Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights - Sir Richard Francis Burton (great books of all time .TXT) 📗

but it can also mean “O Shaykh of the Tribes (of Jinns)!”

 

[FN#236] The capital of King Al-Shisban.

 

[FN#237] Arab “Fajj”, the Spanish “Vega” which, however, means a mountain-plain, a plain.

 

[FN#238] i.e. I am quite sure: emphatically.

 

[FN#239] i.e. all the Jinn’s professions of affection and promises of protection were mere lies.

 

[FN#240] In the original this apodosis is wanting: see vol. vi.

203, 239.

 

[FN#241] Arab. “D�hiyat al-Daw�h�;” see vol. ii. 87.

 

[FN#242] Arab. “Al-Jabal al-Mukawwar”= Cha�ne de montagnes de forme demi circulaire, from Kaur, a park, an enceinte.

 

[FN#243] Arab. “R�h�” lit. my breath, the outward sign of life.

 

[FN#244] i.e. K�f.

 

[FN#245] i.e. A bit of burning charcoal.

 

[FN#246] Arab. “Al-yad al-bayz�,”=lit. The white hand: see vol.

iv. 185.

 

[FN#247] Showing the antiquity of “Apr�s moi le d�luge,” the fame of all old politicians and aged statesmen who can expect but a few years of life. These “burning questions” (e.g. the Bulgarian) may be smothered for a time, but the result is that they blaze forth with increased violence. We have to thank Lord Palmerston (an Irish landlord) for ignoring the growth of Fenianism and another aged statesman for a sturdy attempt to disunite the United Kingdom. An old nation wants young blood at its head.

 

[FN#248] Suggesting the nursery rhyme: Fee, fo, fum

I smell the blood of an Englishman.

 

[FN#249] i.e. why not at once make an end of her.

 

[FN#250] The well-known war-cry.

 

[FN#251] Lit. “Smoke” pop. applied, like our word, to tobacco.

The latter, however, is not here meant.

 

[FN#252] Arab. “Ghur�b al-bayn,” of the wold or of parting. See vol. vii. 226.

 

[FN#253] Arab. “Hal�wah”; see vol. iv. 60.

 

[FN#254] Here the vocative particle “Y�” is omitted.

 

[FN#255] Lit. “The long-necked (bird)” before noticed with the Rukh (Roc) in vol. v. 122. Here it becomes a Princess, daughter of Bahr�m-i-G�r (Bahram of the Onager, his favourite game), the famous Persian king in the fifth century, a contemporary of Theodosius the younger and Honorius. The “Ank�” is evidently the Iranian S�murgh.

 

[FN#256] “Chamber” is becoming a dangerous word in English. Roars of laughter from the gods greeted the great actor’s declamation, “The bed has not been slept in! Her little chamber is empty!”

 

[FN#257] Choice Gift of the breast (or heart).

 

[FN#258] From the Calc. Edit. (1814�18), Nights cxcvi.�cc., vol.

ii., pp. 367�378. The translation has been compared and collated with that of Langl�s (Paris, 1814), appended to his Edition of the Voyages of Sindbad. The story is exceedingly clever and well deserves translation.

 

[FN#259] It is regretable that this formula has not been preserved throughout The Nights: it affords, I have noticed, a pleasing break to the long course of narrative.

 

[FN#260] Arab. “Ban�t-al-haw�” lit. daughters of love, usually meaning an Anonyma, a fille de joie; but here the girl is of good repute, and the offensive term must be modified to a gay, frolicsome lass.

 

[FN#261] Arab. “Jabhat,” the lintel opposed to the threshold.

 

[FN#262] Arab. “Ghatt�,” still the popular term said to a child showing its nakedness, or a lady of pleasure who insults a man by displaying any part of her person.

 

[FN#263] She is compared with a flashing blade (her face) now drawn from its sheath (her hair) then hidden by it.

 

[FN#264] The “Muajjalah” or money paid down before consummation was about �25; and the “Mu’ajjalah” or coin to be paid contingent on divorce was about �75. In the Calc. Edit ii. 371, both dowers are �35.

 

[FN#265] All the blemishes which justify returning a slave to the slave-dealer.

 

[FN#266] Media: see vol. ii. 94. The “Daylamite prison” was one of many in Baghdad.

