The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 8 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (great books for teens TXT) 📕

[FN#227] i.e. better give the fish than have my head broken.

[FN#228] Said ironic�, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.

[FN#229] The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. 274.

[FN#230] This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be admired wherever Arabs are not “frankified.”

[FN#231] Arab. “Shib�bah;” Lane makes it a kind of reed-flageolet.

[FN#232] These lines occur in vol. i. 76: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#233] The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar and going to church.

[FN#234] Arab. “Y� Shukayr,” from Shakar, being red (clay, etc.): Shuk�r is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim.

Form. Lane’s Shaykh made it a dim. of “Ashkar” = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former writes, “O Shukeyr.” Mr. Payne prefers “O Rosy cheeks.”

[FN#235] For “Sandal,” see vol. ii. 50. Sandal� properly means an Eunuch clean ras�, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandalwood.

[FN#236] Arab. “Y� mum�til,” one who retards payment.

[FN#237] Arab. “Kirsh al-Nukh�l” = guts of bran, a term too little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a Fallah-grazioso of normal assurance shrewd withal; he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and he uses the first epithet that comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii.

for the sudden change in Khalifah.

[FN#238] So the Persian “May your shadow never be less” means, I have said, the shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade, cold water and fresh breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.

[FN#239] When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the Government of Egypt, he was a once imprisoned for arrears of taxes and thus prevented from being troublesome. I am told that matters have improved under English rule, but I “doubt the fact.”

[FN#240] This freak is of course not historical. The tale-teller introduces it to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun al-Rashid, and the vulgar would regard it as a right kingly diversion. Westerns only wonder that such things could be.

[FN#241] Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage ii.

248.

[FN#242] First cousin of the Prophet, son of Ab� T�lib, a brother of Al-Abbas from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.

[FN#243] i.e. I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell me.

[FN#244] Arab. “N�kh�zah Zulayt.” The former, from the Persian N�khod� or ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense “a godless wight,” one owning no (n�) God (Khud�). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.

[FN#245] Y�sam�n and Narjis, names of slavegirls or eunuchs.

[FN#246] Arab. Tamar-hann�, the cheapest of dyes used ever by the poorest classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.

[FN#247] The formula (meaning, “What has he to do here?”) is by no means complimentary.

[FN#248] Arab. “Jarrah” (pron. “Garrah”) a “jar.” See Lane (M.E. chapt. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial notices. The “Jarrah” is of pottery, whereas the “Dist” is a large copper chauldron and the Khalkinah one of lesser size.

[FN#249] i.e. What a bother thou art, etc.

[FN#250] This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of their distinguished men, especially students.

A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and after repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an All�mah (doctissimus).

[FN#251] Arab. “Bismillah, N�m�!” here it is not a blessing, but a simple invitation, “Now please go to sleep.”

[FN#252] The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an illustration of that of “Am�sis, the good god and lord of the two lands” (circ. B.C. 1350) in British Museum (p. 41, “The Dwellers on the Nile,” by E. A. Wallis Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).

[FN#253] This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of inverted speech—Thou art in luck this time!

[FN#254] Arab. “Marh�b” = terrible: Lane reads “Mar’�b” =

terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with something terrible.

[FN#255] i.e. in Kut al-Kul�b.

[FN#256] Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, i.e. Mohammed.

[FN#257] In the text he tells of the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.: but — “of no avail is a twice-told tale.”

[FN#258] Koran xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.

[FN#259] Easterns find it far easier to “get the chill of poverty out of their bones” than Westerns.

[FN#260] Arab. “Dar al-Na’�m.” Name of one of the seven stages of the Moslem heaven. This style of inscription dates from the days of the hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of Raamses ends with these lines.—

Daily is there a supply of food:

Within it gladness doth ever brood

Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc., etc.

[FN#261] Arab. “Ans�r” = auxiliaries, the men of Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 130, etc.).

[FN#262] Arab. “Ash�b” = the companions of the Prophet who may number 500 (Pilgrimage ii. 81, etc.).

[FN#263] Arab. “H�silah” prob. a corner of a “Godown” in some Khan or Caravanserai.

[FN#264] Arab. “Funduk” from the Gr. , whence the Italian Fondaco e.g. at Venice the Fondaco de’ Turchi.

[FN#265] Arab. “Ast�r” plur. of Satr: in the Mac. Edit. S�t�r, both (says Dozy) meaning “Couperet” (a hatchet). Habicht translates it “a measure for small fish,” which seems to be a shot and a bad shot as the text talks only of means of carrying fish. Nor can we accept Dozy’s emendation Ast�l (plur. of Satl) pails, situl�. In Petermann’s Reisen (i. 89) Satr=assiette.

[FN#266] Which made him expect a heavy haul.

[FN#267] Arab. “Urk�b” = tendon Achilles in man hough or pastern in beast, etc. It is held to be an incrementative form of ‘Akab (heel); as Kur’�b of Ka’b (heel) and Khurt�m of Khatm (snout).

[FN#268] Arab. “Karm�t” and “Zakz�k.” The former (pronounced Garm�t) is one of the many Siluri (S. Carmoth Niloticus) very common and resembling the Sh�l. It is smooth and scaleless with fleshy lips and soft meat and as it haunts muddy bottoms it was forbidden to the Ancient Egyptians. The Zakz�k is the young of the Sh�l (Synodontis Schal: Seetzen); its plural form Zak�zik (pronounced Zig�zig) gave a name to the flourishing town which has succeeded to old Bubastis and of which I have treated in “Midian” and “Midian Revisited.”

