158 i.e. For fear of the “eye”; see vol. i. 123 and passim. In these days the practice is rare; but, whenever you see at Cairo an Egyptian dame daintily dressed and leading by the hand a grimy little boy whose eyes are black with flies and whose dress is torn and unclean, you see what has taken its place. And if you would praise the brat you must not say “Oh, what a pretty boy!” but “Inshallah!”Чthe Lord doth as he pleaseth.
159 The adoption of slave lads and lasses was and is still common among Moslems.
160 I have elsewhere noted this “pathetic fallacy” which is a lieu commun of Eastern folk-lore and not less frequently used in the mediжval literature of Europe before statistics were invented.
161 Arab. “Yaskut min ‘Aynayh,” lit.=fall from his two eyes, lose favour.
162 i.e. killing a man.
163 i.e. we can slay him whenever we will.
164 In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Abosaber the Patient.”
“Abъ-Sбbir” would mean “Father of the Patient (one).”
165 Arab. “Dihkбn,” in Persian a villager; but here something more, a village-elder or chief. Al-Mas’udi (chap. xxiv.), and other historians apply the term to a class of noble Persians descended from the ten sons of Wahkert, the first “Dihkбn,” the fourth generation from King Kayomars.
166 Reminding one not a little of certain anecdotes anent
Quakers, current in England and English-speaking lands.
167 Arab. “Karyah,” a word with a long history. The root seems to be Karaha, he met; in Chald. Karih and Kбria (emphatic Kбrita)=a town or city; and in Heb. Kirjath, Kiryбthayim, etc. We find it in Carthage= Kartб hбdisah, or New Town as opposed to Utica (Atнkah)=Old Town; in Carchemish and in a host of similar compounds. In Syria and Egypt Kariyah, like Kafr, now means a hamlet, a village.
168 i.e. wandering at a venture.
169 Arab. “Sakhrah,” the old French Corvйe, and the “Begбr” of India.
170 Arab. “Matmъrah:” see vol. ii. 39, where it was used as an “underground cell.” The word is extensively used in the Maghrib or Western Africa.
171 Arab. “Yб Abб Sбbir.” There are five vocative particles in Arabic; “Yб,” common to the near and far; “Ayб” (ho!) and “Hayб” (holla!) addressed to the far, and “Ay” and “A” (A-’Abda-llбhi, O Abdullah), to those near. All govern the accusative of a noun in construction in the literary language only; and the vulgar use none but the first named. The English-speaking races neglect the vocative particle, and I never heard it except in the Southern States of the AngloAmerican Union=Oh, Mr. Smith.
172 He was not honest enough to undeceive them; a neat
Quaker-like touch.
173 Here the oath is justified; but the reader will have remarked that the name of Allah is often taken in vain. Moslems, however, so far from holding this a profanation deem it an acknowledgment of the Omnipotence and Omnipresence. The Jews from whom the Christians have borrowed had an interest in concealing the name of their tribal divinity; and therefore made it ineffable.
174 i.e. the grave, the fosse commune of slain men.
175 A fancy name; “Zawash” in Pers. is = the planet Jupiter, either borrowed from Greece, or both descended from some long forgotten ancestor.
176 In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient.” The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zбd (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar = better) and superlative (bih-tarin=best).
177 i.e. the moiety kept by the bridegroom, a contingent settlement paid at divorce or on the death of the husband.
178 Arab. “Rumh”=the horseman’s lance not the footman’s spear.
179 i.e. became a highwayman (a time-honoured and honourable career) in order to collect money for completing the dowry.
180 i.e. to the bride, the wedding-day; not to be confounded with “going in unto” etc.
181 Probably meaning that she saw the eyes espying through the crevice without knowing whose they were.
182 A fancy name intended to be Persian
183 i.e. thy Harem, thy women.
184 i.e. thy life hath been unduly prolonged.
185 See Chavis and Cazotte, “Story of Ravia (Arwа!) the Resigned.” Dбdbнn (Persian) = one who looks to justice, a name hardly deserved in this case.
186 For this important province and city of Persia, see Al-Mas’ъdi, ii. 2; iv. 86, etc. It gave one of many names to the Caspian Sea. The adjective is Tabari, whereas Tabarбni = native of Tiberias (Tabariyah).
187 Zor-khбn = Lord Violence, and Kбr-dбn = Business-knower; both Persian.
188 “Arwа” written with a terminal of yб is a woman’s P.N. in Arabic.
