by A. S. Byatt
FINIS.
NOTES
by Sir Richard Francis Burton
KING SHAHRYAR AND HIS BROTHER
1. Allaho A’alam, a deprecatory formula, used because the writer is going to indulge in a series of what may possibly be untruths.
2. The “Sons of Sásán” are the famous Sassanides whose dynasty ended with the Arabian Conquest (A.D. 641). “Island” (Jazírah) in Arabic also means “Peninsula,” and causes much confusion in geographical matters.
3. Shahryár not Shahriyar (Persian) = “City-friend.” The Bulak edition corrupts it to Shahrbáz (City-hawk), and the Breslau to Shahrbán or “Defender of the City,” like Marzban = Warden of the Marshes. Shah Zamán (Persian) = “King of the Age”: Galland prefers Shah Zenan, or “King of women,” and the Bul. edit. changes it to Shah Rummán, “Pomegranate King.” Al-Ajam denotes all regions not Arab (Gentiles opposed to Jews, Mlechchhas to Hindus, Tajiks to Turks, etc., etc.), and especially Persia; Ajami (a man of Ajam) being an equivalent of the Gr. .
4. Galland writes “Vizier,” a wretched frenchification of a mincing Turkish mispronunciation; Torrens, “Wuzeer” (Anglo-Indian and Gilchristian); Lane, “Wezeer;” (Egyptian or rather Cairene); Payne, “Vizier,” according to his system; Burckhardt (Proverbs), “Vizír;” and Mr. Keith-Falconer, “Vizir.” The root is popularly supposed to be “wizr” (burden) and the meaning “Minister;” Wazir al-Wuzará being “Premier.” In the Koran (chap. xx., 30) Moses says, “Give me a Wazir of my family, Harun (Aaron) my brother.” Sale, followed by the excellent version of the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, translates a “Counsellor,” and explains by “One who has the chief administration of affairs under a prince.” But both learned Koranists learnt their Orientalism in London, and, like such students generally, fail only upon the easiest points, familiar to all old dwellers in the East.
5. This three-days term (rest-day, drest-day and departure day) seems to be an instinct-made rule in hospitality. Among Moslems it is a Sunnat or practice of the Prophet.
6. i.e., I am sick at heart.
7. Debauched women prefer negroes on account of the size of their parts. I measured one man in Somali-land who, when quiescent, numbered nearly six inches. This is a characteristic of the negro race and of African animals; e.g. the horse; whereas the pure Arab, man and beast, is below the average of Europe; one of the best proofs by the by, that the Egyptian is not an Asiatic, but a negro partially white-washed. Moreover, these imposing parts do not increase proportionally during erection; consequently, the “deed of kind” takes a much longer time and adds greatly to the woman’s enjoyment. In my time no honest Hindi Moslem would take his women-folk to Zanzibar on account of the huge attractions and enormous temptations there and thereby offered to them. Upon the subject of Imsák = retention of semen and “prolongation of pleasure,” I shall find it necessary to say more.
8. The very same words were lately spoken in England proving the eternal truth of The Nights which the ignorant call “downright lies.”
9. The Arab’s Tue la!
10. Arab. “Sayd wa kanas”: the former usually applied to fishing; hence Sayda (Sidon) = fish-town. But noble Arabs (except the Caliph Al-Amin) do not fish; so here it means simply “sport,” chasing, coursing, birding (oiseler), and so forth.
11. In the Mac. Edit. the negro is called “Mas’úd;” here he utters a kind of war-cry and plays upon the name, “Sa’ád, Sa’íd, Sa’úd,” and “Mas’ud,” all being derived from one root, “Sa’ad” = auspiciousness, prosperity.
