The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 8 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (best e reader for epub .TXT) 📗

of the greatness of his affection for her and of the fire of passion, and the anguish of separation and yearning and distraction. Sore upon him was emaciation and he was improvising and saying, “My heart is a thrall; my tears ne’er abate * And their rains the railing of clouds amate;

‘Twixt my weeping and watching and wanting love; * And whining and pining for dearest mate.

Ah my burning heat, my desire, my lowe! * For the plagues that torture my heart are eight;

And five upon five are in suite of them; * So stand and listen to all I state:

Mem’ry, madding thoughts, moaning languishment, Stress of longing love, plight disconsolate; In travail, affliction and strangerhood, And annoy and joy when on her I wait.

Fail me patience and stay for engrossing care * And sorrows my suffering soul regrate.

On my heart the possession of passion grows * O who ask of what fire in my heart’s create,

Why my tears in vitals should kindle flame, * Burning heart with ardours insatiate,

Know, I’m drowned in Deluge[FN#557] of tears and my soul * From Laz�-lowe fares to H�wiyah-goal.”[FN#558]

 

When the Princess Miriam beheld Nur al-Din and heard his loquence and verse and speech, she made certain that it was indeed her lord Nur al-Din; but she concealed her case from the Wazir’s daughter and said to her, “By the virtue of the Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, I thought not thou knewest of my sadness!” Then she arose forthright and withdrawing from the window, returned to her own place, whilst the Wazir’s daughter went to her own occupations. The Princess awaited patiently awhile, then returned to the window and sat there, gazing upon her beloved Nur al-Din and delighting her eyes with his beauty and inner and outer grace. And indeed, she saw that he was like unto moon at full on fourteenth night; but he was ever sighing with tears never drying, for that he recalled whatso he had been abying. So he recited these couplets,

 

“I hope for Union with my love which I may ne’er obtain At all, but bitterness of life is all the gain I gain: My tears are likest to the main for ebb and flow of tide; But when I meet the blamer-wight to staunch my tears I’m fain.

Woe to the wretch who garred us part by spelling of his spells;[FN#559] * Could I but hend his tongue in hand I’d cut his tongue in twain:

Yet will I never blame the days for whatso deed they did *

Mingling with merest, purest gall the cup they made me drain!

To whom shall I address myself; and whom but you shall seek * A heart left hostage in your Court, by you a captive ta’en?

Who shall avenge my wrongs on you,[FN#560] tyrant despotical *

Whose tyranny but grows the more, the more I dare complain?

I made him regnant of my soul that he the reign assain * But me he wasted wasting too the soul I gave to reign.

Ho thou, the Fawn, whom I so lief erst gathered to my breast *

Enow of severance tasted I to own its might and main, Thou’rt he whose favours joined in one all beauties known to man, * Yet I thereon have wasted all my Patience’ fair domain.

I entertained him in my heart whereto he brought unrest * But I am satisfied that I such guest could entertain.

My tears for ever flow and flood, likest the surging sea * And would I wot the track to take that I thereto attain.

Yet sore I fear that I shall die in depths of my chagrin * And must despair for evermore to win the wish I’d win.”

 

When Miriam heard the verses of Nur al-Din the loving-hearted, the parted; they kindled in her vitals a fire of desire, and while her eyes ran over with tears, she recited these two couplets,

 

“I longed for him I love; but, when we met, * I was amazed nor tongue nor eyes I found.

I had got ready volumes of reproach; * But when we met, could syllable no sound.”

 

When Nur al-Din heard the voice of Princess Miriam, he knew it and wept bitter tears, saying, “By Allah, this is the chanting of the Lady Miriam.”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

 

End of Volume 8.

 

Arabian Nights, Volume 8

Footnotes

 

[FN#1] Ironic�; we are safe as long as we are defended by such a brave.

 

[FN#2] Blue, azure. This is hardly the place for a protest, but I must not neglect the opportunity of cautioning my readers against rendering Bahr al-Azrak (“Blue River”) by “Blue Nile.” No Arab ever knew it by that name or thereby equalled it with the White Nile. The term was a pure invention of Abyssinian Bruce who was well aware of the unfact he was propagating, but his inordinate vanity and self-esteem, contrasting so curiously with many noble qualities, especially courage and self-reliance, tempted him to this and many other a traveller’s tale.

 

[FN#3] This is orthodox Moslem doctrine and it does something for the dignity of human nature which has been so unwisely depreciated and degraded by Christianity. The contrast of Moslem dignity and Christian abasement in the East is patent to every unblind traveller.

 

[FN#4] Here ends vol. iii. of the Mac. Edit.

 

[FN#5] This famous tale is a sister prose-poem to the “Arabian Odyssey” Sindbad the Seaman; only the Bassorite’s travels are in Jinn-land and Japan. It has points of resemblance in “fundamental outline” with the Persian Romance of the Fairy Hasan B�n� and King Bahr�m-i-G�r. See also the Kath� (s.s.) and the two sons of the As�ra M�y�; the Tartar “Sidhi K�r” (Tales of a Vampire or Enchanted Corpse) translated by Mr. W. J. Thoms (the Father of “Folk-lore” in 1846,) in “Lays and Legends of various Nations”; the Persian Bah�r-i-D�nish (Prime of Lore). Miss Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales”; Miss Frere’s “Old Deccan Days” and Mrs. F. A. Steel’s “Tale of the King and his Seven Sons,” with notes by Lieutenant (now Captain) R. C. Temple (Folk-lore of the Panjab, Indian Antiquary of March, 1882).

