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

[FN#416] Arab. “Iky�n” which Mr. Payne translates “vegetable gold” very picturesquely but not quite preserving the idea. See supra p. 272.

[FN#417] It is the custom for fast youths, in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere to stick small gold pieces, mere spangles of metal on the brows, cheeks and lips of the singing and dancing girls and the perspiration and mask of cosmetics make them adhere for a time till fresh movement shakes them off.

[FN#418] See the same idea in vol. i. 132, and 349.

[FN#419] “They will ask thee concerning wine and casting of lots; say: ‘In both are great sin and great advantages to mankind; but the sin of them both is greater than their advantage.’” See Koran ii. 216. Mohammed seems to have made up his mind about drinking by slow degrees; and the Koranic law is by no means so strict as the Mullahs have made it. The prohibitions, revealed at widely different periods and varying in import and distinction, have been discussed by Al-Bayz�wi in his commentary on the above chapter. He says that the first revelation was in chapt. xvi. 69 but, as the passage was disregarded, Omar and others consulted the Apostle who replied to them in chapt. ii. 216. Then, as this also was unnoticed, came the final decision in chapt. v. 92, making wine and lots the work of Satan. Yet excuses are never wanting to the Moslem, he can drink Champagne and Cognac, both unknown in Mohammed’s day and he can use wine and spirits medicinally, like sundry of ourselves, who turn up the nose of contempt at the idea of drinking for pleasure.

[FN#420] i.e. a fair-faced cupbearer. The lines have occurred before: so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#421] It is the custom of the Arabs to call their cattle to water by whistling; not to whistle to them, as Europeans do, whilst making water.

[FN#422] i.e. bewitching. See vol. i. 85. These incompatible metaphors are brought together by the Saj’a (prose rhyme) in—“iyah.”

[FN#423] Mesopotamian Christians, who still turn towards Jerusalem, face the West, instead of the East, as with Europeans: here the monk is so dazed that he does not know what to do.

[FN#424] Arab. “Bayt Sha’ar” = a house of hair (tent) or a couplet of verse. Watad (a tentpeg) also is prosodical, a foot when the two first letters are “moved” (vowelled) and the last is jazmated (quiescent), e.g. Lakad. It is termed Majm�‘a (united), as opposed to “Mafr�k” (separated), e.g. Kabla, when the “moved”

consonants are disjoined by a quiescent.

[FN#425] Lit. standing on their heads, which sounds ludicrous enough in English, not in Arabic.

[FN#426] These lines are in vol. iii. 251. I quote Mr. Payne who notes “The bodies of Eastern women of the higher classes by dint of continual maceration, Esther-fashion, in aromatic oils and essences, would naturally become impregnated with the sweet scents of the cosmetics used.”

[FN#427] These lines occur in vol. i. 218: I quote Torrens for variety.

[FN#428] So we speak of a “female screw.” The allusion is to the dove-tailing of the pieces. This personification of the lute has occurred before: but I solicit the reader’s attention to it; it has a fulness of Oriental flavour all its own.

[FN#429] I again solicit the reader’s attention to the simplicity, the pathos and the beauty of this personification of the lute.

[FN#430] “They” for she.

[FN#431] The Arabs very justly make the “‘Andalib” =

nightingale, masculine.

[FN#432] Anw�r = lights or flowers: See Night dccclxv. supra p.

270.

[FN#433] These couplets have occurred in vol. i. 168; so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#434] i.e. You may have his soul but leave me his body: company with him in the next world and let me have him in this.

[FN#435] Alluding to the Koranic (cxiii. 1.), “I take refuge with the Lord of the Daybreak from the mischief of that which He hath created, etc.” This is shown by the first line wherein occurs the Koranic word “Gh�sik” (cxiii. 3) which may mean the first darkness when it overspreadeth or the moon when it is eclipsed.

[FN#436] “Malak” = level ground; also tract on the Nile sea.

Lane M.E. ii. 417, and Bruckhardt Nubia 482.

[FN#437] This sentiment has often been repeated.

[FN#438] The owl comes in because “B�m” (pron. boom) rhymes with Kayy�m = the Eternal.

[FN#439] For an incident like this see my Pilgrimmage (vol. i.

176). How true to nature the whole scene is; the fond mother excusing her boy and the practical father putting the excuse aside. European paternity, however, would probably exclaim, “The beast’s in liquor!”

[FN#440] In ancient times this seems to have been the universal and perhaps instinctive treatment of the hand that struck a father. By Nur al-Din’s flight the divorce-oath became technically null and void for Taj al-Din had sworn to mutilate his son next morning.

[FN#441] So Roderic Random and his companions “sewed their money between the lining and the waistband of their breeches, except some loose silver for immediate expense on the road.” For a description of these purses see Pilgrimage i. 37.

[FN#442] Arab. Rashid (our Rosetta), a corruption of the Coptic Trashit; ever famous for the Stone.

[FN#443] For a parallel passage in praise of Alexandria see vol.

i. 290, etc. The editor or scribe was evidently an Egyptian.

[FN#444] Arab. “Saghr” (Thagr), the opening of the lips showing the teeth. See vol. i. p. 156.

[FN#445] Iskandariyah, the city of Iskandar or Alexander the Great, whose “Soma” was attractive to the Greeks as the corpse of the Prophet Daniel afterwards was to the Moslems. The choice of site, then occupied only by the pauper village of Rhacotis, is one proof of many that the Macedonian conqueror had the inspiration of genius.

[FN#446] i.e. paid them down. See vol. i. 281; vol. ii. 145.

[FN#447] Arab. “Baltiyah,” Sonnini’s “Bolti” and N�buleux (because it is dozid-coloured when fried), the Labrus Niloticus from its labra or large fleshy lips. It lives on the “leaves of Paradise” hence the flesh is delicate and savoury and it is caught with the �pervier or sweep-net in the Nile, canals and pools.

[FN#448] Arab. “Liyyah,” not a delicate comparison, but exceedingly apt besides rhyming to “Baltiyah.” The cauda of the “five-quarter sheep, whose tails are so broad and thick that there is as much flesh upon them as upon a quarter of their body,” must not be confounded with the lank appendage of our English muttons. See i. 25, Dr. Burnell’s Linschoten (Hakluyt Soc. 1885).

[FN#449] A variant occurs in vol. ix. 191.

[FN#450] Arab. “Tars Daylami,” a small shield of bright metal.

[FN#451] Arab. “Kaukab al-durri,” see Pilgrimage ii. 82.

[FN#452] Arab. “Kus�f” applied to the moon; Khus�f being the solar eclipse.

[FN#453] May Ab� Lahab’s hands perish… and his wife be a bearer of faggots!” Korau cxi. 184. The allusion is neat.

[FN#454] Alluding to the Angels who shoot down the Jinn. See vol. i. 224. The index misprints “Shib�h.”

[FN#455] For a similar scene see Ali Shar and Zumurrud, vol. iv.

187.

[FN#456] i.e. of the girl whom as the sequel shows, her owner had promised not to sell without her consent. This was and is a common practice. See vol. iv. 192.

[FN#457] These lines have occurred in vol. iii. p. 303. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#458] Alluding to the erectio et distensio penis which comes on before dawn in tropical lands and which does not denote any desire for women. Some Anglo-Indians term the symptom signum salutis, others a urine-proud pizzle.

[FN#459] Arab. “Mohtasib,” in the Maghrib “Mohtab,” the officer charged with inspecting weights and measures and with punishing fraud in various ways such as nailing the cheat’s ears to his shop’s shutter, etc.

[FN#460] Every where in the Moslem East the slave holds himself superior to the menial freeman, a fact which I would impress upon the several Anti-slavery Societies, honest men whose zeal mostly exceeds their knowledge, and whose energy their discretion.

[FN#461] These lines, extended to three couplets, occur in vol.

iv. 193. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#462] “At this examination (on Judgment Day) Mohammedans also believe that each person will have the book, wherein all the actions of his life are written, delivered to him; which books the righteous will receive in their right hand, and read with great pleasure and satisfaction; but the ungodly will be obliged to take them, against their wills, in their left (Koran xvii.

xviii. lxix, and lxxxiv.), which will be bound behind their backs, their right hand being tied to their necks.” Sale, Preliminary Discourse; Sect. iv.

[FN#463] “Whiteness” (bay�z) also meaning lustre, honour.

[FN#464] This again occurs in vol. iv. 194. So I quote Mr.

Payne.

[FN#465] Her impudence is intended to be that of a captive Princess.

[FN#466] i.e. bent groundwards.

[FN#467] See vol. iv. 192. In Marocco Za’ar is applied to a man with fair skin, red hair and blue eyes (Gothic blood?) and the term is not complimentary as “Sultan Yazid Za’ar.”

[FN#468] The lines have occurred before (vol. iv. 194). I quote Mr. Lane ii. 440. Both he and Mr. Payne have missed the point in “ba’zu lay�li” a certain night when his mistress had left him so lonely.

[FN#469] Arab. “Raat-hu.” This apparently harmless word suggests one simlar in sound and meaning which gave some trouble in its day. Says Mohammed in the Koran (ii. 98) “O ye who believe! say not (to the Apostle) R�‘in� (look at us) but Unzurn� (regard us).” “R�‘in�” as pronounced in Hebrew means “our bad one.”

[FN#470] By reason of its leanness.

[FN#471] In the Mac. Edit. “Fifty.” For a scene which illustrates this mercantile transaction see my Pilgrimage i. 88, and its deduction. “How often is it our fate, in the West as in the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear from rosy lips an implied, if not an expressed ‘Why don’t you buy me?’ or, worse still, ‘Why can’t you buy me?’”

[FN#472] See vol. ii. 165 dragging or trailing the skirts =

walking without the usual strut or swagger: here it means assuming the humble manners of a slave in presence of the master.

[FN#473] This is the Moslem form of “boycotting”: so amongst early Christians they refused to give one another God-speed.

Amongst Hind�s it takes the form of refusing “Hukkah (pipe) and water” which practically makes a man an outcast. In the text the old man expresses the popular contempt for those who borrow and who do not repay. He had evidently not read the essay of Elia on the professional borrower.

[FN#474] See note p. 273.

[FN#475] i.e. the best kind of camels.

[FN#476] This first verse has occurred three times.

[FN#477] Arab. “Surayy�” in Dictionaries a dim. of Sarw� =

moderately rich. It may either denote abundance of rain or a number of stars forming a constellation. Hence in Job (xxxviii.

31) it is called a heap (k�mah).

[FN#478] Pleiads in Gr. the Stars whereby men sail.

[FN#479] This is the Eastern idea of the consequence of satisfactory coition which is supposed to be the very seal of love. Westerns have run to the other extreme.

[FN#480] “Al-R�f” simply means lowland: hence there is a R�f in the Nile-delta. The word in Europe is applied chiefly to the Maroccan coast opposite Gibraltar (not, as is usually supposed the North-Western seaboard) where