 

[FN#267] See vol. v. 199. I may remark that the practice of bathing after copulation was kept up by both sexes in ancient Rome. The custom may have originated in days when human senses were more acute. I have seen an Arab horse object to be mounted by the master when the latter had not washed after sleeping with a woman.

 

[FN#268] On the morning after a happy night the bridegroom still offers coffee and Halw� to friends.

 

[FN#269] i.e. More bewitching.

 

[FN#270] Arab. “Shar�f�” more usually Ashrafi, the Port. Xerafim, a gold coin = 6s.�7s.

 

[FN#271] The oft-repeated Koranic quotation.

 

[FN#272] Arab. “‘Irk”: our phrase is “the apple of the eye.”

 

[FN#273] Meaning that he was a Sayyid or a Shar�f.

 

[FN#274] i.e. than a Jew or a Christian. So the Sultan, when appealed to by these religionists, who were as usual squabbling and fighting, answered, “What matter if the dog tear the hog or the hog tear the dog”?

 

[FN#275] The “Shar�‘at” forbidding divorce by force.

 

[FN#276] i.e. protect my honour.

 

[FN#277] For this proverb see vol. v. 138. 1 have remarked that “Shame” is not a passion in Europe as in the East; the Western equivalent to the Arab. “Hay�’ ‘would be the Latin “Pudor.”

 

[FN#278] Arab. “Tal�kan b�inan,” here meaning a triple divorce before witnesses, making it irrevocable.

 

[FN#279] i.e. who had played him that trick.

 

[FN#280] The Bresl. Edit. (vol. xii. pp. 50-116, Nights dcccclviii-dcccclxv.) entitles it “Tale of Abu al-Hasan the Damascene and his son S�d� Nur al-D�n ‘ Al�.” S�d� means simply, “my lord,” but here becomes part of the name, a practice perpetuated in Zanzibar. See vol. v.283.

 

[FN#281] i.e. at the hours of canonical prayers and other suitable times he made an especial orison (du’�) for issue.

 

[FN#282] See vol. i.85, for the traditional witchcraft of Babylonia.

 

[FN#283] i.e. More or less thoroughly.

 

[FN#284] i.e. “He who quitteth not his native country diverteth not himself with a sight of the wonders of the world.”

 

[FN#285] For similar sayings, see vol. ix.257, and my Pilgrimage i.127.

 

[FN#286] i.e. relying upon, etc.

 

[FN#287] The Egyptian term for a khan, called in Persia caravanserai (karw�n-ser�i); and in Marocco funduk, from the Greek; whence the Spanish “fonda.” See vol. i. 92.

 

[FN#288] Arab. “Baliyah,” to jingle with “B�biliyah.”

 

[FN#289] As a rule whenever this old villain appears in The Nights, it is a signal for an outburst of obscenity. Here, however, we are quittes pour la peur. See vol. v. 65 for some of his abominations.

 

[FN#290] The lines are in vols. viii.279 and ix.197. I quote Mr.

Payne.

 

[FN#291] Lady or princess of the Fair (ones).

 

[FN#292] i.e. of buying.

 

[FN#293] Arab. “Az�n-h�=lit. its ears.

 

[FN#294] Here again the policeman is made a villain of the deepest dye; bad enough to gratify the intelligence of his deadliest enemy, a lodging-keeper in London.

 

[FN#295] i.e. You are welcome to it and so it becomes lawful (hal�l) to you.

 

[FN#296] Arab. “Sijn al-Dam,” the Carcere duro inasprito (to speak Triestine), where men convicted or even accused of bloodshed were confined.

 

[FN#297] Arab. “Mab�sim”; plur. of Mabsim, a smiling mouth which shows the foreteeth.

 

[FN#298] The branchlet, as usual, is the youth’s slender form.

 

[FN#299] Subaudi, “An ye disdain my love.”

 

[FN#300] In the text “sleep.”

 

[FN#301] “Them” and “him” for “her.”

 

[FN#302] ‘Urk�b, a Jew of Yathrib or Khaybar, immortalised in the A.P. (i. 454) as “more promise-breaking than ‘Urk�b.”

 

[FN#303] Uncle of Mohammed. See vol. viii. 172.

 

[FN#304] First cousin of Mohammed. See ib.

