A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 (of 17)

191

Plurale majestatis acting superlative; not as Lane supposes (ii. 224) “a number of full moons, not only one.” Eastern tongues abound in instances beginning with Genesis (i. 1), “Gods (he) created the heaven,” etc. It is still preserved in Badawi language and a wildling greatly to the astonishment of the citizens will address his friend “Yá Rijál” = O men!

192

Arab. “Hásid” = an envier: in the fourth couplet “Azúl” (Azzál, etc.) = a chider, blamer; elsewhere “Lawwám” = accuser, censor, slanderer; “Wáshí” = whisperer, informer; “Rakib” = spying, envious rival; “Ghábit” = one emulous without envy; and “Shámit” = a “blue” (fierce) enemy who rejoices over another’s calamities. Arabic literature abounds in allusions to this unpleasant category of “damned ill-natured friends;” and Spanish and Portuguese letters, including Brazilian, have thoroughly caught the trick. In the Eastern mind the “blamer” would be aided by the “evil eye.”

193

Another plural for a singular, “O my beloved!”

194

Arab. “Khayr” = good news, a euphemistic reply even if the tidings be of the worst.

195

Abbás (from ‘Abs, being austere; and meaning the “grim-faced”) son of Abd al-Muttalib; uncle to Mohammed and eponym of the Abbaside Khalifahs. A.D. 749 = 1258.

196

Katíl = the Irish “kilt.”

197

This has been explained as a wazirial title of the time.

198

The phrase is intelligible in all tongues: in Arabic it is opposed to “dark as night,” “black as mud” and a host of unsavoury antitheses.

199

Arab. “Awwádah,” the popular word; not Udíyyah as in Night cclvi. “Ud” liter. = wood and “Al-Ud” = the wood is, I have noted, the origin of our “lute.” The Span. “laud” is larger and deeper than the guitar, and its seven strings are played upon with a plectrum of buffalo-horn.

200

Arab. “Tabban lahu!” = loss (or ruin) to him. So “bu’dan lahu” = away with him, abeat in malam rem; and “Suhkan lahu” = Allah and mercy be far from him, no hope for him!

201

Arab. “Áyah” = Koranic verset, sign, miracle.

202

The mole on cheek calls to prayers for his preservation; and it is black as Bilal the Abyssinian. Fajran may here mean either “A-morning” or “departing from grace.”

203

i. e. the young beard (myrtle) can never hope to excel the beauties of his cheeks (roses).

204

i. e. Hell and Heaven.

205

The first couplet is not in the Mac. Edit. (ii. 171) which gives only a single couplet; but it is found in the Bres. Edit. which entitles this tale “Story of the lying (or false = kázib) Khalífah.” Lane (ii. 392) of course does not translate it.

206

In the East cloth of frieze that mates with cloth of gold must expect this treatment. Fath Ali Shah’s daughters always made their husbands enter the nuptial bed by the foot end.

207

This is always done and for two reasons; the first humanity, that the blow may fall unawares; and, secondly, to prevent the sufferer wincing, which would throw out the headsman.

208

Arab. “Ma’áni-há,” lit. her meanings, i. e. her inner woman opposed to the formal seen by every one.

209

Described in my Pilgrimage (iii. 168, 174 and 175): it is the stone upon which the Patriarch stood when he built the Ka’abah and is said to show the impress of the feet; but unfortunately I could not afford five dollars entrance-fee. Caliph Omar placed the station where it now is; before his time it adjoined the Ka’abah. The meaning of the text is, Be thy court a place of pious visitation, etc. At the “Station of Abraham” prayer is especially blessed and expects to be granted. “This is the place where Abraham stood; and whoever entereth therein shall be safe” (Koran ii. 119). For the other fifteen places where petitions are favourably heard by Heaven see ibid. iii. 211-12.

210

As in the West, so in the East, women answer an unpleasant question by a counter-question.

211

This “Cry of Haro” often occurs throughout The Nights. In real life it is sure to collect a crowd, especially if an Infidel (non-Moslem) be its cause.

212

In the East a cunning fellow always makes himself the claimant or complainant.

213

On the Euphrates some 40 miles west of Baghdad. The word is written “Anbár” and pronounced “Ambár” as usual with the “n” before “b”; the case of the Greek double Gamma.

214

Syene on the Nile.

215

The tale is in the richest Rabelaisian humour; and the requisitions of the “Saj’a” (rhymed prose) in places explain the grotesque combinations. It is difficult to divine why Lane omits it; probably he held a hearty laugh not respectable.

