The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 4 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (robert munsch read aloud txt) 📗

Faith) and this gave rise to the practice. It may be observed that the superstition of naming by omens is in no way obsolete.

 

[FN#31] Meaning that he appeared intoxicated by the pride of his beauty as though it had been strong wine.

 

[FN#32] i.e. against the evil eye.

 

[FN#33] Meaning that he had been delicately reared.

 

[FN#34] A traditional-saying of Mohammed.

 

[FN#35] So Boccaccio’s “Capo bianco” and “Coda verde.” (Day iv., Introduct.)

 

[FN#36] The opening chapter is known as the “Mother of the Book”

(as opposed to Y� S�n, the “heart of the Koran”), the “Surat (chapter) of Praise,” and the “Surat of repetition” (because twice revealed?) or thanksgiving, or laudation (Ai-Mas�ni) and by a host of other names for which see Mr. Rodwell who, however, should not write “Fatthah” (p. xxv.) nor “Fathah” (xxvii.). The F�tihah, which is to Al-Islam much what the “Paternoster” is to Christendom, consists of seven verses, in the usual-Saj’a or rhymed prose, and I have rendered it as follows: In the name of the Compassionating, the Compassionate! Praise be to Allah who all the Worlds made The Compassionating, the Compassionate King of the Day of Faith! Thee only do we adore and of Thee only do we crave aid Guide us to the path which is straight The path of those for whom Thy love is great, not those on whom is hate, nor they that deviate * Amen! O Lord of the World’s trine.

 

My Pilgrimage (i. 285; ii. 78 and passim) will supply instances of its application; how it is recited with open hands to catch the blessing from Heaven and the palms are drawn down the face (Ibid. i. 286), and other details,

 

[FN#37] i.e. when the evil eye has less effect than upon children. Strangers in Cairo often wonder to see a woman richly dressed leading by the hand a filthy little boy (rarely a girl) in rags, which at home will be changed to cloth of gold.

 

[FN#38] Arab. “As�dah” flour made consistent by boiling in water with the addition of “Same” clarified butter) and honey: more like pap than custard.

 

[FN#39] Arab. “Gh�bah” = I have explained as a low-lying place where the growth is thickest and consequently animals haunt it during the noon-heats

 

[FN#40] Arab. “Akk�m,” one who loads camels and has charge of the luggage. He also corresponds with the modern Mukharrij or camel-hirer (Pilgrimage i. 339), and hence the word Moucre (Moucres) which, first used by La Brocqui�re (A.D. 1432), is still the only term known to the French.

 

[FN#41] i.e. I am old and can no longer travel.

 

[FN#42] Taken from Al-Asma’i, the “Romance of Antar,” and the episode of the Asafir Camels.

 

[FN#43] A Mystic of the twelfth century A.D. who founded the K�dir� order (the oldest and chiefest of the four universally recognised), to which I have the honour to belong, teste my diploma (Pilgrimage, Appendix i.). Visitation is still made to his tomb at Baghdad. The Arabs (who have no hard g-letter) alter to “J�l�n” the name of his birth-place “Gilan,” a tract between the Caspian and the Black Seas.

 

[FN#44] The well-known Anglo-Indian “Mucuddum;” lit. “one placed before (or over) others”

 

[FN#45] Koran xiii. 14.

 

[FN#46] i.e.. his chastity: this fashion of objecting to infamous proposals is very characteristic: ruder races would use their fists.

 

[FN#47] Arab. “R�fiz�”=the Shi’ah (tribe, sect) or Persian schismatics who curse the first three Caliphs: the name is taken from their own saying “Inn� rafizn�-hum”=verily we have rejected them. The feeling between Sunni (the so-called orthodox) and Shi’ah is much like the Christian love between a Catholic of Cork and a Protestant from the Black North. As Al-Siyuti or any historian will show, this sect became exceedingly powerful under the later Abbaside Caliphs, many of whom conformed to it and adopted its tractices and innovations (as in the Azan or prayer-call), greatly to the scandal-of their co-religionists.

