54 Lane translates most incompletely, “To Him, then, be praise, first and last!”
55 Lane omits because it is “extremely puerile” this most characteristic tale, one of the two oldest in The Nights which Al Mas’udi mentions as belonging to the Hazбr Afsбneh (See Terminal Essay). Von Hammer (Preface in Trйbutien’s translation p. xxv ) refers the fables to an Indian (Egyptian ?) origin and remarks, “sous le rapport de leur antiquitй et de la morale qu’ils renferment, elles mйritent la plus grande attention, mais d’un autre cфtй elles ne sont rien moins qu’amusantes.”
56 Lane (iii. 579) writes the word “Shemmas”: the Bresl.
Edit. (viii. 4) “Shнmбs.”
57 i.e. When the tale begins.
58 Arab. “Khafz al-jinбh” drooping the wing as a brooding bird. In the Koran ([vii. 88) lowering the wing” = demeaning oneself gently.
59 The Bresl. Edit. (viii. 3) writes “Kil’бd”: Trйbutien (iii. 1) “le roi Djilia.”
60 As the sequel shows the better title would be, “The Cat and the Mouse” as in the headings of the Mac. Edit. and “What befel the Cat with the Mouse,” as a punishment for tyranny. But all three Edits. read as in the text and I have not cared to change it. In our European adaptations the mouse becomes a rat.
61 So that I may not come to grief by thus daring to foretell evil things.
62 Arab. “Af’б’” pl. Afб’н = {уphis}, both being derived from O. Egypt. Hfi, a worm, snake. Af’б is applied to many species of the larger ophidia, all supposed to be venomous, and synonymous with “Sall” (a malignant viper) in Al-Mutalammis. See Preston’s Al-Hariri, .
63 This apparently needless cruelty of all the feline race is a strong weapon in the hand of the Eastern “Dahrн” who holds that the world is God and is governed by its own laws, in opposition to the religionists believing in a Personal Deity whom, moreover, they style the Merciful, the Compassionate, etc. Some Christians have opined that cruelty came into the world with “original Sin,” but how do they account for the hideous waste of life and the fearful destructiveness of the fishes which certainly never learned anything from man? The mystery of the cruelty of things can be explained only by a Law without a Law-giver.
64 The three things not to be praised before death in Southern Europe are a horse, a priest and a woman; and it has become a popular saying that only fools prophesy before the event.
65 ‘Arab. “Sawn” =butter melted and skimmed. See vol. i. 144.
66 This is a mere rechauffй of the Barber’s tale of his Fifth Brother (vol. i. 335). In addition to the authorities there cited I may mention the school reading-lesson in Addison’s Spectator derived from Galland’s version of “Alnaschar and his basket of Glass,” the Persian version of the Hitopadesa or “Anwбr-i-Suhayli (Lights of Canopes) by Husayn Vб’iz; the Foolish Sachali of “Indian Fairy Tales” (Miss Stokes); the allusion in Rabelais to the fate of the “Shoemaker and his pitcher of milk” and the “Dialogues of creatures moralised” (1516), whence probably La Fontaine drew his fable, “La Laitiиre et le Pot au lait.”
67 Arab. ‘ ‘Nбsik,” a religious, a man of Allah from Nask, devotion: somewhat like Sбlik (Dabistan iii. 251)
68 The well-known Egyptian term for a peasant, a husbandman, extending from the Nile to beyond Mount Atlas.
69 This is again, I note, the slang sense of “‘Azнm,” which in classical Arabic means simply great.
70 Arab “Adab” ; see vol. i. 132. It also implies mental discipline, the culture which leads to excellence, good manners and good morals; and it is sometimes synonymous with literary skill and scholarship. “Ilm al-Adab,” says Haji Khalfah (Lane’s Lex.), “is the science whereby man guards against error in the language of the Arabs spoken or written.”
71 i.e. I esteem thee as thou deservest.
72 The style is intended to be worthy of the statesman. In my “Mission to Dahome” the reader will find many a similar scene.
73 The Bresl. Edit. (vol. viii. 22) reads “Turks” or “The
Turk” in lieu of “many peoples.”
74 i.e. the parents.
75 The humour of this euphuistic Wazirial speech, purposely made somewhat pompous, is the contrast between the unhappy Minister’s praises and the result of his prognostication. I cannot refrain from complimenting Mr. Payne upon the admirable way in which he has attacked and mastered all the difficulties of its abstruser passages.
