by A. S. Byatt
41. Arab. “Ahdab,” the common hunchback: in classical language the Gobbo in the text would be termed “Ak’as” from “Ka’as,” one with protruding back and breast; sometimes used for hollow back and protruding breast.
42. This is the custom with such gentry, who, when they see a likely man sitting, are allowed by custom to ride astraddle upon his knees with most suggestive movements, till he buys them off. These Ghawází are mostly Gypsies who pretend to be Moslems; and they have been confused with the Almahs or Moslem dancing-girls proper (Awálim, plur. of Alimah, a learned feminine) by a host of travellers. They call themselves Barámikah or Barmecides only to affect Persian origin. Under native rule they were perpetually being banished from and returning to Cairo (Pilgrimage, i., 202). Lane (M. E., chaps. xviii. and xix.) discusses the subject, and would derive Al’mah, often so pronounced, from Heb. Almah, girl, virgin, singing-girl, hence he would translate Al-Alamoth shir (Psalm xlvi.) and Nebalim al-alamoth (1. Chron., xv. 20) by a “song for singing-girls” and “harps for singing-girls.” He quotes also St. Jerome as authority that Alma in Punic (Phœnician) signified a virgin, not a common article, I may observe, amongst singing-girls. I shall notice in a future page Burckhardt’s description of the Ghawazi, p. 173, Arabic Proverbs; etc., etc. Second Edition. London: Quaritch, 1875.
43. I need hardly describe the Tarbúsh, a corruption of the Pers. “Sar-púsh” (head-cover) also called “Fez,” from its old home; and “Tarbrush” by the travelling Briton. In old days it was a calotte worn under the turban; and it was protected from scalp-perspiration by an “Arakiyah” (Pers. Arakchin), a white skull-cap. Now it is worn without either and as a headdress nothing can be worse (Pilgrimage, ii. 275).
44. Arab “Tár.”: the custom still prevails. Lane (M. E., chap. xviii.) describes and figures this hoop-drum.
45. The couch on which she sits while being displayed. It is her throne, for she is the Queen of the occasion, with all the Majesty of Virginity.
46. This is a solemn “chaff;” such liberties being permitted at weddings and festive occasions.
47. The pre-Islamític dynasty of Al-Yaman in Arabia Felix, a region formerly famed for wealth and luxury. Hence the mention of Yamani work. The caravans from Sana’á, the capital, used to carry patterns of vases to be made in China and bring back the porcelains at the end of the third year: these are the Arabic inscriptions which have puzzled so many collectors. The Tobba, or Successors, were the old Himyarite Kings, a dynastic name like Pharaoh, Kisra (Persia), Negush (Abyssinia), Khakan or Khan (Tartary), etc., who claimed to have extended their conquests to Samarcand and made war on China. Any history of Arabia (as Crichton, I., chap. iv.) may be consulted for their names and annals. I have been told by Arabs that “Tobba” (or Tubba) is still used in the old Himyarland = the Great or the Chief.
48. Lane and Payne (as well as the Bres. Edit.) both render the word “to kiss her,” but this would be clean contrary to Moslem usage.
49. i.e. he was full of rage which he concealed.
50. On such occasions Miss Modesty shuts her eyes and looks as if about to faint.
51. After either evacuation the Moslem is bound to wash or sand the part; first however he should apply three pebbles, or potsherds or clods of earth. Hence the allusion in the Koran (chap. ix.), “men who love to be purified.” When the Prophet was questioning the men of Kuba, where he founded a mosque (Pilgrimage, ii., 215), he asked them about their legal ablutions, especially after evacuation; and they told him that they used three stones before washing. Moslems and Hindus (who prefer water mixed with earth) abhor the unclean and unhealthy use of paper without ablution; and the people of India call European draught-houses, by way of opprobrium, “Kághaz-khánah” = paper closets. Most old Anglo-Indians, however, learn to use water.
52. “Miao” or “Mau” is the generic name of the cat in the Egyptian of the hieroglyphs.
