The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 4 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (novels to read for beginners .txt) 📕

[FN#83] The bodyguard being of two divisions.

[FN#84] Arab. “Hadb�,” lit. “hump-backed;” alluding to the Badawi bier; a pole to which the corpse is slung (Lane). It seems to denote the protuberance of the corpse when placed upon the bier which before was flat. The quotation is from Ka’ab’s Mantle-Poem (Burdah v . 37), “Every son of a female, long though his safety may be, is a day borne upon a ridged implement,” says Mr. Redhouse, explaining the latter as a “bier with a ridged lid.” Here we differ: the Jan�zah with a lid is not a Badawi article: the wildlings use the simplest stretcher; and I would translate the lines,

“The son of woman, whatso his career One day is borne upon the gibbous bier.”

[FN#85] This is a high honour to any courtier.

[FN#86] “Khatun” in Turk. means any lady: mistress, etc., and follows the name, e.g. F�timah Khatun. Habzalam Bazazah is supposed to be a fanciful compound, uncouth as the named; the first word consisting of “Habb” seed, grain; and “Zalam” of Zulm=seed of tyranny. Can it be a travesty of “Absalom” (Ab Sal�m, father of peace)? Lane (ii. 284) and Payne (iii. 286) prefer Habazlam and Hebezlem.

[FN#87] Or night. A metaphor for rushing into peril.

[FN#88] Plur. of kumkum, cucurbite, gourd-shaped vessel, jar.

[FN#89] A popular exaggeration for a very expert thief.

[FN#90] Arab. “Buka’at Ad-bum”: lit. the “low place of blood”

(where it stagnates): so Al-Buk�‘ah = C�lesyria.

[FN#91] That common and very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism and self-esteem, “I told you so,” is even more common in the na�ve East than in the West. In this case the son’s answer is far superior to the mother’s question.

[FN#92] In order to keep his oath to the letter.

[FN#93] “Tabannuj; ” literally “hemping” (drugging with hemp or henbane) is the equivalent in Arab medicine of our “an�sthetics.”

These have been used in surgery throughout the East for centuries before ether and chloroform became the fashion in the civilised West.

[FN#94] Arab. “Durk�‘ah,” the lower part of the floor, opposed to the “liw�n” or da�s. Liw�n =Al-Ayw�n (Arab. and Pers.) the hall (including the da�s and the sunken parts) [FN#95] i.e. he would toast it as he would a mistress.

[FN#96] This till very late years was the custom in Persia, and Fath Ali Shah never appeared in scarlet without ordering some horrible cruelties. In Dar-For wearing a red cashmere turban was a sign of wrath and sending a blood red dress to a subject meant that he would be slain.

[FN#97] That is, this robbery was committed in the palace by some one belonging to it. References to vinegar are frequent; that of Egypt being famous in those days. “Optimum et laudatissimum acetum a Romanis habebatur �gyptum” (Facciolati); and possibly it was sweetened: the Gesta (Tale xvii.) mentions “must and vinegar.” In Arab Proverbs, One mind by vinegar and another by wine”=each mind goes its own way, (Arab. Prov. . 628); or, “with good and bad,”

vinegar being spoilt wine.

[FN#98] We have not heard the last of this old “dowsing rod”: the latest form of rhabdomancy is an electrical-rod invented in the United States.

[FN#99] This is the proc�s verbal always drawn up on such occasions.

[FN#100] The sight of running water makes a Persian long for strong drink as the sight of a fine view makes the Turk feel hungry.

[FN#101] Arab. “Min wahid aduww ” a peculiarly Egyptian or rather Cairene phrase.

[FN#102] Al-Danaf=the Distressing Sickness: the title would be Ahmad the Calamity. Al-Zaybak (the Quicksilver)=Mercury Ali Hasan “Shuuman”=a pestilent fellow. We shall meet all these worthies again and again: see the Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo, Night dccviii., a sequel to The Rogueries of Dalilah, Night dcxcviii.

[FN#103] For the “Sacrifice-place of Ishmael” (not Isaac) see my Pilgrimage (iii. 306). According to all Arab ideas Ishmael, being the eldest son, was the chief of the family after his father. I have noted that this is the old old quarrel between the Arabs and their cousins the Hebrews.

[FN#104] This black-mail was still paid to the Badawin of Ramlah (Alexandria) till the bombardment in 1881.

[FN#105] The famous Issus of Cilicia, now a port-village on the Gulf of Scanderoon.

[FN#106] Arab. ” Wada’�” = the concha veneris, then used as small change.

[FN#107] Arab. “Sakati”=a dealer in “castaway” articles, such es old metal,damaged goods, the pluck and feet of animals, etc.

[FN#108] The popular tale of Burckhardt’s death in Cairo was that the names of the three first Caliphs were found written upon his slipper-soles and that he was put to death by decree of the Olema.

It is the merest nonsense, as the great traveller died of dysentery in the house of my old friend John Thurburn and was buried outside the Bab al-Nasr of Cairo where his tomb was restored by the late Rogers Bey (Pilgrimage i. 123).

[FN#109] Prob. a mis-spelling for Arsl�n, in Turk. a lion, and in slang a piastre.

[FN#110] Arab. “Maka’ad;” lit. = sitting-room.

[FN#111] Arab. “Khamm�rah”; still the popular term throughout Egypt for a European Hotel. It is not always intended to be insulting but it is, meaning the place where Franks meet to drink forbidden drinks.

[FN#112] A reminiscence of Mohammed who cleansed the Ka’abah of its 360 idols (of which 73 names are given by Freytag, Einleitung, etc. pp. 270, 342-57) by touching them with his staff, whereupon all fell to the ground; and the Prophet cried (Koran xvii. 84), “Truth is come, and falsehood is vanished: verily, falsehood is a thing that vanisheth” (magna est veritas, etc.). Amongst the “idols” are said to have been a statue of Abraham and the horns of the ram sacrificed in lieu of Ishmael, which (if true) would prove conclusively that the Abrahamic legend at Meccah is of ancient date and not a fiction of Al-Islam. Hence, possibly, the respect of the Judaising Tobbas of Hiwyarland for the Ka’abah. (Pilgrimage, iii.

295.)

[FN#113] This was evidently written by a Sunni as the Sh�‘ahs claim to be the only true Moslems. Lane tells an opposite story (ii. 329). It suggests the common question in the South of Europe, “Are you a Christian or a Protestant?”

[FN#114] Arab. “Ana f� j�rat-ak!” a phrase to be remembered as useful in time of danger.

[FN#115] i.e. No Jinni, or Slave of the Jewel, was there to answer.

[FN#116] Arab. “Kuns�l” (pron. “Gunsul”) which here means a well-to-do Frank, and shows the modern date of the tale as it stands.

[FN#117] From the Ital. “Capitano.” The mention of cannon and other terms in this tale shows that either it was written during the last century or it has been mishandled by copyists.

[FN#118] Arab. “Min�nah”; a biscuit of flour and clarified butter.

[FN#119] Arab. “Waybah”; the sixth part of the Ardabb=6 to 7

English gallons.

[FN#120] He speaks in half-jest � la fellah; and reminds us of “Hangman, drive on the cart!”

[FN#121] Yochanan (whom Jehovah has blessed) Jewish for John, is probably a copy of the Chaldean Euahanes, the Oannes of Berosus=Ea Khan, Hea the fish. The Greeks made it Joannes; the Arabs “Yohann�”

(contracted to “Hann�,” Christian) and “Y�by�” (Moslem). Prester (Priest) John is probably Ung Khan, the historian prince conquered and slain by Janghiz Khan in A.D. 1202. The modern history of “John” is very extensive: there may be a full hundred varieties and derivation’ of the name. “Husn Maryam” the beauty (spiritual. etc.) of the B.V.

[FN#122] Primarily being middle-aged; then aid, a patron, servant, etc. Also a tribe of the Jinn usually made synonymous with “M�rid,”

evil controuls, hostile to men: modern spiritualists would regard them as polluted souls not yet purged of their malignity. The text insinuates that they were at home amongst Christians and in Genoa.

[FN#123] Arab. “Sar’a” = epilepsy, falling sickness, of old always confounded with “possession” (by evil spirits) or “obsession.”

[FN#124] Again the true old charge of falsifying the so-called “Sacred books.” Here the Koran is called “Furk�n.” Sale (sect.

iii.) would assimilate this to the Hebr. “Perek” or “Pirka,”

denoting a section or portion of Scripture; but Moslems understand it to be the “Book which distinguisheth (faraka, divided) the true from the false.” Thus Caliph Omar was entitled “F�r�k” = the Distinguisher (between right and wrong). Lastly, “Furk�n,” meanings as in Syr. and Ethiop. deliverance, revelation, is applied alike to the Pentateuch and Koran.

[FN#125] Euphemistic for “thou shalt die.”

[FN#126] Lit. “From (jugular) vein to vein” (Arab. “War�d”). Our old friend Lucretius again: “Tantane relligio,” etc.

[FN#127] As opposed to the “but” or outer room.

[FN#128] Arab. “Darb al-Asfar” in the old Jamal�yah or Northern part of Cairo.

[FN#129] A noble tribe of Badawin that migrated from Al-Yaman and settled in Al-Najd Their Chief, who died a few years before Mohammed’s birth, was Al-Hatim (the “black crow”), a model of Arab manliness and munificence; and although born in the Ignorance he will enter Heaven with the Moslems. Hatim was buried on the hill called Ow�rid: I have already noted this favourite practice of the wilder Arabs and the affecting idea that the Dead may still look upon his kith and kin. There is not an Arab book nor, indeed, a book upon Arabia which does not contain the name of Hatim: he is mentioned as unpleasantly often as Aristides.

[FN#130] Lord of “Cattle-feet,” this King’s name is unknown; but the K�m�s mentions two Kings called Zu ‘l Kal�‘a, the Greater and the Less. Lane’s Shaykh (ii. 333) opined that the man who demanded Hatim’s hospitality was one Abu’l-Khaybari.

[FN#131] The camel’s throat, I repeat, is not cut as in the case of other animals, the muscles being too strong: it is slaughtered by the “nahr,” i.e. thrusting a knife into the hollow at the commissure of the chest. (Pilgrimage iii. 303.) [FN#132] Adi became a Moslem and was one of the companions of the Prophet.

[FN#133] A rival-in generosity to Hatim: a Persian poet praising his patron’s generosity says that it buried that of Hatim and dimmed that of Ma’an (D’Herbelot). He was a high official-under the last Ommiade, Marw�n al-Him�r (the “Ass,” or the “Century,” the duration of Ommiade rule) who was routed and slain in A.H. 132=750.

Ma’an continued to serve under the Abbasides and was a favourite with Al-Mans�r. “More generous or bountiful than Ka’ab” is another saying (A. P., i. 325); Ka’ab ibn M�mah was a man who, somewhat like Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen, gave his own portion of drink while he was dying of thirst to a man who looked wistfully at him, whence the saying “Give drink to thy brother the N�miri” (A. P., i.

608). Ka’ab could not mount, so they put garments over him to scare away the wild beasts and left him in the desert to die. “Scatterer of blessings” (N�shir al-Ni’am) was a title of King Malik of Al-Yaman, son of Sharhab�l, eminent for his liberality. He set up the statue in the Western Desert, inscribed “Nothing behind me,” as a warner to others.

[FN#134] Lane (ii. 352) here introduces, between Nights cclxxi.

and ccxc., a tale entitled in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 134) “The Sleeper and the Waker,” i.e. the sleeper awakened; and he calls it: The Story of Abu-l-Hasan the Wag. It is interesting and founded upon historical-fact; but it can hardly be introduced here without breaking the sequence of The Nights. I regret this the more as Mr.

Alexander J. Cotheal-of New York has most obligingly sent me an addition to the Breslau text (iv.