189 i.e. Not look down upon me with eyes of contempt. This “marrying below one” is still an Eastern idea, very little known to women in the West.
190 Chavis and Cazotte call the Dabbъs a “dabour” and explain it as a “sort of scepter used by Eastern Princes, which serves also as a weapon.” For the Dabbъs, or mace, see vol. vi. 249.
191 i.e. Let thy purposes be righteous as thine outward profession.
192 See vol. vi. 130. This is another lieu commun amongst
Moslems; and its unfact requires only statement.
193 Afterwards called his “chamberlain,” i.e. guardian of the Harem-door.
194 i.e. Chosroлs, whom Chavis and Cazotte make “Cyrus.”
195 Arab. “Tбkiyah,” used for the Persian Takhtrawбn, common in The Nights.
196 Arab. “Kubbah,” a dome-shaped tent, as elsewhere.
197 This can refer only to Abu al-Khayr’s having been put to death on Kardan’s charge, although the tale-teller, with characteristic inconsequence, neglected to mention the event.
198 Not referring to skull sutures, but to the forehead, which is poetically compared with a page of paper upon which Destiny writes her irrevocable decrees.
199 Said in the grimmest earnest, not jestingly, as in vol. iv. 264.
200 i.e. the lex talionis, which is the essence of Moslem, and indeed, of all criminal jurisprudence. We cannot wonder at the judgment of Queen Arwa: even Confucius, the mildest and most humane of lawgivers, would not pardon the man who allowed his father’s murderer to live. The Moslem lex talionis (Koran ii. 173) is identical with that of the Jews (Exod. xxi. 24), and the latter probably derives from immemorial usage. But many modern Rabbins explain away the Mosaical command as rather a demand for a pecuniary mulct than literal retaliation. The well-known Isaac Aburbanel cites many arguments in proof of this position: he asks, for instance, supposing the accused have but one eye, should he lose it for having struck out one of another man’s two? Moreover, he dwells upon the impossibility of inflicting a punishment the exact equivalent of the injury; like Shylock’s pound of flesh without drawing blood. Moslems, however, know nothing of these frivolities, and if retaliation be demanded the judge must grant it. There is a legend in Marocco of an English merchant who was compelled to forfeit tooth for tooth at the instance of an old woman, but a profitable concession gilded the pill.
201 In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Bhazmant (!); or the
Confident Man.” “Bakht (-i-) Zamбn” in Pers. would=Luck of the
Time.
202 Chavis and Cazotte change the name to “Abadid,” which, like “Khadнdбn,” is nonsignificant.
203 Arab. “Fбris,” here a Reiter, or Dugald Dolgetti, as mostly were the hordes led by the mediжval Italian Condottieri.
204 So Napoleon the Great also believed that Providence is mostly favorable to “gros bataillons.”
205 Pers. and Arab.=“Good perfection.”
206 In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Baharkan.” Bihkard (in
Shiraz pronounced “Kyard”)=“Well he did.”
207 See “Katrъ” in the Introduction to the Bakhtiyбr-nбmah.
208 The text has “Jaukalбn” for Saulajбn, the Persian
“Chaugбn”=the crooked bat
used in Polo. See vol. 1. 46.
209 Amongst Moslems, I have noted, circumstantial evidence is not lawful: the witness must swear to what he has seen. A curious consideration, how many innocent men have been hanged by “circumstantial evidence.” See vol. v. 97.
210 In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Abattamant (!), or the Prudent Man;” also Aylбn Shah becomes Olensa after Italian fashion.
211 In Arab. idiom a long hand or arm means power, a phrase not wholly unused in European languages. Chavis and Cazotte paraphrase “He who keeps his hands crossed upon his breast, shall not see them cut off.”
212 Arab. “Jama’a atrбfah,” lit.=he drew in his extremities, it being contrary to “etiquette” in the presence of a superior not to cover hands and feet. In the wild Argentine Republic the savage Gaucho removes his gigantic spurs when coming into the presence of his master.
213 About the equivalent to the Arab. or rather Egypto-
Syrian form “Jiddan,” used in the modern slang sense.
214 i.e. that he become my son-in-law.
215 For the practice of shampooing often alluded to in The Nights, see vol. iii. 17. The king “sleeping on the boys’ knees” means that he dropped off whilst his feet were on the laps of the lads.