12. The Arab. singular (whence the French “génie”); fem. Jinniyah; the Div and Rakshah of old Guebre-land and the “Rakshasa,” or “Yaksha,” of Hinduism. It would be interesting to trace the evident connection, by no means “accidental,” of “Jinn” with the “Genius” who came to the Romans through the Asiatic Etruscans, and whose name I cannot derive from “gignomai” or “genitus.” He was unknown to the Greeks, who had the Daimon (), a family which separated, like the Jinn and the Genius, into two categories, the good (Agatho-dæmons) and the bad (Kako-dæmons). We know nothing concerning the status of the Jinn amongst the pre-Moslemitic or pagan Arabs: the Moslems made him a supernatural anthropoid being, created of subtile fire (Koran, chaps. xv. 27; lv. 14), not of earth like man, propagating his kind, ruled by mighty kings, the last being Ján bin Ján, missionarized by Prophets and subject to death and Judgment. From the same root are “Junún” = madness (i.e., possession or obsession by the Jinn) and “Majnún” = a madman. According to R. Jeremiah bin Eliazar in Psalm xli. 5, Adam was excommunicated for one hundred and thirty years, during which he begat children in his own image (Gen. v. 3) and these were Mazikeen or Shedeem—Jinns. Further details anent the Jinn will presently occur.
13. Arab. “Amsár” (cities): in Bul. Edit. “Amtár” (rains), as in Mac. Edit. So Mr. Payne (I., 5) translates:—
And when she flashes forth the lightning of her glance,
She maketh eyes to rain, like showers, with many a tear.
I would render it, “She makes whole cities shed tears;” and prefer it for a reason which will generally influence me—its superior exaggeration and impossibility.
14. Not “A-frit,” pronounced Aye-frit, as our poets have it. This variety of the Jinn, who, as will be shown, are divided into two races like mankind, is generally, but not always, a malignant being, hostile and injurious to mankind (Koran, xxvii., 39).
15. i.e., “I conjure thee by Allah;” the formula is technically called “Inshád.”
16. This introducing the name of Allah into an indecent tale is essentially Egyptian and Cairene. But see Boccaccio, ii. 6; and vii. 9.
17. So in the Mac. Edit.; in others “ninety.” I prefer the greater number as exaggeration is a part of the humour. In the Hindu Kathá Sárit Ságara (Sea of the Streams of Story), the rings are one hundred and the catastrophe is more moral; the good youth Yashodhara rejects the wicked one’s advances; she awakes the water-sprite, who is about to slay him, but the rings are brought as testimony and the improper young person’s nose is duly cut off. (Chap. lxiii.; p. 80, of the excellent translation by Prof. C. H. Tawney: for the Bibliotheca Indica: Calcutta, 1881.) The Kathá, etc., by Somadeva (century xi), is a poetical version of the prose compendium, the Vrihat Kathá (Great Story) by Gunadhya (cent. vi).
18. The Joseph of the Koran, very different from him of Genesis. We shall meet him often enough in The Nights.
19. “Iblis,” vulgarly written “Eblis,” from a root meaning The Despairer, with a suspicious likeness to Diabolos; possibly from “Balas,” a profligate. Some translate it The Calumniator, as Satan is the Hater. Iblis (who appears in the Arab. version of the N. Testament) succeeded another revolting angel Al-Haris; and his story of pride, refusing to worship Adam, is told four times in the Koran from the Talmud (Sanhedrim 29). He caused Adam and Eve to lose Paradise (ii. 34); he still betrays mankind (xxv. 31), and at the end of time he, with the other devils, will be “gathered together on their knees round Hell” (xix. 69). He has evidently had the worst of the game, and we wonder, with Origen, Tillotson, Burns and many others, that he does not throw up the cards.
20. A similar tale is still told at Akká (St. John d’Acre) concerning the terrible “butcher”—Jazzár (Djezzar) Pasha. One can hardly pity women who are fools enough to run such risks. According to Frizzi, Niccolò, Marquis of Este, after beheading Parisina, ordered all the faithless wives of Ferrara to be treated in like manner.
21. “Shahrázád” (Persian) = City-freer; in the older version Scheherazade (probably both from Shirzád = lion-born). “Dunyázád” = World-freer. The Bres. Edit. corrupts the former to Sháhrzád or Sháhrazád; and the Mac. and Calc. to Shahrzád or Shehrzád. I have ventured to restore the name as it should be. Galland for the second prefers Dinarzade (?) and Richardson Dinazade (Dinázád = Religion-freer): here I have followed Lane and Payne; though in First Footsteps I was misled by Galland.