 

[FN#6] In the Mac. Edit. (vol. iv. i.) the merchant has two sons who became one a brazier (“dealer in copper-wares” says Lane iii. 385) and the other a goldsmith. The Bresl. Edit. (v. 264) mentions only one son, Hasan, the hero of the story which is entitled, “Tale of Hasan al-Basr� and the Isles of W�k W�k.”

 

[FN#7] Arab. “Sh�sh Abyaz:” this distinctive sign of the True Believer was adopted by the Persian to conceal his being a fire-worshipper, Magian or “Guebre.” The latter word was introduced from the French by Lord Byron and it is certainly far superior to Moore’s “Gheber.”

 

[FN#8] Persians being always a suspected folk.

 

[FN#9] Arab. “Al-B�dikah” afterwards used (Night dcclxxix) in the sense of crucible or melting-pot, in modern parlance a pipe-bowl; and also written “B�takah,” an Arab distortion of the Persian “B�tah.”

 

[FN#10] Arab. “Sind�n” or “Sindiy�n” (Dozy). “Sand�n,” anvil; “Sind�n,” big, strong (Steingass).

 

[FN#11] Arab. “K�m�ya,” (see vol. i. 305) properly the substance which transmutes metals, the “philosopher’s stone”

which, by the by, is not a stone; and comes from , a fluid, a wet drug, as opposed to Iks�r (Al-) a dry drug. Those who care to see how it is still studied will consult my History of Sindh (chapt. vii) and my experience which pointed only to the use made of it in base coinage. Hence in mod. tongue K�miy�wi, an alchemist, means a coiner, a smasher. The reader must not suppose that the transmutation of metals is a dead study: I calculate that there are about one hundred workers in London alone.

 

[FN#12] Arab. “Al-K�r,” a bellows also = K�r, a furnace. For the full meaning of this sentence, see my “Book of the Sword,” p.

119.

 

[FN#13] Lit. “bade him lean upon it with the shears” (Al-K�z).

 

[FN#14] There are many kinds of Kohls (Hindos. Surm� and Kajjal) used in medicine and magic. See Herklots, p. 227.

 

[FN#15] Arab. “Sab�kah” = bar, lamina, from “Sabk” = melting, smelting: the lump in the crucible would be hammered out into an ingot in order to conceal the operation [FN#16] i.e. �375.

 

[FN#17] Such report has cost many a life: the suspicion was and is still deadly as heresy in a “new Christian” under the Inquisition.

 

[FN#18] Here there is a double entendre: openly it means, “Few men recognise as they should the bond of bread and salt:” the other sense would be (and that accounts for the smile), “What the deuce do I care for the bond?”

 

[FN#19] Arab. “Kabb�t” in the Bresl. Edit. “Ka’ab�n “: Lane (iii. 519) reads “Ka’�b plur. of Ka’ab a cup.”

 

[FN#20] A most palpable sneer. But Hasan is purposely represented as a “softy” till aroused and energized by the magic of Love.

 

[FN#21] Arab. “Al-iks�r” (see Night dcclxxix, supra p. 9): the Greek word which has returned from a trip to Arabia and reappeared in Europe as “Elixir.”

 

[FN#22] “Aw�k” plur. of “Uk�yah,” the well-known “oke,” or “ocque,” a weight varying from 1 to 2 lbs. In Morocco it is pronounced “Wuk�yah,” and = the Spanish ounce (p. 279 Rudimentos del Arabe Vulgar, etc., by Fr. Jos� de Lorchundi, Madrid, Rivadencyra, 1872).

 

[FN#23] These lines have occurred in vol. iv. 267, where references to other places are given. I quote Lane by way of variety. In the text they are supposed to have been written by the Persian, a hint that Hasan would never be seen again.

 

[FN#24] i.e. a superfetation of iniquity.

 

[FN#25] Arab. “Kurb�n” = offering, oblation to be brought to the priest’s house or to the altar of the tribal God Yahveh, Jehovah (Levit. ii, 2-3 etc.). Amongst the Maronites Kurban is the host (-wafer) and amongst the Turks ‘Id al-Kurban (sacrifice-feast) is the Greater Bayram, the time of Pilgrimage.

 

[FN#26] N�r = fire, being feminine, like the names of the other “elements.”

 

[FN#27] The Egyptian Kurb�j of hippopotamus-hide (Burkh. Nubia, pp. 62,282) or elephant-hide (Turner ii. 365). Hence the Fr.

Cravache (as Cravat is from Croat).

 

[FN#28] In Mac. Edit. “Bahriyah”: in Bresl. Edit. “Naw�t�yah.”

See vol. vi. 242, for , navita, nauta.

 

[FN#29] In Bresl. Edit. (iv. 285) “Y� Khw�jah,” for which see vol. vi. 46.

 

[FN#30] Arab. “Tabl” (vulg. baz) = a kettledrum about half a foot broad held in the left hand and beaten with a stick or leathern thong. Lane refers to his description (M.E. ii. chapt.

v.) of the Dervish’s drum of tinned copper with parchment face, and renders Zakhmah or Zukhmah (strap, stirrup-leather) by “plectrum,” which gives a wrong idea. The Bresl. Edit. ignores the strap.

 

[FN#31] The “Spartivento” of Italy, mostly a tall headland which divides the clouds. The most remarkable feature of the kind is the Dalmatian Island, Pelagosa.

 

[FN#32] The “Rocs” (Al-Arkh�kh) in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 290).

The Rakham = aquiline vulture.

 

[FN#33] Lane here quotes a similar incident in the romance “Sayf Z� al-Yazan,” so called from the hero, whose son, Misr, is sewn up in a camel’s hide by Bahr�m, a treacherous Magian, and is carried by the Rukhs to a mountaintop.

 

[FN#34] These lines occurred in Night xxvi. vol. i. 275: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

 

[FN#35] Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.

 

[FN#36] i.e. If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt