A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. Volume 7 (of 17)

97

Trébutien, iii. 465, translates these sayings into Italian.

98

Making him a “Kawwád” = leader, i.e. pimp; a true piece of feminine spite. But the Caliph prized Al-Hajjaj too highly to treat him as in the text.

99

i.e. “The overflowing,” with benefits; on account of his generosity.

100

The seventh Ommiade A. H. 96–99 (715–719). He died of his fine appetite after eating at a sitting a lamb, six fowls, seventy pomegranates, and 11¼ lbs. of currants. He was also proud of his youth and beauty and was wont to say, “Mohammed was the Apostle and Abu Bakr witness to the Truth; Omar the Discriminator and Othman the Bashful, Mu’awiyah the Mild and Yazid the Patient; Abd al-Malik the Administrator and Walid the Tyrant; but I am the Young King!”

101

Arab. Al-Jazírah, “the Island;” name of the region and the capital.

102

i.e. “Repairer of the Slips of the Generous,” an evasive reply, which of course did not deceive the questioner.

103

Arab. “Falastín,” now obselete. The word has echoed far west and the name of the noble race has been degraded to “Philister,” a bourgeois, a greasy burgher.

104

Saying, “The Peace be with thee, O Prince of True Believers!”

105

Arab. “Mutanakkir,” which may also mean proud or in disguise.

106

On appointment as viceroy. See vol. iii., 307.

107

The custom with outgoing Governors. It was adopted by the Spaniards and Portuguese especially in America. The generosity of Ikrimah without the slightest regard to justice or common honesty is characteristic of the Arab in story-books.

108

The celebrated half-way house between Jaffa and Jerusalem.

109

Alias the Kohistan or mountain region, Susiana (Khuzistan) whose capital was Susa; and the head quarters of fire-worship. Azar (fire) was the name of Abraham’s father whom Eusebius calls “Athar” (Pilgrimage iii. 336).

110

Tenth Ommiade A.H. 105–125 (= 724–743), a wise and discreet ruler with an inclination to avarice and asceticism. According to some, the Ommiades produced only three statesmen, Mu’awiyah, Abd al-Malik and Hisham; and the reign of the latter was the end of sage government and wise administration.

111

About £1,250, which seems a long price; but in those days Damascus had been enriched with the spoils of the world adjacent.

112

Eleventh Ommiade dynasty, A.H. 125–126 (= 743–744). Ibn Sahl (son of ease, i.e. free and easy) was a nickname; he was the son of Yazíd II. and brother of Hishám. He scandalised the lieges by his profligacy, wishing to make the pilgrimage in order to drink upon the Ka’abah-roof; so they attacked the palace and lynched him. His death is supposed to have been brought about (27th of Jamáda al-Akhirah = April 16, 744) by his cousin and successor Yazíd (No. iii.) surnamed the Retrencher. The tale in the text speaks well for him; but generosity amongst the Arabs covers a multitude of sins, and people say, “Better a liberal sinner than a stingy saint.”

113

The tents of black wool woven by the Badawi women are generally supported by three parallel rows of poles lengthways and crossways (the highest line being the central) and the covering is pegged down. Thus the outline of the roofs forms two or more hanging curves, and these characterise the architecture of the Tartars and Chinese; they are still preserved in the Turkish (and sometimes in the European) “Kiosque,” and they have extended to the Brazil where the upturned eaves, often painted vermilion below, at once attract the traveller’s notice.

114

See vol. iv., 159. The author of “Antar,” known to Englishmen by the old translation of Mr. Terrick Hamilton, secretary of Legation at Constantinople. There is an abridgement of the forty-five volumes of Al-Asma’i’s “Antar” which mostly supplies or rather supplied the “Antariyyah” or professional tale-tellers; whose theme was the heroic Mulatto lover.

115

The “Dakkah” or long wooden sofa, as opposed to the “mastabah” or stone bench, is often a tall platform and in mosques is a kind of ambo railed round and supported by columns. Here readers recite the Koran: Lane (M.E. chapt. iii.) sketches it in the “Interior of a Mosque.”

116

Alif (ا) Ha (ه) and Waw (و‎), the first, twenty-seventh and twenty-sixth letters of the Arabic alphabet: No. 1 is the most simple and difficult to write calligraphically.

117

Reeds washed with gold and used for love-letters, &c.

