistake to the wrong man. Mutalammis,
a poet of The Ignorance, had this sobriquet (the "frequent
asker," or, as we should say, the Solicitor-General), his name
being Jarír bin 'Abd al-Masíh. He was uncle to Tarafah of the
Mu'-allakah or prize poem, a type of the witty dissolute bard of
the jovial period before Al-Islam arose to cloud and dull man's
life. One day as he was playing with other children Mutalammis
was reciting a panegyric upon his favourite camel, which ran:--
I mount a he-camel, dark-red and firm-fleshed; or a she-camel of
Himyar, fleet of foot and driving the pebbles with her crushing
hooves.
"See the he-camel turned to a she," cried the boy, and the phrase
became proverbial to express inelegant transition (Arab. Prov.
ii. 246). The uncle bade his nephew put out his tongue and
seeing it dark-coloured said, "That black tongue will be thy
ruin!" Tarafah, who was presently entitled Ibn al-'Ishrin (the
son of twenty years), grew up a model reprobate who cared nothing
save for three things, "to drink the dark-red wine foaming as the
water mixeth with it, to urge into the fight a broad-backed
steed, and to while away the dull day with a young beauty." His
apology for wilful waste is highly poetic:--
I see that the grave of the careful, the hoarder, differeth not
from the grave of the debauched, the spendthrift:
A hillock of earth covers this and that, with a few flat stones
laid together thereon.
See the whole piece in Chenery's Al-Hariri (p. 360), from which
this note is borrowed. At last uncle and nephew fled from ruin
to the Court of 'Amrú bin Munzír III., King of Hira, who in the
tale of Al-Mutalammis and his wife Umaymah (The Nights, vol. v.
74) is called Al-Nu'umán bin Munzir but is better known as 'Amrú
bin Hind (his mother). The King, who was a derocious personage
nicknamed Al-Muharrik or the Burner, because he had thrown into
the fire ninety-nine men and one woman of the Tamím tribe in
accordance with a vow of vengeance he had taken to slaughter a
full century, made the two strangers boon-companions to his
boorish brother Kábús. Tarafah, offended because kept at the
tent-door whilst the master drank wine within, bitterly lampooned
him together with 'Abd Amrú a friend of the King; and when this
was reported his death was determined upon. Amrú, the King,
seeing the anxiety of the two poets to quit his Court, offered
them letters of introduction to Abú Kárib, Governor of Al-Hajar
(Bahrayn) under the Persian King and they were accepted. The
uncle caused his letter to be read by a youth, and finding that
it was an order for his execution destroyed it and fled to Syria;
but the nephew was buried alive. Amrú, the King, was afterwards
slain by the poet-warrior, Amrú bin Kulthum, also of the
"Mu'allakát," for an insult offered to his mother by Hind: hence
the proverb, "Quicker to slay than 'Amrú bin Kulsum" (A.P. ii.
233).
[FN#193] See vols. i. 192; iii. 14; these correspond with the
"Stathmoi," Stationes, Mansiones or Castra of Herodotus, Terps.
cap. 53, and Xenophon. An. i. 2, 10.
[FN#194] In text "Ittiká" viiith of waká: the form "Takwà" is
generally used = fearing God, whereby one guards oneself from sin
in this life and from retribution in the world to come.
[FN#195] This series of puzzling questions and clever replies is
still as favourite a mental exercise in the East as it was in
middle-aged Europe. The riddle or conundrum began, as far as we
know, with the Sphinx, through whose mouth the Greeks spoke:
nothing less likely than that the grave and mysterious Scribes of
Egypt should ascribe aught so puerile to the awful emblem of
royal majesty--Abu Haul, the Father of Affright. Josephus
relates how Solomon propounded enigmas to Hiram of Tyre which
none but Abdimus, son of the captive Abdæmon, could answer. The
Tale of Tawaddud offers fair specimens of such exercises, which
were not disdained by the most learned of Arabian writers. See
Al-Hariri's Ass. xxiv, which proposes twelve enigmas involving
abstruse and technical points of Arabic, such as: "What be the
word, which as ye will is a particle beloved, or the name of that
which compriseth the slender-waisted milch camel!" Na'am = "Yes"
or "cattle," the latter word containing the Harf, or slender
camel. Chenery, p. 246.
[FN#196] For the sundry meanings and significance of "Salám,"
here=Heaven's blessing, see vols. ii. 24, vi. 232.
[FN#197] This is the nursery version of the Exodus, old as
Josephus and St. Jerome, and completely changed by the light of
modern learning. The Children of Israel quitted their homes
about Memphis (as if a large horde of half-nomadic shepherds
would be suffered in the richest and most crowded home of Egypt).
They marched by the Wady Músà that debouches upon the Gulf of
Suez a short way below the port now temporarily ruined by its own
folly and the ill-will of M. de Lesseps; and they made the "Sea
of Sedge" (Suez Gulf) through the valley bounded by what is still
called Jabal 'Atákah, the Mountain of Deliverance, and its
parallel range, Abu Durayj (of small steps). Here the waters
were opened and the host passed over to the "Wells of Moses,"
erstwhile a popular picnic place on the Arabian side; but
according to one local legend (for which see my Pilgrimage, i.
294-97) they crossed the sea north of Túr, the spot being still
called "Birkat Far'aun"=Pharoah's Pool. Such also is the modern
legend amongst the Arabs, who learned their lesson from the
Christians (not the Jews) in the days when the Copts and the
Greeks (ivth century) invented "Mount Sinai." And the reader
will do well to remember that the native annalists of Ancient
Egypt, which conscientiously relate all her defeats and
subjugations by the Ethiopians, Persians, etc., utterly ignore
the very name of Hebrew, Sons of Israel, etc.