216 Meaning the honour of his Harem.
217 Pardon, lit.=security; the cry for quarter already introduced into English
“Or raise the craven cry Aman.”
It was Mohammed’s express command that this prayer for mercy should be respected even in the fury of fight. See vol. i. 342.
218 A saying found in every Eastern language beginning with Hebrew; Proverbs xxvi. 27, “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.”
219 i.e. a domed tomb where prayers and perlections of the Koran could be made. “Kubbah” in Marocco is still the term for a small square building with a low medianaranja cupola under which a Santon lies interred. It is the “little Waly” of our “blind travellers” in the unholy “Holy Land.”
220 i.e. to secure her assistance in arousing the king’s wrath.
221 i.e. so slow to avenge itself.
222 Story of Sultan Hebriam (!), and his Son” (Chavis and Cazotte). Unless they greatly enlarged upon the text, they had a much fuller copy than that found in the Bresl. Edit.
223 A right kingly king, in the Eastern sense of the word, would strike off their heads for daring to see omens threatening his son and heir: this would be constructive treason of the highest because it might be expected to cause its own fulfilment.
224 Mohammed’s Hadнs “Kazzibъ ‘l-Munajjimъna bi Rabbi
‘I-Ka’abah”=the Astrologers lied, by the Ka’abah’s Lord!
225 Arab. “Khawбtнn,” plur. of Khбtъn, a matron, a lady, vol. iv. 66.
226 See Al-Mas’udi, chapt. xvii. (Fr. Transl. ii. 48-49) of the circular cavity two miles deep and sixty in circuit inhabited by men and animals on the Caucasus near Derbend.
227 Arab. “Nafas” lit.=breath. Arabs living in a land of caverns know by experience the danger of asphyxiation in such places.
228 This simple tale is told with much pathos not of words but of sense.
229 Arab. “Ajal” = the appointed day of death; also used for sudden death. See vol. i. 74.
230 i.e. the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two great festival days (the other being the New Year) of the Persians, and surviving in our Michaelmas. According to Al-Mas’udн (chap. xxi.), it was established to commemorate the capture of Zahhбk (Azhi-Dahбka), the biting snake (the Hindu Ahi) of night and darkness, the Greek Astyages, by Furaydun or Feridun. Prof. Sayce (Principles of Comparative Philology, ) connects the latter with the Vedic deity Trita, who harnessed the Sun-horse (Rig. v. i. 163, 2, 3), the {tritogйneia} of Homer, a title of Athene, the Dawn-goddess, and Burnouf proved the same Trita to be Thraйtaona, son of Athwya, of the Avesta, who finally became Furaydъn, the Greek Kyrus. See vol. v. 1.
231 In Chavis and Cazotte, “Story of Selimansha and his
Family.”
232 Arab. for Pers. Pahluwбn (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him “Balavan”; and the Bresl. text in more than one place () calls him “Bahwбn.”
233 i.e. King (Arab.) King (Persian): we find also Sultan
Malik Shah=King King King.
234 Arab. “Aulбd-н,” a vulgarism, plural for dual.
235 Mr. Payne translates, “so he might take his father’s leavings” i.e. heritage, reading “Ѕsбr” which I hold to be a clerical error for Sбr=Vendetta, blood revenge (Bresl. Edit. vi. 310).
236 Arab. “Al-’Ѕsн” the pop. term for one who refuses to obey a constituted authority and syn. with Pers. “Yбghн.” “Ant ‘Ѕsн?” Wilt thou not yield thyself? says a policeman to a refractory Fellah.
237 i.e. of the Greeks: so in Kor. xxx. 1. “Alif Lam Mim, the Greeks (Al-Roum) have been defeated.” Mr. Rodwell curiously remarks that “the vowel-points for ‘defeated’ not being originally written, would make the prophecy true in either event, according as the verb received an active or passive sense in pronunciation.” But in discovering this mare’s nest, a rank piece of humbug like Aio te Aeacida, etc., he forgets that all the Prophet’s “Companions,” numbering some 5000, would pronounce it only in one way and that no man could mistake “ghalabat” (active) for “ghulibat” (passive).
238 The text persistently uses “Jбriyah”=damsel, slave-girl, for the politer “Sabiyah”=young lady, being written in a rude and uncourtly style.
239 So our familiar phrase “Some one to back us.”
240 Arab. “‘Akkada lahu rбy,” plur. of rбyat, a banner. See vol. iii. 307.
241 i.e. “What concern hast thou with the king’s health?”