118

Lane introduced this tale into vol. i., p. 223, notes on chapt. iii., apparently not knowing that it was in The Nights. He gives a mere abstract, omitting all the verse, and he borrowed it either from the Halbat Al-Kumayt (chapt. xiv.) or from Al-Mas’údí (chapt. cxi.). (See the French translation, vol. vi. p. 340). I am at pains to understand why M. C. Barbier de Maynard writes “Réchid” with an accented vowel; although French delicacy made him render, by “fils de courtisane,” the expression in the text, “O biter of thy mother’s enlarged (or uncircumcised) clitoris” (Bazar).

119

In Al-Mas’údí the Devil is “a young man fair of favour and formous of figure,” which is more appropriate to a “Tempter.” He also wears light stuffs of dyed silks.

120

It would have been more courteous in an utter stranger to say, O my lord.

121

The Arab Tempe (of fiction, not of grisly fact).

122

These four lines are in Al-Mas’údi, chapt. cxviii. Fr. trans. vii. 313, but that author does not tell us who wrote them.

123

i.e. Father of Bitterness = the Devil. This legend of the Foul Fiend appearing to Ibrahim of Mosul (and also to Isam, N. dcxcv.) seems to have been accepted by contemporaries and reminds us of similar visitations in Europe—notably to Dr. Faust. One can only exclaim, “Lor, papa, what nonsense you are talking!” the words of a small girl whose father thought proper to indoctrinate her into certain Biblical stories. I once began to write a biography of the Devil; but I found that European folk-lore had made such an unmitigated fool of the grand old Typhon-Ahriman as to take away from him all human interest.

124

In Al-Mas’údi the Caliph exclaims, “Verily thou hast received a visit from Satan!”

125

Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxix. (Fr. transl. vii., 351) mentions the Banu Odhrah as famed for lovers and tells the pathetic tale of ’Orwah and ’Afrá.

126

Jamil bin Ma’amar the poet has been noticed in Vol. ii. 102; and he has no business here as he died years before Al-Rashid was born. The tale begins like that of Ibn Mansúr and the Lady Budúr (Night cccxxvii.), except that Mansur does not offer his advice.

127

Arab “Halumma,” an interjection = bring! a congener of the Heb. “Halúm,” the grammarians of Kufah and Bassorah are divided concerning its origin.

128

Arab. “Nafs-í” which here corresponds with our canting “the flesh,” the “Old Adam,” &c.

129

Arab. “Atmárí” used for travel. The Anglo-Americans are the only people who have the common sense to travel (where they are not known) in their “store clothes” and reserve the worst for where they are known.

130

e.g., a branch or bough.

131

Arab. “Ráyah káimah,” which Lane translates a “beast standing”!

132

Tying up the near foreleg just above the knee; and even with this a camel can hop over sundry miles of ground in the course of a night. The hobbling is shown in Lane (Nights vol. ii., p. 46).

133

As opposed to “Severance” in the old knightly language of love, which is now apparently lost to the world. I tried it in the Lyrics of Camoens and found that I was speaking a forgotten tongue, which mightily amused the common sort of critic and reviewer.

134

More exactly three days and eight hours, after which the guest becomes a friend, and as in the Argentine prairies is expected to do friend’s duty. The popular saying is, “The entertainment of a guest is three days; the viaticum (jáizah) is a day and a night, and whatso exceedeth this is alms.”

135

Arab. “’Ashírah.” Books tell us there are seven degrees of connection among the Badawin: Sha’ab, tribe or rather race, nation (as the Anazah) descended from a common ancestor; Kabílah the tribe proper (whence les Kabyles); Fasílah (sept), Imárah, Ashirah (all a man’s connections); Fakhiz (lit. the thigh, i.e., his blood relations) and Batn (belly) his kith and kin. Practically Kabílah is the tribe, Ashírah the clan, and Bayt the household; while Hayy may be anything between tribe and kith and kin.

136

This is the true platonic love of noble Arabs, the Ishk ’uzrí, noted in vol. ii., 104.

137

Arab. “’Alà raghm,” a favourite term. It occurs in theology; for instance, when the Shi’ahs are asked the cause of such and such a ritual distinction they will reply, “Ala raghmi ’l-Tasannun”: lit. = to spite the Sunnis.

138

In the text “Al-Kaus” for which Lane and Payne substitute a shield. The bow had not been mentioned but—n’importe, the Arab reader would say. In the text it is left at home because it is a cowardly, far-killing weapon compared with sword and lance. Hence the Spaniard calls and justly calls the knife the “bravest of arms” as it wants a man behind it.