I cannot conceal my astonishment at finding a specialist journal
like the "Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund"
(Oct., 1887) admitting such a paper as that entitled "The Exode,"
by R. F. Hutchinson, M.D. For this writer the labours of the
last half-century are non-existing. Job is still the "oldest
book" in the world. The Rev. Charles Forster's absurdity,
"Israel in the wilderness," gives valuable assistance. Goshen is
Mr. Chester's Tell Fakús (not, however, far wrong in this)
instead of the long depression by the Copts still called "Gesem"
or "Gesemeh," the frontier-land through which the middle course
of the Suez Canal runs. "Succoth," tabernacles, is confounded
with the Arab. "Sakf" = a roof. Letopolis, the "key of the
Exode," and identified with the site where Babylon (Old Cairo)
was afterwards built, is placed on the right instead of the left
bank of the Nile. "Bahr Kulzum" is the "Sea of the
Swallowing-up," in lieu of The Closing. El-Tíh, "the wandering,"
is identified with Wady Musa to the west of the Suez Gulf. And
so forth. What could the able Editor have been doing?
Students of this still disputed question will consult "The Shrine
of Saft el-Henneh and the Land of Goschen," by Edouard Naville,
fifth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Published by order
of the Committee. London, Trübner, 1837.
[FN#198] Eastern fable runs wild upon this subject, and indeed a
larger volume could be written upon the birth, life and death of
Moses' and Aaron's rods. There is a host of legends concerning
the place where the former was cut and whence it descended to the
Prophet whose shepherd's staff was the glorification of his
pastoral life (the rod being its symbol) and of his future career
as a ruler (and flogger) of men. In Exodus (viii. 3-10), when a
miracle was required of the brothers, Aaron's rod became a
"serpent" (A.V.) or, as some prefer, a "crocodile," an animal
worshipped by certain of the Egyptians; and when the King's
magicians followed suit it swallowed up all others. Its next
exploit was to turn the Nile and other waters of Egypt into blood
(Exod. vii. 17). The third wonder was worked by Moses' staff,
the dividing of the Red Sea (read the Sea of Sedge or papyrus,
which could never have grown in the brine of the Suez Gulf)
according to the command, "Lift thou up thy rod and stretch out
thine hand over the sea," etc. (Exod. xiv. 15). The fourth
adventure was when the rod, wherewith Moses smote the river,
struck two blows on the rock in Horeb and caused water to come
out of it (Numb. xxi. 8). Lastly the rod (this time again
Aaron's) "budded and brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms and
yielded almonds" (Numb. xvii. 7); thus becoming a testimony
against the rebels: hence it was set in the Holiest of the
Tabernacles (Heb. ix. 14) as a lasting memorial. I have
described (Pilgrim. i. 301) the mark of Moses' rod at the little
Hammam behind the old Phoenician colony of Tur, in the miscalled
"Sinaitic" Peninsula: it is large enough to act mainmast for a
ship. The end of the rod or rods is unknown: it died when its
work was done, and like many other things, holy and unholy, which
would be priceless, e.g., the true Cross or Pilate's sword, it
remains only as a memory around which a host of grotesque
superstitions have grouped themselves.
[FN#199] In this word "Hayy" the Arab. and Heb. have the
advantage of our English: it means either serpent or living,
alive.
[FN#200] It is nowhere said in Hebrew Holy Writ that "Pharaoh,"
whoever he may have been, was drowned in the "Red Sea."
[FN#201] Arab. "Kaml." The Koranic legend of the Ant has, I
repeat, been charmingly commented upon by Edwin Arnold in
"Solomon and the Ant" (p.i., Pearls of the Faith). It seems to
be a Talmudic exaggeration of the implied praise in Prov. vi. 6
and xxx. 25, "The ants are a people nto strong, yet they prepare
their meat in the summer" which, by the by, proves that the Wise
King could be caught tripping in his natural history, and that
they did not know everything down in Judee.
[FN#202] Isá, according to the Moslems, was so far like Adam
(Koran iii. 52) that he was not begotten in the normal way: in
fact his was a miraculous conception. See vol. v. 238.
[FN#203] For Elias, Elijah, or Khizr, a marvellous legendary
figure, see vols. iv. 175; v. 334. The worship of Helios
(Apollo) is not extinct in mod. Greece where it survives under
the name of Elias. So Dionysus has become St. Dionysius; Bacchus
the Drunken, St. George; and Artemis, St. Artemides the healer of
childhood.
[FN#204] Gesenius interprets it "Soldier of God"; the bye-name
given to Jacob presently became the national name of the Twelve
Tribes collectively; then it narrowed to the tribe of Judah;
afterwards it became = laymen as opposed to Levites, etc., and in
these days it is a polite synonym for Jew. When you want
anything from any of the (self-) Chosen People you speak of him
as an Israelite; when he wants anything of you, you call him a
Jew, or a damned Jew, as the case may be.
[FN#205] I am not aware that there is any general history of the
bell, beginning with the rattle, the gong and other primitive
forms of the article; but the subject seems worthy of a
monograph. In Hebrew Writ the bell first appears in Exod.
xxviii. 33 as a fringe to the Ephod of the High Priest that its
tinkling might save him from intruding unwarned into the bodily
presence of the tribal God, Jehovah.
[FN#206] Gennesaret (Chinnereth, Cinneroth), where, according to
some Moslems, the Solomon was buried.
[FN#207] I cannot explain this legend.
[FN#208] So the old English rhyme, produced for quite another
purpose by Sir John Bull in "Wat Tyler's Rebellion" (Hume, Hist.
of Eng., vol. i. chapt. 17):--
"When Adam dolve and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"