53. Arab. “Ya Mash’úm” addressed to an evil spirit.
54. “Heehaw!” as we should say. The Bresl. Edit. makes the cat cry “Nauh! Nauh!” and the ass-colt “Manu! Manu!” I leave these onomatopœics as they are in Arabic; they are curious, showing the unity in variety of hearing inarticulate sounds. The bird which is called “Whip poor Will” in the U. S. is known to the Brazilians as “Joam corta páo” (John cut wood); so differently do they hear the same notes.
55. It is usually a slab of marble with a long slit in front and a round hole behind. The text speaks of a Kursi (= stool); but this is now unknown to native houses which have not adopted European fashions.
56. This again is chaff as she addresses the Hunchback. The Bul. Edit. has “O Abu Shiháb” (Father of the shooting-star = evil spirit); the Bresl. Edit. “O son of a heap! O son of a Something!” (al-Afsh, a vulgarism).
57. As the reader will see, Arab ideas of “fun” and practical jokes are of the largest, putting the Hibernian to utter rout, and comparing favourably with those recorded in Don Quixote.
58. Arab. “Saráwil” a corruption of the Pers. “Sharwál;” popularly called “libás” which, however, may also mean clothing in general and especially outer-clothing. I translate “bag-trousers” and “petticoat-trousers,” the latter being the divided skirt of our future. In the East, where Common Sense, not Fashion, rules dress, men, who have a protuberance to be concealed, wear petticoats and women wear trousers. The feminine article is mostly baggy but sometimes, as in India, collant-tight. A quasi-sacred part of it is the inkle, tape or string, often a most magnificent affair, with tassels of pearl and precious stones; and “laxity in the trouser-string” is equivalent to the loosest conduct. Upon the subject of “libás,” “sarwál” and its variants the curious reader will consult Dr. Dozy’s Dictionnaire Détaillé des Noms des Vêtements chez les Arabes, a most valuable work.
59. The turban out of respect is not put upon the ground (Lane, M. E., chap. i.).
60. In Arab. the “he” is a “she;” and Habíb (“friend”) is the Attic , a euphemism for lover. This will occur throughout The Nights. So the Arabs use a phrase corresponding with the Stoic , i.e. is wont, is fain.
61. Part of the Azán, or call to prayer.
62. Arab. “Shiháb,” these meteors being the flying shafts shot at evil spirits who approach too near heaven. The idea doubtless arose from the showers of August and November meteors (The Perseides and Taurides) which suggest a battle raging in upper air. Christendom also has its superstition concerning them and called those of August the “fiery tears of Saint Lawrence,” whose festival was on August 10.
63. Arab. “Tákiyah” = Pers. Arak-chin; the calotte worn under the Fez. It is, I have said, now obsolete and the red woollen cap (mostly made in Europe) is worn over the hair; an unclean practice.
64. Often the effect of cold air after a heated room.
65. i.e. He was not a Eunuch, as the people guessed.
66. Arab. “this night” for the reason before given.
67. Meaning especially the drink prepared of the young leaves and florets of Cannabis Sativa. The word literally means “day grass” or “herbage.” This intoxicant was much used by magicians to produce ecstasy and thus to “deify themselves and receive the homage of the genii and spirits of nature.”
68. Torrens, being an Irishman, translates “and woke in the morning sleeping at Damascus.”
69. Arab. “Labbayka,” the cry technically called “Talbiyah” and used by those entering Meccah (Pilgrimage, iii. 125-232). I shall also translate it by “Adsum.” The full cry is:—
Here am I, O Allah, here am I!
No partner hast Thou, here am I:
Verily the praise and the grace and the kingdom are thine:
No partner hast Thou: here am I!
A single Talbiyah is a “Shart” or positive condition: and its repetition is a Sunnat or Custom of the Prophet.
70. The staple abuse of the vulgar is cursing parents and relatives, especially feminine, with specific allusions to their “shame.” And when dames of
high degree are angry, Nature, in the East as in the West, sometimes speaks out clearly enough, despite Mistress Chapone and all artificial restrictions.
71. A great beauty in Arabia and the reverse in Denmark, Germany and Slav-land, where it is a sign of being a were-wolf or a vampire. In Greece also it denotes a “Brukolak” or vampire.
72. This is not physiologically true: a bride rarely conceives the first night, and certainly would not know that she had conceived. Moreover the number of courses furnished by the bridegroom would be against conception. It is popularly said that a young couple often undoes in the morning what it has done during the night.
73. Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes “Fleisher” upon the word “Ghamghama” (Diss. Crit. de Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares with “Dumduma” and “Humbuma,” determining them to be onomatopœics, “an incomplete and an obscure murmur of a sentence as it were lingering between the teeth and lips and therefore difficult to be understood.” Of this family is “Taghúm;” not used in modern days. In my Pilgrimage (i. 313) I have noticed another, “Khyas’, Khyas’!” occurring in a Hizb al-Bahr (Spell of the Sea). Herklots gives a host of them; and their sole characteristics are harshness and strangeness of sound, uniting consonants which are not joined in Arabic. The old Egyptians and Chaldeans had many such words composed at will for theurgic operations.
74. This may mean either “it is of Mosul fashion” or, it is of muslin.
75. In those days the Arabs and the Portuguese recorded everything which struck them, as the Chinese and Japanese do in our times. And yet we complain of the amount of our modern writing!
76. This is mentioned because it is the act preliminary to naming the babe.
77. Arab. “Kahramánát” from Kahramán, an old Persian hero who conversed with the Simurgh-Griffon. Usually the word is applied to women-at-arms who defend the Harem, like the Urdu-begani of India, whose services were lately offered to England (1885), or the “Amazons” of Dahome.
78. He grew as fast in one day as other children in a month.
79. Arab. Al-Aríf; the tutor, the assistant-master.
80. Arab. “Ibn harám,” a common term of abuse; and not a factual reflection on the parent. I have heard a mother apply the term to her own son.
81. Arab. “Khanjar” from the Persian, a syn. with the Arab. “Jambiyah.” It is noticed in my Pilgrimage, iii., pp. 72, 75. To “silver the dagger,” means to become a rich man. From “Khanjar,” not from its fringed loop or strap, I derive our silly word “hanger.” Dr. Steingass would connect it with Germ. Fänger, e.g., Hirschfänger.
82. Again we have “Dastur” for “Izn.”
83. Arab. “Iklím;” the seven climates of Ptolemy.
84. The “Plain of Pebbles” still so termed at Damascus; an open space west of the city.
85. Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter’s Murray, gives a long account of this Christian Church ’verted to a Mosque.
86. Arab. “Nabút;” Pilgrimage, i. 336.
87. The Bres. Edit. says, “would have knocked him into Al-Yaman” (Southern Arabia), something like our slang phrase “into the middle of next week.”
88. Arab. “Khádim”: lit. a servant, politely applied (like Aghá = master) to a castrato. These gentry wax furious if baldly called “Tawáshi” = Eunuch. A mauvais plaisant in Egypt used to call me The Agha because a friend had placed his wife under my charge.
89. This sounds absurd enough in English, but Easterns always put themselves first for respect.
90. In Arabic the World is feminine.
91. Arab. “Sáhib” = lit. a companion; also a friend and especially applied to the Companions of Mohammed. Hence the Sunnis claim for them the honour of “friendship” with the Apostle; but the Shia’hs reply that the Arab says “Sahaba-hu’l-himár” (the Ass was his Sahib or companion). In the text it is a Wazirial title, in modern India it is = gentleman, e.g. “Sahib log” (the Sahib people) means their white conquerors, who, by the by, mostly mispronounce the word “Sáb.”
92. Arab. “Suwán,” prop. Syenite, from Syene (Al-Suwan) but applied to flint and any hard stone.
93. It was famous in the middle ages, and even now it is, perhaps, the most interesting to travellers after that “Sentina Gentium,” the “Bhendi Bazar” of unromantic Bombay.
94. “The Gate of the Gardens,” in the northern wall, a Roman archway of the usual solid construction shaming not only our modern shams, but our finest masonry.
95. Arab. “Al-Asr,” which may mean either the hour or the prayer. It is also the moment at which the Guardian Angels relieve each other (Sale’s Koran, chap. v.).
96. Arab. “Ya házá” = O this (one)! a somewhat slighting address equivalent to “Heus tu! O thou, whoever thou art.” Another form is “Yá hú” = O he! Can this have originated Swift’s “Yahoo”?