139

Arab. “Rahim” or “Rihm” = womb, uterine relations, pity or sympathy, which may here be meant.

140

Reciting Fátihahs and so forth, as I have described in the Cemetery of Al-Medinah (ii. 300). Moslems do not pay for prayers to benefit the dead like the majority of Christendom and, according to Calvinistic Wahhábi-ism, their prayers and blessings are of no avail. But the mourner’s heart loathes reason and he prays for his dead instinctively like the so-termed “Protestant.” Amongst the latter, by the bye, I find four great Sommités, (1) Paul of Tarsus who protested against the Hebraism of Peter; (2) Mohammed who protested against the perversions of Christianity; (3) Luther who protested against Italian rule in Germany, and lastly (4) one (who shall be nameless) that protests against the whole business.

141

Lane transfers this to vol. i. 520 (notes to chapt. vii.); and gives a mere abstract as of that preceding.

142

We learn from Ibn Batutah that it stood South of the Great Mosque and afterwards became the Coppersmiths’ Bazar. The site was known as Al-Khazrá (the Green) and the building was destroyed by the Abbasides. See Defrémery and Sanguinetti, i. 206.

143

This great tribe or rather nation has been noticed before (vol. ii. 170). The name means “Strong,” and derives from one Tamim bin Murr of the race of Adnan, nat. circ. A.D. 121. They hold the North-Eastern uplands of Najd, comprising the great desert Al-Dahná and extend to Al-Bahrayn. They are split up into a multitude of clans and septs; and they can boast of producing two famous sectarians. One was Abdullah bin Suffár, head of the Suffriyah; and the other Abdullah bin Ibáz (Ibadh) whence the Ibázíyah heretics of Oman who long included her princes. Mr. Palgrave wrongly writes Abadeeyah and Biadeeyah and my “Bayázi” was an Arab vulgarism used by the Zanzibarians. Dr. Badger rightly prefers Ibáziyah which he writes Ibâdhiyah (Hist. of the Imams, etc.)

144

Governor of Al-Medinah under Mu’awiyah and afterwards (A.H. 64–65 = 683–4) fourth Ommiade. Al-Siyúti (p. 216) will not account him amongst the princes of the Faithful, holding him a rebel against Al-Zubayr. Ockley makes Ibn al-Zubayr ninth and Marwán tenth Caliph.

145

The address, without the vocative particle, is more emphatic; and the P.N. Mu’awiyah seems to court the omission.

146

This may also mean that the £500 were the woman’s “mahr” or marriage dowry and the £250 a present to buy the father’s consent.

147

Quite true to nature. See an account of the quasi-epileptic fits to which Syrians are subject and by them called Al-Wahtah in “The Inner Life of Syria,” i. 233.

148

Arab “Wayha-k” here equivalent to Wayla-k. M. C. Barbier de Meynard renders the first “mon ami” and the second “misérable.”

149

This is an instance when the article (Al) is correctly used with one proper name and not with another. Al-Kumayt (P. N. of poet) lit. means a bay horse with black points: Nasr is victory.

150

This anecdote, which reads like truth, is ample set off for a cart-load of abuse of women. But even the Hindus, determined misogynists in books, sometimes relent. Says the Katha Sarit Sagara: “So you see, King, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands, and it is not the case that all women are always bad” (ii. 624). Let me hope that after all this Mistress Su’ad did not lead her husband a hardish life.

151

Al-Khalí’a has been explained in vol. i. 311: the translation of Al-Mas’udi (vi. 10) renders it “scélérat.” Abú Alí al-Husayn the Wag was a Bassorite and a worthy companion of Abu Nowas the Debauchee; but he adorned the Court of Al-Amin the son, not of Al-Rashid the father.

152

Governor of Bassorah, but not in Al-Husayn’s day.

153

The famous market-place where poems were recited; mentioned by Al-Hariri

154

A quarter of Bassorah.

155

Capital of Al-Yaman, and then famed for its leather and other work (vol. v. 16).

156

The creases in the stomach like the large navel are always insisted upon. Says the Kathá (ii. 525) “And he looked on that torrent river of the elixir of beauty, adorned with a waist made charming by those wave-like wrinkles,” etc.

157

Arab. Sabaj (not Sabah, as the Mac. Edit. misprints it): I am not sure of its meaning.