 

[FN#305] This threat of “‘Orf with her ‘ead” shows the Caliph’s lordliness.

 

[FN#306] Arab. “Al-Bashkh�nah.”

 

[FN#307] i.e. Amen. See vol. ix. 131.

 

[FN#308] When asked, on Doomsday, his justification for having slain her.

 

[FN#309] Khorasan which included our Afghanistan, turbulent then as now, was in a chronic state of rebellion during the latter part of Al-Rashid’s reign.

 

[FN#310] The brutality of a Moslem mob on such occasions is phenomenal: no fellow-feeling makes them decently kind. And so at executions even women will take an active part in insulting and tormenting the criminal, tearing his hair, spitting in his face and so forth. It is the instinctive brutality with which wild beasts and birds tear to pieces a wounded companion.

 

[FN#311] The popular way of stopping hemorrhage by plunging the stump into burning oil which continued even in Europe till Ambrose Par� taught men to take up the arteries.

 

[FN#312] i.e. folk of good family.

 

[FN#313] i.e. the result of thy fervent prayers to Allah for me.

 

[FN#314] Arab. “Al-Ab�r�k” plur. of lbrik, an ewer containing water for the Wuzu-ablution. I have already explained that a Moslem wishing to be ceremonially pure, cannot wash as Europeans do, in a basin whose contents are fouled by the first touch.

 

[FN#315] Arab. “N�ihah ,the pr�fica or myriologist. See vol. i.

311. The proverb means, “If you want a thing done, do it yourself.”

 

[FN#316] Arab. “Burka’,” the face veil of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia with two holes for the eyes, and the end hanging to the waist, a great contrast with the “Lith�m or coquettish fold of transparent muslin affected by modest women in Stambul.

 

[FN#317] i.e. donned petticoat-trousers and walking boots other than those she was wont to wear.

 

[FN#318] “Surah” (Koranic chapter) may be a clerical error for “S�rah” (with a S�d) = sort, fashion (of food).

 

[FN#319] This is solemn religious chaff; the Shaykh had doubtless often dipped his hand abroad in such dishes; but like a good Moslem, he contented himself at home with wheaten scones and olives, a kind of sacramental food like bread and wine in southern Europe. But his retort would be acceptable to the True Believer who, the strictest of conservatives, prides himself on imitating in all points, the sayings and doings of the Apostle.

 

[FN#320] i.e. animals that died without being ceremonially killed.

 

[FN#321] Koran ii. 168. This is from the Chapter of the Cow where “that which dieth of itself (carrion), blood, pork, and that over which other name but that of Allah (i.e. idols) hath been invoked” are forbidden. But the verset humanely concludes: “Whoso, however, shall eat them by constraint, without desire, or as a transgressor, then no sin shall be upon him.”

 

[FN#322] i.e. son of Simeon=a Christian.

 

[FN#323] Arab. and Heb. “Haykal,” suggesting the idea of large space, a temple, a sanctuary, a palace which bear a suspicious likeness to the Accadian �-kal or Great House = the old Egyptian Perao (Pharaoh?), and the Japanese “Mikado.”

 

[FN#324] Wine, carrion and pork being lawful to the Moslem if used to save life. The former is also the sovereignest thing for inward troubles, flatulence, indigestion, etc. See vol. v. 2, 24.

 

[FN#325] Arab. “N�zilah,” i.e., a curse coming down from Heaven.

 

[FN#326] Here and below, a translation of her name.

 

[FN#327] “A picture of Paradise which is promised to the God-fearing! Therein are rivers of water which taint not; and rivers of milk whose taste changeth not; and rivers of wine, etc.”—Koran xlvii. 16.

 

[FN#328] Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Don Juan ii. 178.

 

[FN#329] The ox (Bakar) and the bull (Taur, vol. i. 16) are the Moslem emblems of stupidity, as with us are the highly intelligent ass and the most sagacious goose.

 

[FN#330] In Arab. “‘Ud” means primarily wood; then a lute. See vol. ii. 100. The Muezzin, like the schoolmaster, is popularly supposed to be a fool.

 

[FN#331] I have noticed that among Arab lovers it was the fashion to be jealous of the mistress’s nightly phantom which, as amongst mesmerists, is