97. The Moslem does not use the European basin because water which has touched an impure skin becomes impure. Hence it is poured out from a ewer (“ibrík” Pers. Abríz) upon the hands and falls into a basin (“tisht”) with an open-worked cover.
98. Arab. “Wahsh,” a word of many meanings; nasty, insipid, savage, etc. The offside of a horse is called Wahshi opposed to Insi, the near side. The Amir Taymur (“Lord Iron”) whom Europeans unwittingly call after his Persian enemies’ nickname, “Tamerlane,” i.e. Taymur-i-lang, or limping Taymur, is still known as “Al-Wahsh” (the wild beast) at Damascus, where his Tartars used to bury men up to their necks and play at bowls with their heads for ninepins.
99. For “grandson” as being more affectionate. Easterns have not yet learned that clever Western saying:—The enemies of our enemies are our friends.
100. This was a simple bastinado on the back, not the more ceremonious affair of beating the feet-soles. But it is surprising what the Egyptians can bear; some of the rods used in the time of the Mameluke Beys are nearly as thick as a man’s wrist.
101. The woman-like spite of the eunuch intended to hurt the grandmother’s feelings.
102. The usual Cairene “chaff.”
103. A necessary precaution against poison (Pilgrimage, i. 84, and iii. 43).
104. The Bresl. Edit. (ii. 108) describes the scene at greater length.
105. The Bul. Edit. gives by mistake of diacritical points, “Zabdaniyah”: Raydaniyah is or rather was a camping ground to the north of Cairo.
106. Arab. “La’abat” = a plaything, a puppet, a lay figure. Lane (i. 326) conjectures that the cross is so called because it resembles a man with arms extended. But Moslems never heard of the fanciful ideas of mediæval Christian divines who saw the cross everywhere and in everything. The former hold that Pharaoh invented the painful and ignominious punishment. (Koran, chap. vii.)
107. Here good blood, driven to bay, speaks out boldly. But, as a rule, the humblest and mildest Eastern when in despair turns round upon his oppressors like a wild cat. Some of the criminals whom Fath Ali Shah of Persia put to death by chopping down the fork, beginning at the scrotum, abused his mother till the knife reached their vitals and they could no longer speak.
108. These repeated “laughs” prove the trouble of his spirit. Noble Arabs “show their back-teeth” so rarely that their laughter is held worthy of being recorded by their biographers.
109. A popular phrase, derived from the Koranic “Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: for falsehood is of short continuance” (chap. xvii.). It is an equivalent of our adaptation from 1 Esdras iv. 41, “Magna est veritas et prævalebit.” But the great question still remains, What is Truth?
110. This is always mentioned: the nearer the seat the higher the honour.
111. Alluding to the phrase “Al-safar zafar” = voyaging is victory (Pilgrimage i., 127).
112. Arab. “Habb;” alluding to the black drop in the human heart which the Archangel Gabriel removed from Mohammed by opening his breast.
113. This phrase, I have said, often occurs: it alludes to the horripilation (Arab. Kush’arírah), horror or gooseflesh
which, in Arab as in Hindu fables, is a symptom of great joy So Boccaccio’s “pelo arriciato” v., 8: Germ. Gänsehaut.
114. Arab. “Hasanta ya Hasan” = Bene detto, Benedetto! the usual word-play vulgarly called “pun”: Hasan (not Hassan, as we will write it) meaning “beautiful.”
115. Arab. “Loghah” also = a vocabulary, a dictionary; the Arabs had them by camel-loads.
116. The seventh of the sixteen “Bahr” (metres) in Arabic prosody; the easiest because allowing the most licence and, consequently, a favourite for didactic, homiletic and gnomic themes. It means literally “agitated” and was originally applied to the rude song of the Cameleer. De Sacy calls this doggrel “the poet’s ass” (Torrens, Notes xxvi.). It was the only metre in which Mohammed the Apostle ever spoke: he was no poet (Koran, xxxvi., 69) but he occasionally recited a verse and recited it wrongly (Dabistan, iii., 212). In Persian prosody Rajaz is the seventh of nineteen and has six distinct varieties (pp. 79-81, Gladwin’s Dissertations on Rhetoric, etc. Calcutta, 1801).