22. Probably she proposed to “Judith” the King. These learned
and clever young ladies are very dangerous in the East.
23. In Egypt, etc., the bull takes the place of the Western ox. The Arab. word is “Taur” (Thaur, Saur); in old Persian “Tora” and Lat. “Taurus,” a venerable remnant of the days before the “Semitic” and “Aryan” families of speech had split into two distinct growths. “Taur” ends in the Saxon “Steor” and the English “Steer.”
24. Arab. “Abú Yakzán” = the Wakener, because the ass brays at dawn.
25. Arab. “Tibn;” straw crushed under the sledge: the hay of Egypt, Arabia, Syria, etc. The old country custom is to pull up the corn by handfuls from the roots, leaving the land perfectly bare: hence the “plucking up” of Hebrew Holy Writ. The object is to preserve every atom of “Tibn.”
26. Arab. “Yá Aftah”: Al-Aftah is an epithet of the bull, also of the chameleon.
27. Arab. “Balíd,” a favourite Egyptianism often pleasantly confounded with “Wali” (a Santon); hence the latter comes to mean “an innocent,” a “ninny.”
28. From the Calc. Edit., vol. 1, p. 29.
29. Arab. “Abu Yakzán” is hardly equivalent with “Père l’Eveillé.”
30. In Arab. the wa (′,) is the sign of parenthesis.
31. In the nearer East the light little plough is carried afield by the bull or ass.
32. Arab. “Kat’a” (bit of leather): some read “Nat’a;” a leather used by way of table-cloth, and forming a bag for victuals; but it is never made of bull’s hide.
33. The older “Cadi,” a judge in religious matters. The Shuhúd, or Assessors, are officers of the Mahkamah or Kazi’s Court.
34. He thus purified himself ceremonially before death.
35. This is Christian rather than Moslem: a favourite Maltese curse is “Yahrak Kiddisak man rabba-k!” =burn the Saint who brought thee up!
36. A popular Egyptian phrase: the dog and the cock speak like Fellahs.
37. i.e., between the last sleep and dawn when they would rise to wash and pray.
THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNI
1. Here, as in other places, I have not preserved the monorhyme, but have ended like the English sonnet with a couplet; as a rule the last two lines contain a “Husn makta’” or climax.
2. Arab. “Allahumma” = Yá Allah (O Allah) but with emphasis; the Fath being a substitute for the voc. part. Some connect it with the Heb. “Alihím,” but that fancy is not Arab. In Al-Hariri and the rhetoricians it sometimes means to be sure; of course; unless indeed; unless possibly.
3. Probably in consequence of a vow. These superstitious practices, which have many a parallel amongst ourselves, are not confined to the lower orders in the East.
4. i.e., saying “Bismillah!” the pious ejaculation which should precede every act. In Boccaccio (viii., 9) it is “remembering Iddio e’ Santi.”
5. Arab. Nahás asfar = brass, opposed to “Nahás” and “Nahás ahmar,” = copper.
6. This alludes to the legend of Sakhr al-Jinni, a famous fiend cast by Solomon Davidson into Lake Tiberias whose storms make it a suitable place. Hence the “Bottle imp,” a world-wide fiction of folk-lore: we shall find it in the Book of Sindibad, and I need hardly remind the reader of Le Sage’s Diable Boiteux, borrowed from El Diablo Cojuelo, the Spanish novel by Luiz Velez de Guevara.
7. Márid (lit. “contumacious” from the Heb. root Marad to rebel, whence “Nimrod” in late Semitic) is one of the tribes of the Jinn, generally but not always hostile to man. His female is “Máridah.”
8. As Solomon began to reign (according to vulgar chronometry) in 1015 B.C., the text would place the tale circ. A.D. 785, = A.H. 169. But we can lay no stress on this date which may be merely fanciful. Professor Tawney very justly compares this Moslem Solomon with the Hindu King, Vikramáditya, who ruled over the seven divisions of the world and who had as many devils to serve him as he wanted.
9. Arab. “Yá Ba’íd;” a euphemism here adopted to prevent using grossly abusive language. Others will occur in the course of these pages.