[FN#269] “Y� A’awar”=O one-eye! i.e.. the virile member. So the vulgar insult “Ya ibn al-aur” (as the vulgar pronounce it) “O son of a yard!” When AlMas’�di writes (Fr. Trans. vii. 106), “Udkhul usbu’ak f� aynih,” it must not be rendered “Il faut lui faire violence”: thrust thy finger into his eye (‘Ayn) means “put thy penis up his fundament!” (‘Ayn being=Dubur). The French remarks, “On en trouverait l’�quivalent dans les bas-fonds de notre langue,” So in English “pig’s eye,” “blind eye,” etc.

[FN#270] Arab. “Nabb�t”=a quarterstaff: see vol. i. 234.

[FN#271] Arab. “Bann�,” vulg. Benni and in Lane (Lex. Bunni) the Cyprinus Bynni (Forsk.), a fish somewhat larger than a barbel with lustrous silvery scales and delicate flesh, which Sonnini believes may be the “Lepidotes” (smooth-scaled) mentioned by Athen�us. I may note that the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 332) also affects the Egyptian vulgarism “Farkh-Banni” of the Mac. Edit. (Night dcccxxxii.).

[FN#272] The storyteller forgets that Khalif had neither basket nor knife.

[FN#273] Arab. “Rayh�n” which may here mean any scented herb.

[FN#274] In the text “Fard Kalmah,” a vulgarism. The Mac. Edit.

(Night dcccxxxv.) more aptly says, “Two words” (Kalmat�ni, vulg.

Kalmatayn) the Twofold Testimonies to the Unity of Allah and the Mission of His Messenger.

[FN#275] The lowest Cairene chaff which has no respect for itself or others.

[FN#276] Arab. “Karrat azl� h�”: alluding to the cool skin of healthy men when digesting a very hearty meal.

[FN#277] This is the true Fellah idea. A peasant will go up to his proprietor with the “rint” in gold pieces behind his teeth and undergo an immense amount of flogging before he spits them out. Then he will return to his wife and boast of the number of sticks he has eaten instead of paying at once and his spouse will say, “Verily thou art a man.” Europeans know nothing of the Fellah. Napoleon Buonaparte, for political reasons, affected great pity for him and horror of his oppressors, the Beys and Pashas; and this affectation gradually became public opinion. The Fellah must either tyrannise or be tyrannised over; he is never happier than under a strong-handed despotism and he has never been more miserable than under British rule, or rather, misrule.

Our attempts to constitutionalise him have made us the laughing-stock of Europe.

[FN#278] The turban is a common substitute for a purse with the lower classes of Egyptians; and an allusion to the still popular practice of turban-snatching will be found in vol. i. p. 259.

[FN#279] Arab. “S�lih,” a devotee; here, a naked Dervish.

[FN#280] Here Khalif is made a conspicuous figure in Baghdad like Boccaccio’s Calandrino and Co. He approaches in type the old Irishman now extinct, destroyed by the reflux action Of Anglo-America (U.S.) upon the miscalled “Emerald Isle.” He blunders into doing and saying funny things whose models are the Hibernian “bulls” and acts purely upon the impulse of the moment, never reflecting till (possibly) after all is over.

[FN#281] Arab. “Kayl�lah,” explained in vol. i. 51.

[FN#282] i.e. thy bread lawfully gained. The “Baww�k”

(trumpeter) like the “Zamm�r” (piper of the Mac. Edit.) are discreditable craftsmen, associating with Almahs and loose women and often serving as their panders.

[FN#283] i.e. he was indecently clad. Man’s “shame” extends from navel to knees. See vol vi. 30.

[FN#284] Rashid would be=garden-cresses or stones: Rash�d the heaven-directed.

[FN#285] Arab. “Uff ‘alayka”=fie upon thee! Uff=lit. Sordes Aurium and Tuff (a similar term of disgust)=Sordes unguinum. To the English reader the blows administered to Khalif appear rather hard measure. But a Fellah’s back is thoroughly broken to the treatment and he would take ten times as much punishment for a few piastres.

[FN#286] Arab. “Zurayk” dim. of Azrak=blue-eyed. See vol. iii.

104.

[FN#287] Of Baghdad.

[FN#288] Arab. “H�sil,” i.e. cell in a Khan for storing goods: elsewhere it is called a Makhzan (magazine) with the same sense.

[FN#289] The Bresl. text (iv. 347) abbreviates, or rather omits; so that in translation details must be supplied to make sense.

[FN#290] Arab. “Kam�n,” vulgar Egyptian, a contraction from Kama’ (as) + anna (since, because). So ” Kam�n shuwayh”=wait a bit; ” Kam�n marrah”=once more and “Wa Karm�na-ka”=that is why.

[FN#291] i.e. Son of the Eagle: See vol. iv. 177. Here, however, as the text shows it is hawk or falcon. The name is purely fanciful and made mnemonically singular.

[FN#292] The Egyptian Fellah knows nothing of boxing like the Haus� man; but he is fond of wrestling after a rude and uncultivated fashion, which would cause shouts of laughter in Cumberland and Cornwall. And there are champions in this line, See vol. iii. 93.

[FN#293] The usual formula. See