216

A lawyer of the eighth century, one of the chief pupils of the Imam Abu Hanifah, and Kazi of Baghdad under the third, fourth and fifth Abbasides. The tale is told in the quasi-historical Persian work “Nigáristán” (The Picture-gallery), and is repeated by Richardson, Diss. 7, xiii. None seem to have remarked that the distinguished legist, Abu Yusuf, was on this occasion a law-breaker; the Kazi’s duty being to carry out the code, not to break it by the tricks of a cunning attorney. In Harun’s day, however, some regard was paid to justice; not under his successors, one of whom, Al-Muktadir bi’lláh (A.H. 295 = 907), made the damsel Yamika President of the Diwán al-Mazálim (Court of the Wronged), a tribunal which took cognizance of tyranny and oppression in high places.

217

Here the writer evidently forgets that Shahrazad is telling the story to the King, as Boccaccio (ii. 7) forgets that Pamfilo is speaking. Such inconsequences are common in Eastern story-books and a goody-goody sentiment is always heartily received as in an English theatre.

218

In the Mac. Edit. (ii. 182) “Al-Kushayri.” Al-Kasri was Governor of the two Iraks (i. e. Bassorah and Cufa) in the reign of Al-Hisham, tenth Ommiade (A.D. 723-741).

219

Arab. “Thakalata-k Ummak!” This is not so much a curse as a playful phrase, like “Confound the fellow.” So “Kátala-k Allah” (Allah slay thee) and “Lá abá lak” (thou hast no father or mother). These words are even complimentary on occasions, as a good shot or a fine recitation, meaning that the praised far excels the rest of his tribe.

220

Koran, iii. 178.

221

Arab. “Al-Nisáb” = the minimum sum (about half-a-crown) for which mutilation of the hand is prescribed by religious law. The punishment was truly barbarous, it chastised a rogue by means which prevented hard honest labour for the rest of his life.

222

To show her grief.

223

Abú Sa’íd Abd al-Malik bin Kurayb, surnamed Al-Asma’i from his grandfather, flor. A.H. 122-306 (= 739-830) and wrote amongst a host of compositions the well-known Romance of Antar. See in D’Herbelot the right royal directions given to him by Harun al-Rashid.

224

There are many accounts of his death; but it is generally held that he was first beheaded. The story in the text is also variously told and the Persian “Nigáristán” adds some unpleasant comments upon the House of Abbas. The Persians, for reasons which will be explained in the terminal Essay, show the greatest sympathy with the Barmecides; and abominate the Abbasides even more than the latter detested the Ommiades.

225

Not written, as the European reader would suppose.

226

Arab. “Fúl al-hárr” = beans like horsebeans soaked and boiled as opposed to the “Fúl Mudammas” (esp. of Egypt) = unshelled beans steamed and boiled all night and eaten with linseed oil as “kitchen” or relish. Lane (M. E., chapt. v.) calls them after the debased Cairene pronunciation, Mudemmes. A legend says that, before the days of Pharaoh (always he of Moses), the Egyptians lived on pistachios which made them a witty, lively race. But the tyrant remarking that the domestic ass, which eats beans, is degenerate from the wild ass, uprooted the pistachio-trees and compelled the lieges to feed on beans which made them a heavy, gross, cowardly people fit only for burdens. Badawis deride “bean-eaters” although they do not loathe the pulse like onions. The principal result of a bean diet is an extraordinary development of flatulence both in stomach and intestines: hence, possibly, Pythagoras who had studied ceremonial purity in Egypt, forbade the use, unless he referred to venery or political business. I was once sitting in the Greek quarter of Cairo dressed as a Moslem when arose a prodigious hubbub of lads and boys, surrounding a couple of Fellahs. These men had been working in the fields about a mile east of Cairo; and, when returning home, one had said to the other, “If thou wilt carry the hoes I will break wind once for every step we take.” He was as good as his word and when they were to part he cried, “And now for thy bakhshish!” which consisted of a volley of fifty, greatly to the delight of the boys.

227

No porcelain was ever, as far as we can discover, made in Egypt or Syria of the olden day; but, as has been said, there was a regular caravan-intercourse with China. At Damascus I dug into the huge rubbish-heaps and found quantities of pottery, but no China. The same has lately been done at Clysma, the artificial mound near Suez, and the glass and pottery prove it to have been a Roman work which defended the mouth of the old classical sweet-water canal.

228

Arab. “Lá baas ba-zálik,” conversational for “Lá jaram” = there is no harm in it, no objection to it; and, sometimes, “it is a matter of course.”

229

A white emerald is yet unknown; but this adds only to the Oriental extravagance of the picture. I do not think with Lane (ii. 426) that “abyaz” here can mean “bright.” Dr. Steingass suggests a clerical error for “khazar” (green).

230

Arab. “Sharárif” plur. of Shurráfah = crenelles or battlements; mostly trefoil-shaped; remparts coquets which a six-pounder would crumble.

231

Pronounce Abul-Muzaffar = Father of the Conqueror.

232

I have explained the word in my “Zanzibar, City, Island and Coast,” vol. i. chapt. v. There is still a tribe, the Wadoe, reputed cannibal on the opposite low East African shore. These blacks would hardly be held “sons of Adam.” “Zanj” corrupted to “Zinj” (plur. Zunúj) is the Persian “Zang” or “Zangi,” a black, altered by the Arabs, who ignore the hard g; and, with the suffixion of the Persian – bár (region, as in Malabar) we have Zang-bár which the Arabs have converted to “Zanjibar,” in poetry “Mulk al Zunúj” = Land of the Zang. The term is old; it is the Zingis or Zipgisa of Ptolemy and the Zingium of Cosmas Indicopleustes; and it shows the influence of Persian navigation in pre-Islamitic ages. For further details readers will consult “The Lake Regions of Central Africa” vol. i. chapt. ii.

233

Arab. “Kawárib” plur. of “Kárib” prop. a dinghy, a small boat belonging to a ship. Here it refers to the canoe (a Carib word) pop. “dug-out” and classically “monoxyle,” a boat made of a single tree-trunk hollowed by fire and trimmed with axe and adze. Some of these rude craft which, when manned, remind one of saturnine Caliph Omar’s “worms floating on a log of wood,” measure 60 feet long and more.

234

i. e. A descendant of Mohammed in general and especially through Husayn Ali-son. Here the text notes that the chief of the bazar was of this now innumerable stock, who inherit the title through the mother as well as through the father.

235

Arab. “Hasab” (= quantity), the honour a man acquires for himself; opposed to “Nasab” (genealogy) honours inherited from ancestry: the Arabic well expresses my old motto (adopted by Chinese Gordon): —

Honour, not Honours.

236

Note the difference between “Takaddum” (= standing in presence of, also superiority in excellence) and “Takádum” (priority in time).

237

Lane (ii. 427) gives a pleasant Eastern illustration of this saying.

238

A Koranic fancy; the mountains being the pegs which keep the earth in place. “And he hath thrown before the earth mountains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you.” (Koran, chapt. xvi.) The earth when first created was smooth and thereby liable to a circular motion, like the celestial orbs; and, when the Angels asked who could stand on so tottering a frame, Allah fixed it the next morning by throwing the mountains in it and pegging them down. A fair prolepsis of the Neptunian theory.

239

Easy enough for an Englishman to avoid saying “by God,” but this common incident in Moslem folk-lore appeals to the peoples who are constantly using the word Allah Wallah, Billah, etc. The Koran expressly says, “Make not Allah the scope (object, lit. arrow-butt) of your oaths” (chapt. ii. 224); yet the command is broken every minute.

240

This must be the ubiquitous Khizr, the Green Prophet; when Ali appears, as a rule he is on horseback.

241

The name is apparently imaginary; and a little below we find that it was close to Jinn-land. China was very convenient for this purpose: the medieval Moslems, who settled in considerable numbers at Canton and elsewhere, knew just enough of it to know their own ignorance of the vast empire. Hence the Druzes of the Libanus still hold that part of their nation is in the depths of the Celestial Empire.

242

I am unwilling to alter the old title to “City of Copper” as it should be; the pure metal having been technologically used long before the alloy of copper and zinc. But the Maroccan City (Night dlxvi. et seq.) was of brass (not copper). The Hindus of Upper India have an Iram which they call Hari Chand’s city (Colonel Tod); and I need hardly mention the Fata Morgana, Island of Saint Borondon; Cape Fly-away; the Flying Dutchman, etc. etc., all the effect of “looming.”

243

This sword which makes men invisible and which takes place of Siegfried’s Tarnkappe (invisible cloak) and of “Fortunatus’ cap” is common in Moslem folk-lore. The idea probably arose from the venerable practice of inscribing the blades with sentences, verses and magic figures.

244

Arab. “’Ukáb,” in books an eagle (especially black) and P. N. of constellation but in pop. usage = a vulture. In Egypt it is the Neophron Percnopterus (Jerdon) or N. Gingianus (Latham), the Dijájat Far’aun or Pharaoh’s hen. This bird has been known to kill the Báshah sparrow-hawk (Jerdon i. 60); yet, curious to say, the reviewers of my “Falconry in the Valley of the Indus” questioned the fact, known to so many travellers, that the falcon is also killed by this “tiger of the air,” despite the latter’s feeble bill (pp. 35-38). I was faring badly at their hands when the late Mr. Burckhardt Barker came to the rescue. Falconicide is popularly attributed, not only to the vulture, but also to the crestless hawk-eagle (Nisætus Bonelli) which the Hindus call Morángá = peacock-slayer.

245

Here I translate “Nahás” = brass; as the “kumkum” (cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.

246

Mansur al-Nimrí, a poet of the time and a protégé of Yahya’s son, Al-Fazl.

247

This was at least four times Mansur’s debt.

248

Intendant of the Palace to Harun al-Rashid. The Bres. Edit. (vii. 254) begins, “They tell that there arose full enmity between Ja’afar Barmecide and a Sahib of Misr” (Wazir or Governor of Egypt). Lane (ii. 429) quotes to this purpose amongst Arab historians Fakhr al-Dín (De Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe i., p. 26, edit. ii.).

249

Arab. “Armaníyah” which Egyptians call after their mincing fashion “Irminiyeh:” hence “Ermine” (Mus Ponticus). Armaniyah was much more extensive than our Armenia, now degraded to a mere province of Turkey, and the term is understood to include the whole of the old Parthian Empire.

250

Even now each Pasha-governor must keep a “Wakíl” in Constantinople to intrigue and bribe for him at head-quarters.

251

The symbol of generosity, of unasked liberality, the “black hand” being that of niggardness.

252

Arab. “Ráh” = pure (and old) wine. Arabs, like our classics, usually drank their wine tempered. So Imr al-Kays in his Mu’allakah says, “Bring the well-tempered wine, that seems to be saffron-tinctured; and, when water-mixed, o’erbrims the cup.” (v. 2).

253

There is nothing that Orientals relish more than these “goody-goody” preachments; but they read and forget them as readily as Westerns.

254

Lane (ii. 435) ill-advisedly writes “Sher,” as “the word is evidently Persian signifying a Lion.” But this is only in the debased Indian dialect; a Persian, especially a Shirazi, pronounces “Shír.” And this is how it is written in the Bresl. Edit., vii. 262. “Shár” is evidently a fancy name, possibly suggested by the dynastic name of the Ghurjistan or Georgian Princes.

255

Again old experience, which has learned at a heavy cost how many a goodly apple is rotten at the core.

256

This couplet has occurred in Night xxi. I give Torrens (p. 206) by way of specimen.

257

Arab. “Záka” = merely tasting a thing which may be sweet with a bitter after-flavour.

258

This tetrastich was in Night xxx. with a difference.

259

The lines have occurred in Night xxx. I quote Torrens, p. 311.

260

This tetrastich is in Night clxix. I borrow from Lane (ii. 62).

261

The rude but effective refrigerator of the desert Arab who hangs his water-skin to the branch of a tree and allows it to swing in the wind.

262

Arab. “Khumásiyah” which Lane (ii. 438) renders “of quinary stature.” Usually it means five spans, but here five feet, showing that the girl was young and still growing. The invoice with a slave always notes her height in spans measured from ankle-bone to ear and above seven she loses value as being full grown. Hence Sudási (fem. Sudásiyah) is a slave six spans high, the Shibr or full span (9 inches) not the Fitr or short span from thumb to index. Faut is the interval between every finger; Ratab between index and medius, and Atab between medius and annularis.

263

“Moon-faced” now sounds sufficiently absurd to us, but it was not always so. Solomon (Cant. vi. 10) does not disdain the image “fair as the moon, clear as the sun;” and those who have seen a moon in the sky of Arabia will thoroughly appreciate it. We find it amongst the Hindus, the Persians, the Afghans, the Turks and all the nations of Europe. We have, finally, the grand example of Spenser: —

Her spacious forehead, like the clearest moon, etc.