10. i.e., about to fly out; “My heart is in my mouth.” The Fisherman speaks with the dry humour of a Fellah.
11. “Sulayman,” when going out to ease himself, entrusted his seal-ring upon which his kingdom depended to a concubine “Amínah” (the “Faithful”), when Sakhr, transformed to the King’s likeness, came in and took it. The prophet was reduced to beggary, but after forty days the demon fled throwing into the sea the ring which was swallowed by a fish and eventually returned to Sulayman. This Talmudic fable is hinted at in the Koran (chap. xxxviii.), and commentators have extensively embroidered it. Asaf, son of Barkhiya, was Wazir to Sulayman and is supposed to be the “one with whom was the knowledge of the Scriptures” (Koran, chap. xxxvii.), i.e. who knew the Ineffable Name of Allah. See the manifest descendant of the Talmudic-Koranic fiction in the Tale of the Emperor Jovinian (No. lix.) of the Gesta Romanorum, the most popular book of mediæval Europe composed in England (or Germany) about the end of the thirteenth century.
12. Arab. “Kumkum,” a gourd-shaped bottle of metal, china or glass, still used for sprinkling scents. Lane gives an illustration (chap. viii., Mod. Egypt).
13. Arab. meaning “the Mother of Amir,” a nickname for the hyena, which bites the hand that feeds it.
14. The intellect of man is stronger than that of the Jinni; the Ifrit, however, enters the jar because he has been adjured by the Most Great Name and not from mere stupidity. The seal-ring of Solomon according to the Rabbis contained a chased stone which told him everything he wanted to know.
15. The Mesmerist will notice this shudder which is familiar to him as preceding the “magnetic” trance.
16. Arab. “Bahr” which means a sea, a large river, a sheet of water, etc., lit. water cut or trenched in the earth. Bahri in Egypt means Northern; so Yamm (Sea, Mediterranean) in Hebrew is West.
17. The tale of these two women is now forgotten.
18. Arab. “Atadakhkhal.” When danger threatens it is customary to seize a man’s skirt and cry “Dakhíl-ak!” (= under thy protection). Among noble tribes the Badawi thus invoked will defend the stranger with his life. Foreigners have brought themselves into contempt by thus applying to women or to mere youths.
19. The formula of quoting from the Koran.
20. Lit. “Allah not desolate me” (by thine absence). This is still a popular phrase—Lá tawáhishná = Do not make me desolate, i.e. by staying away too long; and friends meeting after a term of days exclaim “Auhashtani!” = thou hast made me desolate, Je suis désolé.
21. Charming simplicity of manners when the Prime Minister carries the fish (shade of Vattel!) to the cookmaid. The “Gesta Romanorum” is nowhere more naïve.
22. Arab. “Kahílat al-taraf” = lit. eyelids lined with Kohl; and figuratively “with black lashes and languorous look.” This is a phrase which frequently occurs in The Nights and which, as will appear, applies to the “lower animals” as well as to men. Moslems in Central Africa apply Kohl not to the thickness of the eyelid but upon both outer lids, fixing it with some greasy substance. The peculiar Egyptian (and Syrian) eye with its thick fringes of jet-black lashes, looking like lines of black drawn with soot, easily suggests the simile. In England I have seen the same appearance amongst miners fresh from the colliery.
23. Of course applying to her own case.
24. Prehistoric Arabs who measured from 60 to 100 cubits high: Koran, chap. xxvi., etc. They will often be mentioned in The Nights.
25. Arab. “Dastúr” (from Persian) = leave, permission. The word has two meanings (see Burckhardt, Arab. Prov. No. 609) and is much used, e.g. before walking up stairs or entering a room where strange women might be met. So “Tarík” = Clear the way (Pilgrimage, iii., 319). The old Persian occupation of Egypt, not to speak of the Persian-speaking Circassians and other rulers has left many such traces in popular language. One of them is that horror of travellers—“Bakhshísh” pron. Bakhsheesh and shortened to shísh from the Pers. “bakhshish.” Our “Christmas box�
�� has been most unnecessarily derived from the same, despite our reading:—