The question is offensively put.
242 Arab. “Masalah,” a question; here an enigma.
243 Arab. “Liallб” (i.e. li, an, lб) lest; but printed here and elsewhere with the yб as if it were “laylan,”=for a single night.
244 i.e. if my death be fated to befal to-day, none may postpone it to a later date.
245 Arab. “Dustн”: so the ceremony vulgarly called “Doseh” and by the ItaloEgyptians “Dosso,” the riding over disciples’ backs by the Shaykh of the Sa’diyah Darwayshes (Lane M.E. chapt. xxv.) which took place for the last time at Cairo in 1881.
246 In Chavis and Cazotte she conjures him “by the great Maichonarblatha Sarsourat” (Mнat wa arba’at ashar Sъrat)=the 114 chapters of the Alcoran.
247 I have noted that Moslem law is not fully satisfied without such confession which, however, may be obtained by the bastinado. It is curious to compare English procedure with what Moslem would be in such a case as that of the famous Tichborne Claimant. What we did need hardly be noticed. An Arab judge would in a case so suspicious at once have applied the stick and in a quarter of an hour would have settled the whole business; but then what about the “Devil’s own,” the lawyers and lawyers’ fees? And he would have remarked that the truth is not less true because obtained by such compulsory means.
248 The Hudhud, so called from its cry “Hood! Hood!” It is the Lat. upupa, Gr. {йpops} from its supposed note epip or upup; the old Egyptian Kukufa; Heb. Dukiphath and Syriac Kikuphб (Bochart Hierozoicon, part ii. 347). The Spaniards call it Gallo de Marzo (March-Cock) from its returning in that month, and our old writers “lapwing” (Deut. xiv. 18). This foul-feeding bird derives her honours from chapt. xxvii. of the Koran (q.v.), the Hudhud was sharp-sighted and sagacious enough to discover water underground which the devils used to draw after she had marked the place by her bill.
249 Here the vocative Yб is designedly omitted in poetical fashion (e.g., KhalнliyyaЧmy friend!) to show the speaker’s emotion. See of Captain A. Lockett’s learned and curious work the “Miet Amil” (=Hundred Regimens), Calcutta, 1814.
250 The story-teller introduces this last instance with considerable art as a preface to the dйnouement.
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251 See Chavis and Cazotte “Story of the King of Haram and the slave.”
252 i.e. men caught red-handed.
253 Arab. “Libwah,” one of the multitudinous names for the king of beasts, still used in Syria where the animal has been killed out, soon to be followed by the bear (U. Syriacus). The author knows that lions are most often found in couples.
254 Arab. “Himyбn or Hamyбn,” = a girdle.
255 As he would kiss a son. I have never yet seen an
Englishman endure these masculine kisses, formerly so common in
France and Italy, without showing clearest signs of his disgust.
256 A cheap way of rewarding merit, not confined to Eastern monarchs, but practised by all contemporary Europe.
257 Arab. “Kasf,” = houghing a camel so as to render it helpless. The passage may read, “we are broken to bits (Kisн) by our own sin.”
258 Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. p-4, Night dlxv.
259 See vol. vi. 175. A Moslem should dress for public occasions, like the mediжval student, in vestibus (quasi) nigris aut subfuscis; though not, except amongst the Abbasides, absolutely black, as sable would denote Jewry.
260 A well-known soldier and statesman, noted for piety and austerity. A somewhat fuller version of this story, from which I have borrowed certain details, is given in the Biographical Dictionary of Ibn Khallikбn (i. 303-4). The latter, however, calls the first Abd al-Malik “Ibn Bahrбn” (in the index Ibn Bahrбm), which somewhat spoils the story. “Ibn Khallikan,” by-the-by, is derived popularly from “Khalli” (let go), and “Kбna” (it was, enough), a favourite expression of the author, which at last superseded his real name, Abu al-Abbбs Ahmad. He is better off than the companion nicknamed by Mohammed Abъ Horayrah = Father of the She-kitten (not the cat), and who in consequence has lost his true name and pedigree.
261 In Ibn Khallikбn (i. 303) he is called the “Hashimite,” from his ancestor, Hashim ibn Abd Manбf. The Hashimites and Abbasides were fine specimens of the Moslem “Pharisee,” as he is known to Christians, not the noble Purushi of authentic history.
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