Kurnas, a pimp, a cuckold, and introduced by way of chaff,
intelligible only to a select few “fast men.”
Footnote 216:
For the name see vol. i. 61, in the Tale of Ghánim bin ’Ayyúb where
the Caliph’s concubine is also drugged by the Lady Zubaydah.
Footnote 217:
We should say, “What is this?” etc. The lines have occurred before so
I quote Mr. Payne.
Footnote 218:
Zubaydah, I have said, was the daughter of Ja’afar, son of the Caliph
al-Mansur, second Abbaside. The story-teller persistently calls her
daughter of Al-Kásim for some reason of his own; and this he will
repeat in Night dcccxxxix.
Footnote 219:
Arab. “Shakhs,” a word which has travelled as far as Hindostan.
Footnote 220:
Arab. “Shamlah” described in dictionaries, as a cloak covering the
whole body. For Hizám (girdle) the Bresl. Edit. reads “Hirám” vulg.
“Ehrám,” the waistcloth, the Pilgrim’s attire.
Footnote 221:
He is described by Al-Siyúti (p. 309) as “very fair, tall, handsome
and of captivating appearance.”
Footnote 222:
Arab. “Uzn al-Kuffah” lit. “Ear of the basket,” which vulgar Egyptian
pronounce “Wizn,” so “Wajh” (face) becomes “Wishsh” and so forth.
Footnote 223:
Arab. Bi-fardayn = with two baskets, lit. “two singles,” but the
context shows what is meant. English Frail and French _Fraile_ are
from Arab. “Farsalah” a parcel (now esp. of coffee-beans) evidently
derived from the low Lat. “Parcella” (Du Cange, Paris, Firmin Didot,
1845). Compare “ream,” vol. v. 109.
Footnote 224:
Arab. Sátúr, a kind of chopper which here would be used for the
purpose of splitting and cleaning and scaling the fish.
Footnote 225:
And, consequently, that the prayer he is about to make will find ready
acceptance.
Footnote 226:
Arab. “Ruh bilá Fuzúl” (lit. excess, exceeding) still a popular
phrase.
Footnote 227:
_i.e._ better give the fish than have my head broken.
Footnote 228:
Said ironicè, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day
began badly and threatened to end unluckily.
Footnote 229:
The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. 274.
Footnote 230:
This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be
admired wherever Arabs are not “frankified.”
Footnote 231:
Arab. “Shibábah;” Lane makes it a kind of reed-flageolet.
Footnote 232:
These lines occur in vol. i. 76; I quote Mr. Payne.
Footnote 233:
The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar
and going to church.
Footnote 234:
Arab. “Yá Shukayr,” from Shakar, being red (clay etc.): Shukár is an
anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim. form. Lane’s Shaykh made it
a dim. of “Ashkar” = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former
writes, “O Shukeyr.” Mr. Payne prefers “O Rosy cheeks.”
Footnote 235:
For “Sandal,” see vol. ii. 50. Sandalí properly means an Eunuch clean
_rasé_, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandal-wood.
Footnote 236:
Arab. “Yá mumátil,” one who retards payment.
Footnote 237:
Arab. “Kirsh al-Nukhál” = Guts of bran, a term little fitted for the
handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a
Fellah-_grazioso_ of normal assurance shrewd withal; he blunders like
an Irishman of the last generation and he uses the first epithet that
comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii. for the sudden change in
Khalifah.
Footnote 238:
So the Persian “May your shadow never be less” means, I have said, the
shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade, cold water and fresh
breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.
Footnote 239:
When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the Government of Egypt, he
was at once imprisoned for arrears of taxes and thus prevented from
being troublesome. I am told that matters have improved under English
rule, but I “doubt the fact.”
Footnote 240:
This freak is of course not historical. The tale-teller introduces it
to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun al-Rashid, and the vulgar
would regard it as a right kingly diversion. Westerns only wonder that
such things could be.
Footnote 241:
Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage ii. 248.
Footnote 242:
First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abú Tálib, a brother of Al-Abbás
from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.
Footnote 243:
_i.e._ I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell
me.
Footnote 244:
Arab. “Nákhúzah Zulayt.” The former, from the Persian Nákhodá or
ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense “a godless wight,”
one owning no (ná) God (Khudá). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.
Footnote 245:
Yásamín and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.
Footnote 246:
Arab. Tamar-hanná, the cheapest of dyes used ever by the poorest
classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is
prized like that of the tea-rose.
Footnote 247:
The formula (meaning, “What has he to do here?”) is by no means
complimentary.
Footnote 248:
Arab. “Jarrah” (pron. “Garrah”) a “jar.” See Lane (M. E. chapt. v.)
who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial
notices. The “Jarrah” is of pottery, whereas the “Dist” is a large
copper chauldron and the Khalkínah one of lesser size.
Footnote 249:
_i.e._ What a bother thou art, etc.
Footnote 250:
This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and
unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of
their distinguished men, especially students. A youth cannot master
his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and after
repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his
studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an Allámah
(doctissimus).
Footnote 251:
Arab. “Bismillah, Námí!” here it is not a blessing but a simple
invitation, “Now please go to sleep.”
Footnote 252:
The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the
wooden palette with writing reeds. See an illustration of that of
“Amásis, the good god and lord of the two lands” (circ. B.C. 1350) in
British Museum (p. 41, “The Dwellers on the Nile,” by E. A. Wallis
Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).
Footnote 253:
This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of
inverted speech—Thou art in luck this time!
Footnote 254:
Arab. Marhúb = terrible: Lane reads Mar’úb = terrified. But the former
may also mean, threatened with something terrible.
Footnote 255:
_i.e._ in Kut al-Kulúb.
Footnote 256:
Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, _i.e._ Mohammed.
Footnote 257:
In the text he tells the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the
hundred dinars, the chest, etc.; but—“of no avail is a twice-told
tale.”
Footnote 258:
Koran xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic
formula, omitting the normal copulatives.
Footnote 259:
Easterns find it far easier to “get the chill of poverty out of their
bones” than Westerns.
Footnote 260:
Arab. “Dar al-Na’ím.” Name of one of the seven stages of the Moslem
heaven. This style of inscription dates from the days of the
hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of Raamses ends with
these lines:—
Daily is there a supply of food:
Within it gladness doth ever brood
* * * * *
Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc., etc.
Footnote 261:
Arab. Ansár = auxiliaries, the men of Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 130,
etc.).
Footnote 262:
Arab. Asháb = the companions of the Prophet who may number 500
(Pilgrimage ii. 81, etc.).
* * * * *
NOTE. I have followed the example of Mr. Payne and have translated
in its entirety the Tale of Khalifah the Fisherman from the Breslau
Edit. (Vol. iv. pp. 315–365, Night cccxxi-cccxxxii.) in preference
to the unsatisfactory process of amalgamating it with that of the
Mac. Edit. given above.
KHALIF THE FISHERMAN OF BAGHDAD.