Even in the present day the hatred between these representatives of Arab monotheism and Persian Guebrism continues unabated. I have given sundry instances m my Pilgrimage, e.g. how the Persians attempt to pollute the tombs of the Caliphs they abhor.

 

[FN#48] Arab. “Sakk�,” the Indian “Bihisht�” (man from Heaven): Each party in a caravan has one or more.

 

[FN#49] These “Kir�m�t” or Saints’ miracles, which Spiritualists will readily accept, are recorded in vast numbers. Most men have half a dozen to tell, each of his “P�r” or patron, including the Istidr�j or prodigy of chastisement. (Dabistan, iii. 274.) [FN#50] Great granddaughter of the Imam Hasan buried in Cairo and famed for “Kir�m�t.” Her father, governor of Al-Medinah, was imprisoned by Al-Mansur and restored to power by Al-Mahdi. She was married to a son of the Imam Ja’afar al-Sadik and lived a life of devotion in Cairo, dying in A.H. 218=824. The corpse of the Imam al-Shafi’i was carried to her house, now her mosque and mausoleum: it stood in the Darb al-Sab�a which formerly divided Old from New Cairo and is now one of the latter’s suburbs. Lane (M. E. chaps. x.) gives her name but little more. The mention of her shows that the writer of the tale or the copyist was a Cairene : Abd al-Kadir is world-known : not so the “Sitt.”

 

[FN#51] Arab. “Farkh akrab” for Ukayrib, a vulgarism.

 

[FN#52] The usual Egyptian irreverence: he relates his abomination as if it were a Hadis or Tradition of the Prophet with due ascription.

 

[FN#53] A popular name, dim. of Zubdah cream, fresh butter, “creamkin.”

 

[FN#54] Arab. “Mustahall,” “Mustahill’ and vulg. “Muhallil”

(=one who renders lawful). It means a man hired for the purpose who marries pro forma and after wedding, and bedding with actual-consummation, at once divorces the woman. He is held the reverse of respectable and no wonder. Hence, probably, Mandeville’s story of the Islanders who, on the marriage-night, “make another man to lie by their wives, to have their maidenhead, for which they give great hire and much thanks. And there are certain men in every town that serve for no other thing; and they call them cadeberiz, that is to say, the fools of despair, because they believe their occupation is a dangerous one.” Burckhardt gives the proverb (No. 79), “A thousand lovers rather than one Mustahall,” the latter being generally some ugly fellow picked up in the streets and disgusting to the wife who must permit his embraces.

 

[FN#55] This is a woman’s oath. not used by men.

 

[FN#56] Pronounced “Y� S�n” (chaps. xxxvi.) the “heart of the Koran” much used for edifying recitation. Some pious Moslems in Egypt repeat it as a Wazifah, or religious task, or as masses for the dead, and all educated men know its 83 versets by rote.

 

[FN#57] Arab. “�l-D��d”=the family of David, i.e. David himself, a popular idiom. The prophet’s recitation of the “Maz�mir”

(Psalter) worked miracles.

 

[FN#58] There is a peculiar thickening of the voice in leprosy which at once betrays the hideous disease.

 

[FN#59] These lines have occurred in Night clxxxiii. I quote Mr. Payne (in loco) by way of variety.

 

[FN#60] Where the “Juz�m” (leprosy, elephantiasis, morbus sacrum, etc. etc.) is supposed first to show: the swelling would alter the shape. Lane (ii. 267) translates “her wrist which was bipartite.”

 

[FN#61] Arab. “Zakariy�” (Zacharias): a play upon the term “Zakar”=the sign of “masculinity.” Zacharias, mentioned in the Koran as the educator of the Virgin Mary (chaps. iii.) and repeatedly referred to (chaps. xix. etc.), is a well-known personage amongst Moslems and his church is now the great Cathedral-Mosque of Aleppo.

 

[FN#62] Arab. ” Ark al-Hal�wat ” = vein of sweetness.

 

[FN#63] Arab. “Fut�h,” which may also mean openings, has before occurred.

 

[FN#64] i.e. four times without withdrawing.

 

[FN#65] i.e. a correspondence of size, concerning which many rules are given in the Ananga-Rangha Shastra which justly declares that discrepancy breeds matrimonial-troubles.

 

[FN#66] Arab. “Ghur�b al-Bayn”= raven of the waste or the parting: hence the bird of Odin symbolises separation (which is also called Al-bayn). The Raven (Ghurab = Heb. Oreb and Lat.

Corvus, one of the prehistoric words) is supposed to be seen abroad earlier than any other bird; and it is entitled “Abu Zajir,” father of omens, because lucky when flying towards the right and v.v. It is opposed in poetry to the (white) pigeon, the emblem of union, peace and happiness. The vulgar declare that when Mohammed hid in the cave the crow kept calling to his pursuers, “Gh�r! Gh�r!” (cavern, cavern): hence the Prophet condemned him to wear eternal-mourning and ever to repeat the traitorous words. This is the old tale of Coronis and Apollo (Ovid, lib. ii.).

 

–––-” who blacked the raven o’er And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.”

 

[FN#67] This use of a Turkish title “Efendi” being=our esquire, and inferior to a Bey, is a rank anachronism, probably of the copyist.

 

[FN#68] Arab. “Samn”=Hind. “Ghi” butter melted, skimmed and allowed to cool.

 

[FN#69] Arab. “Ya Wad�d,” a title of the Almighty: the Mac.

Edit. has “O David!”

 

[FN#70] Arab. “Muwashshahah;” a complicated stanza of which specimens have occurred. Mr. Payne calls it a “ballad,” which would be a “Kunyat al-Zidd.”

 

[FN#71] Arab. “Bah�im” (plur. of Bah�mah=Heb. Behemoth), applied in Egypt especially to cattle. A friend of the “Oppenheim” house, a name the Arabs cannot pronounce was known throughout Cairo as “Jack al-bah�im” (of the cows).

 

[FN#72] Lit. “The father of side-locks,” a nickname of one of the Tobba Kings. This “Hasan of: the ringlets” who wore two long pig-tails hanging to his shoulders was the Rochester or Piron of his age: his name is still famous for brilliant wit, extempore verse and the wildest debauchery. D’Herbelot’s sketch of his life is very meagre. His poetry has survived to the present day and (unhappily) we shall] hear more of “Abu Now�s.” On the subject of these patronymics Lane (Mod. Egypt, chaps. iv.) has a strange remark that “Abu D��d i’ not the Father of D��d or Abu Ali the Father of Ali, but whose Father is (or was) D��d or Ali.” Here, however, he simply confounds Abu = father of (followed by a genitive), with Abu-h (for Abu-hu) = he, whose father.

 

[FN#73] Arab. “Sam�r,” applied in slang language to cats and dogs, hence the witty Egyptians converted Admiral-Seymour (Lord Alcester) into “Sam�r.”

 

[FN#74] The home-student of Arabic may take this letter as a model even in the present day; somewhat stiff and old-fashioned, but gentlemanly and courteous.

 

[FN#75] Arab. “Sal�m” (not S�-lim) meaning the “Safe and sound.”

 

[FN#76] Arab. “Hal�wah”=sweetmeat, meaning an entertainment such as men give to their friends after sickness or a journey. it is technically called as above, “The Sweetmeat of Safety.”

 

[FN#77] Arab. “Sal�t” which from Allah means mercy, from the Angels intercession and pardon; and from mankind blessing.

Concerning the specific effects of blessing the Prophet, see Pilgrimage (ii. 70). The formula is often slurred over when a man is in a hurry to speak: an interrupting friend will say ” Bless the Prophet!” and he does so by ejaculating “Sa’am.”

 

[FN#78] Persian, meaning originally a command: it is now applied to a Wazirial-order as opposed to the ” Ir�dah,” the Sultan’s order.

 

[FN#79] Arab. ” Mash�‘il�” lit. the cresses-bearer who has before appeared as hangman.

 

[FN#80] Another polite formula for announcing a death.

 

[FN#81] As he died heirless the property lapsed to the Treasury.

 

[FN#82]This shaking the kerchief is a signal to disperse and the action suggests its meaning. Thus it is used in an opposite sense to “throwing the kerchief,” a pseudo-Oriental practice whose significance