xviii. 8–9; Mark ix. 43–47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St.
Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his
wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained
from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself
after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly
excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D.
250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and
dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the
spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first
appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two
Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former
was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna
and is called by the chronicles Nawjè or the Corpse. But in the
early part of the last century (1715–1733) a sect arose in the
circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or
flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this
extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift für Ethn. Berlin,
1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.
[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious
“Dead Sea” in the Purchas v. 84.
[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying
men instead of teaching them better. But, “Nous faisons les Dieux
à notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur
la terre.” The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the
Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at
Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.
[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarát al-Ashará, a
clump of trees near the village Al-Ghájar (of the Gypsies?) at
the foot of Hermon.
[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the
planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Müller and
Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn
and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic
Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have
proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the
west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the
Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.
[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of
Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metáwali heretics,
a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry
of “Bilád B’sharrah,” which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah,
still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the
Sayyidat al-Kabírah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them
of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they
suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt—the Lady’s tree—an
Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only
here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of
Kasrawán, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a
peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the
far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the
Kadashah of the Phnicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary “Handbooks,” but amply deserves the study
of the anthropologist.
[FN#395] Some commentators understand “the tabernacles sacred to
the reproductive powers of women;” and the Rabbis declare that
the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.
[FN#396] “Dog” is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and
the Catamite, and thus they understand the “price of a dog” which
could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have
noticed it in one of the derivations of cinædus and can only
remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.
[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some,
“King’s mother”: she founded the sect of Communists who rejected
marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their
splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians
followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the
Turlupins, long infested Savoy.
[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous
development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.
[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2–11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught
the “Art of le Thalaba” to his son Pan who wandered about the
mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed
it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.
[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the “he”
in Arabic poetry denotes a “she”; but the Arab, when
uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is
a Badawi.
[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the
masculine.
[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptæ, youths or
girls who wiped the gymnast’s perspiring body with swan-down, a
practice renewed by the professors of “Massage”; Unctores who
applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or
shampooers; Dropacistæ, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the
hair, etc., etc., etc.
[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect.
2, No. 1602):
The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of
jewelry;
The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar’s worth his lord,
Ali.
[FN#404] For “Sindí” Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99)
has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjábi peasant, and others vary the saying
ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.
[FN#405] See “Sind Revisited” i. 133–35.
[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs,
the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in
the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however
refused to undergo the operation.
[FN#407] Relation des découvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p.
137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci’s letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and
Paro’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains.
[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the Thèse de
Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, “Frictiones per coitum
productæ magnum mucosæ membranæ vaginalis turgorem, ac simul
hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quæritatam
afferunt.”
[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins
of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in
phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.
[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as
“counterfeit hair for women’s privy parts. See Bailey’s Dict.”
The Bailey of 1764, an “improved edition,” does not contain the
word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.
[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes
to Mr. Albert Tootle’s excellent translation of “The Captivity of
Hans Stade of Hesse:” London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.
[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes
200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct.
1873.
[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America,
by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.
[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were
probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraíbes) of the Brazil: they
will be noticed in page 211.
[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries,
a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.
[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.
[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.
[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.
[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.
[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Série de la Curiosité
Littéraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.
[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der
Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen
zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.
[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius
Arbiter, the “Larissa” story of Théophile Viand. His cousin, the
Sévigné, highly approved of it. See Bayle’s objections to
Rabutin’s delicacy and excuses for Petronius’ grossness in his
“Éclaircissement sur les obscénités” (Appendice au Dictionnaire
Antique).
[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle
for Boulgre, an “indorser,” derived from the Bulgarus or
Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo—liar. Bougre and
Bougrerie date (Littré) from the xiiith century. I cannot,
however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the
xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians
were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and
several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fête
in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de
Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three
hundred men (including fifty “Bugres” or Tupis) with parroquets
and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The
procession is given in the four-folding woodcut “Figure des
Brésiliens” in Jean de Prest’s Edition of 1551.
[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadésch (pp. 93 et seq.),
Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues
of Bordeaux, before noticed.
[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw
in the mouth, à la Palmerston.
[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly
paid and have given the reason.
[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to,
p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.
[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the
following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide
diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so
many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have
been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Cæsar and
Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law
which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with
the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii.,
Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland
and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i.,
xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the
Composer), D’Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Condé,
Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Vallière, De
Soleinne, Count D’Avaray, Saint Mégrin, D’Epernon, Admiral de la
Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the
Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievée,
Théodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambacèrés, Marquis de
Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D’Orsay. For others refer to the
three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded
to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices
will supply the names.
[FN#429] Of this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii.
43), “There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their
character. Abú al-Atahíyah wrote pious poems himself being an
atheist; Abú Hukayma’s verses proved his impotence, yet he was
more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Házim praised
contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abú Nowás hymned
the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a
baboon.”
[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet
injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour
an author’s unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a
popular Review books which have been printed and not published is
hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of
literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper “The
Reviewer Reviewed” which will, amongst other things, explain the
motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the
Edinburgh.
[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of
Gladwin’s “Dissertations on Rhetoric,” etd., Calcutta, 1801.
[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife,
| to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for
worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to
love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it
becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose
style. In that delightful old French the Saj’a frequently
appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books:
e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.
[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration
(Ibn Khall. ii., 316).
[FN#434] He called himself “Nabiyun ummí” = illiterate prophet;
but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable
to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists,
were “Aatíní dawáta wa kalam” (bring me ink-case and pen); upon
which the Shi’ah or Persian sectaries base, not without
probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the
name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the
intention, exclaimed, “The Prophet is delirious; have we not the
Koran?” thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that
may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even
when not “under inspiration.” The vulgar idea would arise from a
pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.
[FN#435] I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was
taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical
who, “by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil,
discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the
antediluvian fathers.” Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius
(lib. ii ) relates how this Græco-Egyptian philosopher, passing
by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute
according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by
experiment that such was the case when different weights were
hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two
strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double
the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an
eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar
length and size, the one having four times the tension of the
other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are
Galileo’s discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan
Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook
which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.
[FN#436] To what an absurd point this has been carried we may
learn from Ibn Khallikán (i. 114). A poet addressing a single
individual does not say “My friend!” or “My friends!” but “My two
friends!” (in the dual) because a Badawi required a pair of
companions, one to tend the sheep and the other to pasture the
camels.
[FN#437] For further details concerning the Sabab, Watad and
Fasilah, see at the end of this Essay the learned remarks of Dr.
Steingass.
[FN#438] e.g., the Mu’allakats of “Amriolkais,” Tarafah and
Zuhayr compared by Mr. Lyall (Introduction to Translations) with
the metre of Abt Vogler, e.g.,
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told
[FN#439] e.g., the Poem of Hareth which often echoes the
hexameter
[FN#440] Gladwin, p. 80.
[FN#441] Gladwin (p. 77) gives only eight, omitting F ’ l which
he or his author probably considers the Muzáhaf, imperfect or
apocopêd form of F ’ l n, as M f ’ l of M f ’ l n. For the
infinite complications of Arabic prosody the Khafíf (soft
breathing) and Sahíh (hard breathing); the Sadr and Arúz (first
and last feet), the Ibtidá and Zarb (last foot of every line);
the Hashw (cushion-stuffing) or body part of verse, the ’Amúd
al-Kasídah or Al-Musammat (the strong) and other details I must
refer readers to such specialists as Freytag and Sam. Clarke
(Prosodia Arabica), and to Dr. Steingass’s notes infra.
[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied
their Arab cousins by turning Fa’la into Pael and so forth.
[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose “Ancient Arabic Poetry” (Williams and
Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, ’85, did the
absolute reverse of what is required: he preserved the metre and
sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself. For
instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier
than to write,
Ah sweet and soft wi’ thee her ways: bethink thee well! The day
shall be
When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain
and free;
And if she swear that parting ne’er shall break her word of
constancy,
When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e’er
agree?
[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgär Dialekts von
Ægyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880. In pp.
489–493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawáwíl varying in length
from four to fifteen lines. The assonance mostly attempts
monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not
disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.
[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan. Our knowledge of
oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katáb al-Aghání
(Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfaháni who flourished A.H.