158

A truly Arab conceit, suggesting—

159

The morosa voluptas of the Catholic divines. The Sapphist described in the text would procure an orgasm (in gloria, as the Italians call it) by biting and rolling over the girl she loved; but by loosening the trouser-string she evidently aims at a closer tribadism—the Arab “Musáhikah.”

160

We drink (or drank) after dinner; Easterns before the meal and half-Easterns (like the Russians) before and after. We talk of liquor being unwholesome on an empty stomach; but the truth is that all is purely habit. And as the Russian accompanies his Vodki with caviare, etc., so the Oriental drinks his Raki or Mahayá (Ma al-hayát—aqua vitæ) alternately with a Salátah, for whose composition see Pilgrimage i. 198. The Eastern practice has its advantages: it awakens the appetite, stimulates digestion and, what Easterns greatly regard, it is economical; half a bottle doing the work of a whole. Bhang and Kusumbá (opium dissolved and strained through a pledget of cotton) are always drunk before dinner and thus the “jolly” time is the preprandial, not the postprandial.

161

“Abu al-Sakhá” (pronounced Abussakhá) = Father of munificence.

162

Arab. “Shammara,” also used for gathering up the gown, so as to run the faster.

163

i.e., blessing the Prophet and all True Believers (herself included).

164

The style of this letter is that of a public scribe in a Cairo market-place thirty years ago.

165

i.e. she could not help falling in love with this beauty man.

166

“Kudrat,” used somewhat in the sense of our vague “Providence.” The sentence means, leave Omnipotence to manage him. Mr. Redhouse, who forces a likeness between Moslem and Christian theology, tells us that “Qader is unjustly translated by Fate and Destiny, an old pagan idea abhorrent to Al-Islam which reposes on God’s providence.” He makes Kazá and Kismet quasi synonyms of “Qazá” and “Qader,” the former signifying God’s decree, the latter our allotted portion; and he would render both by dispensation. Of course it is convenient to forget the Guarded Tablet of the learned and the Night of Power and skull-lectures of the vulgar. The eminent Turkish scholar would also translate Salát by worship (du’á being prayer) because it signifies a simple act of adoration without entreaty. If he will read the Opener of the Koran, recited in every set of prayers, he will find an especial request to be “led to the path which is straight.” These vagaries are seriously adopted by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb in his Ottoman Poems (p. 245, etc.) London: Trübner and Co., 1882; and they deserve, I think, reprehension, because they serve only to mislead; and the high authority of the source whence they come necessarily recommends them to many.

167

The reader will have noticed the likeness of this tale to that of Ibn Mansúr and the Lady Budúr (vol. iv., 228 et seq.) For this reason Lane leaves it untranslated (iii. 252).

168

Lane also omits this tale (iii. 252). See Night dclxxxviii., vol. vii. p. 113 et seq., for a variant of the story.

169

Third Abbaside, A. H. 158–169 (= 775–785), and father of Harun Al-Rashid. He is known chiefly for his eccentricities, such as cutting the throats of all his carrier-pigeons, making a man dine off marrow and sugar and having snow sent to him at Meccah, a distance of 700 miles.

170

Arab. Mirt; the dictionaries give a short shift, cloak or breeches of wool or coarse silk.

171

Arab. “Mayázíb” plur. of the Pers. Mízáb (orig. Míz-i-áb = channel of water) a spout for roof-rain. That which drains the Ka’abah on the N. W. side is called Mizáb al-Rahmah (Gargoyle of Mercy) and pilgrims stand under it for a douche of holy water. It is supposed to be of gold, but really of silver gold-plated and is described of Burckhardt and myself (Pilgrimage iii. 164). The length is 4 feet 10 in.; width 9 in.; height of sides 8 in.; and slope at mouth 1 foot 6 in. long.

172

The Mac. and Bul. Edits. have by mistake “Son of Ishak.” Lane has “Is-hak the son of Ibrahim” following Trébutien (iii. 483) but suggests in a note the right reading as above.

173

Again masculine for feminine.

174

There are two of this name. The Upper Al-Akik contains the whole site of Al-Medinah; the Lower is on the Meccan road about four miles S.W. of the city. The Prophet called it “blessed” because ordered by an angel to pray therein. The poets have said pretty things about it, e.g.

O friend, this is the vale Akík; here stand and strive in thought:If not a very lover, strive to be by love distraught!

for whose esoteric meaning see Pilgrimage ii. 24. I passed through Al-Akík in July when it was dry as summer dust and its “beautiful trees” were mere vegetable mummies.