76 Arab. “Halummъ” plur. of “Halumma” = draw near! The latter form is used by some tribes for all three numbers; others affect a dual and a plural (as in the text). Preston ( Al-Hariri, ) derives it from Heb., but the geographers of Kufah and Basrah (who were not etymologists) are divided about its origin. He translates () “Halumma Jarran” = being the rest of the tale in continuation with this, i.e. in accordance with it, like our “and so forth.” And in , he makes Halumma = Hayya i.e. hither! (to prayer, etc).
77 This is precisely the semi-fatalistic and wholly superstitious address which would find favour with Moslems of the present day: they still prefer “calling upon Hercules” to putting their shoulders to the wheel. Mr. Redhouse had done good work in his day but of late he has devoted himself, especially in the “Mesnevi,” to a rapprochement between Al-Islam and Christianity which both would reject (see supra, vol. vii. ). The Calvinistic predestination as shown in the term “vessel of wrath,” is but a feeble reflection of Moslem fatalism. On this subject I shall have more to say in a future volume.
78 The inhabitants of temperate climates have no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine) upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have described an invasion of ants in my “Zanzibar,” vol. ii. 169; and have suffered from such attacks in many places between that and Dahomey.
79 Arab. “Sa’lab.” See vol. iii. 132 {FN#150}, where it is a fox. I render it jackal because that cousin of the fox figures as a carrion-eater in Hindu folk-lore, the Hitopadesa, Panchopakhyan, etc. This tale, I need hardly say, is a mere translation; as is shown by the Kathб s.s. “Both jackal and fox are nicknamed Joseph the Scribe (Tбlib Yъsuf) in the same principle that lawyers are called landsharks by sailors.” (P. 65, Moorish Lotus Leaves, etc., by George D. Cowan and R. L. N. Johnston, London, Tinsleys, 1883.)
80 Arab. “Sahm mush’ab” not “barbed” (at the wings) but with double front, much used for birding and at one time familiar in the West as in the East. And yet “barbed” would make the fable read much better.
81 Arab. “la’lla,” usually = haply, belike; but used here and elsewhere = forsure, certainly.
82 Arab. “Maghrib” (or in full Maghrib al-Aksб) lit. = the Land of the setting sun for whose relation to “Mauritania” see vol. {vi.} 220. It is almost synonymous with “Al-Gharb” = the West whence Portugal borrowed the two Algarves, one being in Southern Europe and the other over the straits about Tangier- Ceuta; fronting Spanish Trafalgar, i.e. Taraf al-Gharb, the edge of the West. I have noted (Pilgrimage i. 9) the late Captain Peel’s mis-translation “Cape of Laurels” (Al-Ghбr).
83 Even the poorest of Moslem wanderers tries to bear with him a new suit of clothes for keeping the two festivals and Friday service in the Mosque. See Pilgrimage i. 235; iii. 257, etc.
84 Arab. “Sбyih” lit. a wanderer, subaudi for religious and ascetic objects; and not to be confounded with the “pilgrim” proper.
85 i.e. a Religious, a wandering beggar.
86 This was the custom of the whole Moslem world and still is where uncorrupted by Christian uncharity and contempt for all “men of God” save its own. But the change in such places as Egypt is complete and irrevocable. Even in 1852 my Dervish’s frock brought me nothing but contempt in Alexandria and Cairo.
87 Arab.
“Ya jбhil,” lit. =O ignorant. The popular word is
Ahmak which, however, in the West means a maniac, a madman, a
Santon; “Bohlн” being= a fool.
88 The prison according to the practice of the East being in the palace: so the Moorish ‘Kasbah,” which lodges the Governor and his guard, always contains the jail.
89 Arab. “Tuwuffiya,” lit.=was received (into the grace of
God), an euphemistic and more polite term than “mбta”=he died.
The latter term is avoided by the Founder of Chnstianity; and our
Spiritualists now say “passed away to a higher life,” a phrase
embodying a theory which, to say the least, is “not proven”
90 Arab. “Yб Abб al-Khayr”= our my good lord, sir, fellow, etc.
91 Arab. “Hбwi” from “Hayyah,” a serpent. See vol. iii. 145. Most of the Egyptian snake charmers are Gypsies, but they do not like to be told of their origin. At Baroda in Guzerat I took lessons in snake-catching, but found the sport too dangerous; when the animal flees, the tail is caught by the left hand and the right is slipped up to the neck, a delicate process, as a few inches too far or not far enough would be followed by certain death in catching a Cobra. At last certain of my messmates killed one of the captives and the snake-charmer would have no more to do with me.
92 Arab. “Sallah,” also Pers., a basket of wickerwork. This article is everywhere used for lodging snakes from Egypt to Morocco.
93 Arab. “Mubбrak.” It is a favourite name for a slave in
Morocco; the slave-girl being called Mubбrakah; and the proverb
being, “Blessed is the household which hath neither M’bбrk nor
M’bбrkah” (as they contract the words).
94 The Bresl. Edit. (viii. 48) instead of the Gate (Bбb) gives a Bбdhanj=a Ventilator; for which latter rendering see vol. i. 257. The spider’s web is Koranic (lxxxi. 40) “Verily frailest of all houses is the house of the spider.”
95 Prob. from the Persian Wird=a pupil, a disciple.
96 And yet, as the next page shows the youth’s education was complete in his twelfth year. But as all three texts agree, I do not venture upon changing the number to six or seven, the age at which royal education outside the Harem usually begins.
97 i.e. One for each day in the Moslem year. For these object-lessons, somewhat in Kinder-garten style, see the Book of Sindibad or The Malice of Women (vol. vi. 126).
98 Arab. “Jahбbizah” plur. of “Jahbiz”=acute, intelligent (from the Pers. Kahbad or Kihbad?)
99 Arab. “Nimr” in the Bresl. Edit. viii. 58. The Mac. Edit. suggests that the leopard is the lion’s Wazir.
100 Arab “Kaun” lit. =Being, existence. Trйbutien (iii. 20) has it “Qu’est-ce que l’ кtre (God), l’existence (Creation), l’кtre dans l’existence (the world), et la durйe de l’кtre dans l’existence (the other world).
101 i.e for the purpose of requital. All the above is orthodox Moslem doctrine, which utterly ignores the dictum “ex nihilo nihil fit;” and which would look upon Creation by Law (Darwinism) as opposed to Creation by miracle (e.g. the Mosaic cosmogony) as rank blasphemy. On the other hand the Eternity of Matter and its transcendental essence are tenets held by a host of Gnostics, philosophers and Eastern Agnostics.
102 This is a Moslem lieu commun; usually man is likened to one suspended in a bottomless well by a thin rope at which a rodent is continually gnawing and who amuses himself in licking a few drops of honey left by bees on the revetement.
103 A curious pendant to the Scriptural parable of the
Unjust Steward.
104 Arab. “Rъh” Heb. Ruach: lit. breath (spiritus) which in the animal kingdom is the surest sign of life. See vol. v. 29. Nothing can be more rigidly materialistic than the called Mosaic law.
105 Arab. “Al-Amr” which may also mean the business, the matter, the affair.
106 Arab. “Ukбb al-kбsir.” lit. =the breaker eagle.
107 Arab “Lijбm shadнd:” the ring-bit of the Arabs is perhaps the severest form known: it is required by the Eastern practice of pulling up the horse when going at full speed and it is too well known to require description. As a rule the Arab rides with a “lady’s hand” and the barbarous habit of “hanging on by the curb” is unknown to him. I never pass by Rotten Row or see a regiment of English Cavalry without wishing to leave riders nothing but their snaffles.
108 We find this orderly distribution of time (which no one adopts) in many tongues and many forms. In the Life of Sir W. Jones (vol. i. , Poetical Works etc.) the following occurs, “written in India on a small piece of paper”; —
Sir Edward Coke
“Six hours to sleep, in law’s grave study six!
Four spend in prayer, — the rest on Heaven fix!”
Rather:
“Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven;
Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven!”
But this is not practical. I must prefer the Chartist distribution:
Six hours sleep and six hours play:
Six hours work and six shillings a day.
Mr Froude (Oceana) speaks of New Zealanders having attained that ideal of operative felicity: —
Eight to work, eight to play;
Eight to sleep and eight shillings a day.
109 Arab. “Bahнmah,” mostly=black cattle: see vol. iv. 54.
110 As a rule when the felidж wag their tails, it is a sign of coming anger, the reverse with the canidж.
111 In India it is popularly said that the Rajah can do anything with the Ryots provided he respects their women and their religion — not their property.