264

Blue eyes have a bad name in Arabia as in India: the witch Zarká of Al-Yamamah was noted for them; and “blue-eyed” often means “fierce-eyed,” alluding to the Greeks and Daylamites, mortal enemies to Ishmael. The Arabs say “ruddy of mustachio, blue of eye and black of heart.”

265

Before explained as used with camphor to fill the dead man’s mouth.

266

As has been seen, slapping on the neck is equivalent to our “boxing ears,” but much less barbarous and likely to injure the child. The most insulting blow is that with shoe, sandal or slipper because it brings foot in contact with head. Of this I have spoken before.

267

Arab. “Hibál” (= ropes) alluding to the A’akál-fillet which binds the Kúfiyah-kerchief on the Badawi’s head (Pilgrimage, i. 346).

268

Arab. “Khiyál”; afterwards called Kara Gyuz (= “black eyes,” from the celebrated Turkish Wazir). The mise-en-scène was like that of Punch, but of transparent cloth, lamp-lit inside and showing silhouettes worked by hand. Nothing could be more Fescennine than Kara Gyuz, who appeared with a phallus longer than himself and made all the Consuls-General periodically complain of its abuse; while the dialogue, mostly in Turkish, was even more obscene. Most ingenious were Kara Gyuz’s little ways of driving on an obstinate donkey and of tackling a huge Anatolian pilgrim. He mounted the Neddy’s back, face to tail, and inserting his left thumb like a clyster, hammered it with his right, when the donkey started at speed. For the huge pilgrim he used a ladder. These shows, now obsolete, used to enliven the Ezbekiyah Gardens every evening and explain Ovid’s words.

Delicias videam, Nile jocose, tuas!

269

Mohammed (Mishkát al-Masábih ii. 360-62) says, “Change the whiteness of your hair but not with anything black.” Abu Bakr, who was two years and some months older than the Prophet, used tincture of Henna and Katam. Old Turkish officers justify black dyes because these make them look younger and fiercer. Henna stains white hair orange red; and the Persians apply after it a paste of indigo leaves; the result is successively leek-green, emerald-green, bottle-green and lastly lamp-black. There is a stage in life (the youth of old age) when man uses dyes: presently he finds that the whole face wants dye; that the contrast between juvenile coloured hair and ancient skin is ridiculous and that it is time to wear white.

270

This prejudice extends all over the East: the Sanskrit saying is “Kvachit káná bhaveta sádhus” – now and then a monocular is honest. The left eye is the worst and the popular idea is, I have said, that the damage will come by the injured member.

271

The Arabs say like us, “Short and thick is never quick” and “Long and thin has little in.”

272

Arab. “Ba’azu layáli,” some night when his mistress failed him.

273

The fountain in Paradise before noticed.

274

Before noticed as the Moslem St. Peter (as far as the keys go).

275

Arab “Munkasir” = broken, frail, languishing – the only form of the maladive allowed. Here again we have masculine for feminine: the eyelids show love-desire, but, etc.

276

The river of Paradise.

277

See Night xii, “The Second Kalandar’s Tale;” vol. i. 113.

278

Lane (ii. 472) refers for specimens of calligraphy to Herbin’s “Développements, etc.” There are many more than seven styles of writing as I have shown in Night xiii.; vol. i. 129.

279

Amongst good Moslems this would be a claim upon a man.

280

These lines have occurred twice already: and first appear in Night xxii. I have borrowed from Mr. Payne (iv. 46).

281

Arab. “Ya Nasráni”; the address is not intrinsically slighting but it may easily be made so. I have elsewhere noted that when Julian (is said to have) exclaimed “Vicisti Nazarene!” he was probably thinking in Eastern phrase “Nasarta, yá Nasráni!”

282

Thirst is the strongest of all pleas to an Eastern, especially to a Persian who never forgets the sufferings of his Imam, Husayn, at Kerbela: he would hardly withhold it from the murderer of his father. There is also a Hadis, “Thou shalt not refuse water to him who thirsteth in the desert.”

283

Arab. “Zimmi” which Lane (ii. 474) aptly translates a “tributary.” The Koran (chapt. ix.) orders Unbelievers to Islamize or to “pay tribute by right of subjection” (lit. an yadin = out of hand, an expression much debated). The least tribute is one dinar per annum which goes to the poor-rate; and for this the Kafir enjoys protection and almost all the civil rights of Moslems. As it is a question of “loaves and fishes” there is much to say on the subject; “loaves and fishes” being the main base and foundation of all religious establishments.