175

Those who live in the wet climates of the Northern temperates can hardly understand the delight of a shower in rainless lands, like Arabia and Nubia. In Sind we used to strip and stand in the downfall and raise faces sky-wards to get the full benefit of the douche. In Southern Persia food is hastily cooked at such times, wine strained, Kaliuns made ready and horses saddled for a ride to the nearest gardens and a happy drinking-bout under the cypresses. If a man refused, his friends would say of him, “See how he turns his back upon the blessing of Allah!” (like an ass which presents its tail to the weather).

176

i.e. the destruction of the Barmecides.

177

He was Wazir to the Great “Saladin” (Saláh al-Din = one conforming with the Faith): see vol. iv. 271, where Saladin is also entitled al-Malik al-Nasir = the Conquering King. He was a Kurd and therefore fond of boys (like Virgil, Horace, etc.), but that perversion did not prevent his being one of the noblest of men. He lies in the Great Amawi Mosque of Damascus and I never visited a tomb with more reverence.

178

Arab. “Ahassa bi’l-Shurbah;” in our idiom “he smelt a rat.”

179

This and the next tale are omitted by Lane (iii. 254) on “account of its vulgarity, rendered more objectionable by indecent incidents.” It has been honoured with a lithographed reprint at Cairo A.H. 1278 and the Bresl. Edit. ix. 193 calls it the “Tale of Ahmad al-Danaf with Dalílah.”

180

“Ahmad, the Distressing Sickness,” or “Calamity”; Hasan the Pestilent and Dalílah the bawd. See vol. ii. 329, and vol. iv. 75.

181

A fœtus, a foundling, a contemptible fellow.

182

In the Mac. Edit. “her husband”: the end of the tale shows the error, infra, p. 171. The Bresl. Edit., x. 195, informs us that Dalilah was a “Faylasúfíyah” = philosopheress.

183

Arab. “Ibrík” usually a ewer, a spout-pot, from the Pers. Ab-ríz = water-pourer; the old woman thus vaunted her ceremonial purity. The basin and ewer are called in poetry “the two rumourers,” because they rattle when borne about.

184

Khátún in Turk. is = a lady, a dame of high degree; at times, as here and elsewhere, it becomes a P. N.

185

Arab. “Maut,” a word mostly avoided in the Koran and by the Founder of Christianity.

186

Arab. “Akákír,” drugs, spices, simples which cannot be distinguished without study and practice. Hence the proverb (Burckhardt, 703), Is this an art of drugs?—difficult as the druggist’s craft?

187

i.e. Beautiful as the fairy damsels who guard enchanted treasures, such as that of Al-Shamardal (vol. vi. 221).

188

i.e. by contact with a person in a state of ceremonial impurity; servants are not particular upon this point and “Salát mamlúkíyah” (Mameluke’s prayers) means praying without ablution.

189

i.e. Father of assaults, burdens or pregnancies; the last being here the meaning.

190

Ex votos and so forth.

191

Arab. “Iksah,” plaits, braids, also the little gold coins and other ornaments worn in the hair, now mostly by the middle and lower classes. Low Europeans sometimes take advantage of the native prostitutes by detaching these valuables, a form of “bilking” peculiar to the Nile-Valley.

192

In Bresl. Edit. Malíh Kawí (pron. ’Awi), a Cairene vulgarism.

193

Meaning without veil or upper clothing.

194

Arab. “Kallakás” the edible African arum before explained. This Colocasia is supposed to bear, unlike the palm, male and female flowers in one spathe.

195

See vol. iii. 302. The figs refer to the anus and the pomegranates, like the sycomore, to the female parts. Me nec fæmina nec puer, &c., says Horace in pensive mood.

196

It is in accordance to custom that the Shaykh be attended by a half-witted fanatic who would be made furious by seeing gold and silks in the reverend presence so coyly curtained.

197

In English, “God damn everything an inch high!”

198

Burckhardt notes that the Wali, or chief police officer at Cairo, was exclusively termed Al-Agha and quotes the proverb (No. 156) “One night the whore repented and cried:—What! no Wali (Al-Aghá) to lay whores by the heels?” Some of these Egyptian by-words are most amusing and characteristic; but they require literal translation, not the timid touch of the last generation. I am preparing, for the use of my friend, Bernard Quaritch, a bonâ fide version which awaits only the promised volume of Herr Landberg.