112 Arab. “Sunan” for which see vol. v. 36, 167. Here it is=Rasm or usage, equivalent to our precedents, and held valid, especially when dating from olden time, in all matters which are not expressly provided for by Koranic command. For instance a Hindн Moslem (who doubtless borrowed the customs from Hindъs) will refuse to eat with the Kafir, and when the latter objects that there is no such prohibition in the Koran will reply, “No: but it is our Rasm.” As a rule the Anglo-Indian is very ignorant on this essential point.
113 Lit. “lowering the wings,” see supra .
114 .i.e. friends and acquaintances.
115 Arab. “Hamнdah”=praiseworthy or satisfactory.
116 Not only alluding to the sperm of man and beast, but also to the “Neptunist” doctrine held by the ancient Greeks and Hindus and developed in Europe during the last century.
117 Arab. “Taksнm” dividing into parts, analysis.
118 this is the usual illogical contention of all religions. It is not the question whether an Almighty Being can do a given thing: the question is whether He has or has not done it.
119 Upon the old simile of the potter I shall have something to say in a coming volume.
120 A fine specimen of a peculiarity in the undeveloped mind of man, the universal confusion between things objective as a dead body and states of things as death. We begin by giving a name, for facility of intercourse, to phases, phenomena and conditions of matter; and, having created the word we proceed to supply it with a fanciful entity, e.g. “The Mind (a useful term to express the aggregate action of the brain, nervous system etc.) of man is immortal.” The next step is personification as Time with his forelock, Death with his skull and Night (the absence of light) with her starry mantle. For poetry this abuse of language is a sine qua non, but it is deadly foe to all true philosophy.
121 Christians would naturally understand this “One Word” to be the {lуgos} of the Platonists, adopted by St. John (comparatively a late writer) and by the Alexandrian school, Jewish (as Philo Judжus) and Christian. But here the tale-teller alludes to the Divine Word “Kun” (be!) whereby the worlds came into existence.
122 Arab. “Ya bunayyн” a dim. form lit. “O my little son !” an affectionate address frequent in Russian, whose “little father” (under “Bog”) is his Czar.
123 Thus in
two texts. Mr. Payne has, “Verily God the Most High created man after His own image, and likened him to Himself, all of Him truth, without falsehood; then He gave him dominion over himself and ordered him and forbade him, and it was man who transgressed His commandment and erred in his obedience and brought falsehood upon himself of his own will.” Here he borrows from the Bresl. Edit. viii. 84 (five first lines). But the doctrine is rather Jewish and Christian than Moslem: Al-Mas’ъdi (ii. 389) introduces a Copt in the presence of Ibn Tutъn saying, “Prince, these people (designing a Jew) pretend that Allah Almighty created Adam (i.e. mankind) after His own image” (‘Alб Sъrati-h).
124 Arab. “Istitб’ah”=ableness e.g. “Al hajj ‘inda ‘l-Istitб’ah”=Pilgrimage when a man is able thereto (by easy circumstances).
125 Arab. “Al-Kasab,” which phrenologists would translate “acquisitiveness,” The author is here attempting to reconcile man’s moral responsibility, that is Freewill, with Fate by which all human actions are directed and controlled. I cannot see that he fails to “apprehend the knotty point of doctrine involved”; but I find his inability to make two contraries agree as pronounced as that of all others, Moslems and Christians, that preceded him in the same path.
126 The order should be, “men, angels and Jinn,” for which see vol. i. . But “angels” here takes precedence because Iblis was one of them.
127 Arab. “Wartah”=precipice, quagmire, quicksand and hence sundry secondary and metaphorical significations, under which, as in the “Semitic” (Arabic) tongues generally, the prosaical and material sense of the word is clearly evident. I noted this in Pilgrimage iii. 66 and was soundly abused for so saying by a host of Sciolists.
128 i.e. Allowing the Devil to go about the world and seduce mankind until Doomsday when “auld Sootie’s” occupation will be gone. Surely “Providence” might have managed better.
129 i.e. to those who deserve His love.
130 Here “Istitб’ah” would mean capability of action, i.e. freewill, which is a mere word like “free-trade.”
131 Arab. “Bi al-taubah” which may also mean “for (on account of his) penitence.” The reader will note how the learned Shimas “dodges” the real question. He is asked why the “Omnipotent, Omniscient did not prevent (i.e. why He created) sin?” He answers that He kindly permitted (i.e. created and sanctioned) it that man might repent. Proh pudor! If any one thus reasoned of mundane matters he would be looked upon as the merest fool.
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