284–356 (= 897– 967): it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.
[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.
[FN#447] His Diwán has been published with a French translation,
par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.
[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imám Abu al-Hasan
al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob. A.D. 868; Ibn Makúla (murdered
in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob. A.D. 933)
Al-Zahr the Poet (ob. A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob. A.D.
989), Kábús ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012–13); Ibn
Nabatah the Poet (ob. A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa’ati (ob. A.D. 1028);
Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name
for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu’tasim ibn Sumadih (ob. A.D.
1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob. A.D. 1117); Ibn
Sara al-Shantaráni (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D.
1123; Ibn al-Kházin (ob. A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob. A D. 1172)
Ibn al-Ta’wizi (ob. A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabádah (ob. A.D. 1198), Bahá
al-Dín Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob. A.D.
1266) and sundry others. Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of
Ibn al-Sumám (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sáhib al-Ishbíli, of Seville
(vol. i. 100), are deficient. The most notable point in Arabic
verse is its savage satire, the language of excited
“destructiveness” which characterises the Badawi: he is “keen for
satire as a thirsty man for water:” and half his poetry seems to
consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal
abuse.
[FN#449] If the letter preceding Wáw or Yá is moved by Fathah,
they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in
“bout’” and se, pronounced as i in “bite.”
[FN#450] For the explanation of this name and those of the
following terms, see Terminal Essay, p. 225.
[FN#451] This Fásilah is more accurately called sughrá, the
smaller one, there is another Fásilah kubrà, the greater,
consisting of four moved letters followed by a quiescent, or of a
Sabab sakíl followed by a Watad majmú’. But it occurs only as a
variation of a normal foot, not as an integral element in its
composition, and consequently no mention of it was needed in the
text.
[FN#452] It is important to keep in mind that the seemingly
identical feet 10 and 6, 7 and 3, are distinguished by the
relative positions of the constituting elements in either pair.
For as it will be seen that Sabab and Watad are subject to
different kinds of alterations it is evident that the effect of
such alterations upon a foot will vary, if Sabab and Watad occupy
different places with regard to each other.
[FN#453] i.e. vertical to the circumference.
[FN#454] This would be a Fásilah kubrá spoken of in the note p.
239.
[FN#455] In pause that is at the end of a line, a short vowel
counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies
of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for
the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged
pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or
long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the
pronoun of the first person aná, I, is generally read short,
although it is written with Alif.
[FN#456] On p. 236 the word akámú, as read by itself, was
identified with the foot Fa’úlun. Here it must be read together
with the following syllable as “akámulwaj,” which is Mafá’ílun.
[FN#457] Prof. Palmer, p. 328 of his Grammar, identifies this
form of the Wáfir, when every Mufá’ alatum of the Hashw has
become Mafá’ílun, with the second form of the Rajaz It should be
Hazaj. Professor Palmer was misled, it seems, by an evident
misprint in one of his authorities, the Muhít al-Dáirah by Dr.
Van Dayk, p. 52.
[FN#458] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac 134b “The Merchant’s Wife
and the Parrot.”
[FN#459] This will be found translated in my “Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. vii. p. 307, as an Appendix
to the Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac version of the story, from
which it differs in detail.
[FN#460] Called “Bekhit” in Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac
Editions.
[FN#461] Yehya ben Khalid (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac),
[FN#462] “Shar” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac).
[FN#463] “Jelyaad” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac.)
[FN#464] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, No. 63. See my “Book of
the Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. iv., p. 211.
[FN#465] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “Jaafar the Barmecide.”
[FN#466] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “The Thief turned
Merchant and the other Thief,” No. 88.
[FN#467] This story will be found translated in my “Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. v., p. 345.
[FN#468] After this I introduce the Tale of the Husband and the
Parrot.
[FN#469] The Bulak Edition omits this story altogether.
[FN#470] After this I introduce How Abu Hasan brake wind.
[FN#471] Probably Wakksh al-Falák=Feral of the Wild.
[FN#472] This is the date of the Paris edition. There was an
earlier edition published at La Haye in 1743.
[FN#473] There are two other Oriental romances by Voltaire; viz.,
Babouc, and the Princess of Babylon.