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

namely, Aladdin and Zeyn al-Asnam.

 

[FN#484] i.e. wondering; thus Lady Macbeth says: “You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder.”–Macbeth, iii. 4

 

[FN#485] Ludovicus Vives, one of the most learned of Spanish authors, was born at Valentia in 1492 and died in 1540.

 

[FN#486] There was an older “T�t� N�ma,” which Nakhshab�

modernised, made from a Sanskrit storybook, now lost, but its modern representative is the “Suka Saptat�,” or Seventy (Tales) of a Parrot in which most of Nakhshabi’s tales are found.

 

[FN#487] According to Lescallier’s French translation of the “Bakhty�r N�ma,” made from two MSS. = “She had previously had a lover, with whom, unknown to her father, she had intimate relations, and had given birth to a beautiful boy, whose education she secretly confided to some trusty servants.”

 

[FN#488] There is a slight mistake in the passage in p. 313

supplied from the story in vol. vi. It is not King Shah Bakht, but the other king, who assures his chamberlain that “the lion”

has done him no injury.

 

[FN#489] Such was formerly the barbarous manner of treating the insane.

 

[FN#490] From “Tarlton’s Newes out of Purgatorie.”

 

[FN#491] A basket

 

[FN#492] In the fabliau “De la Dame qui atrappa un Pr�tre, un Pr�v�t, et un Forestier” (or Constant du Hamel), the lady, on the pretext that her husband is at the door, stuffs her lovers, as they arrive successively, unknown to each other, into a large tub full of feathers and afterwards exposes them to public ridicule.

 

[FN#493] Until

 

[FN#494] Requite

 

[FN#495] Accidents

 

[FN#496] A boarding

 

[FN#497] The letter I is very commonly substituted for “ay” in 16th century English books.

 

[FN#498] Oesterley mentions a Sanskrit redaction of the Vampyre Tales attributed to Sivad�sa, and another comprised in the “Kath�rnava.”

 

[FN#499] And well might his sapient majesty “wonder”! The humour of this passage is exquisite.

 

[FN#500] In the Tamil version (Babington’s translation of the “Ved�la Kadai”) there are but two brothers, one of whom is fastidious in his food, the other in beds: the latter lies on a bed stuffed with flowers, deprived of their stalks. In the morning he complains of pains all over his body, and on examining the bed one hair is found amongst the flowers. In the Hind�

version, the king asks him in the morning whether he had slept comfortably. “O great King,” he replied; “I did not sleep all night.” “How so?” quoth he. “O great King, in the seventh fold of the bedding there is a hair, which pricked me in the back, therefore I could not sleep.” The youth who was fastidious about the fair sex had a lovely damsel laid beside him, and he was on the point of kissing her, but on smelling her breath he turned away his face, and went to sleep. Early in the morning the king (who had observed through a lattice what passed) asked him, “Did you pass the night pleasantly?” He replied that he did not, because the smell of a goat proceeded from the girl’s mouth, which made him very uneasy. The king then sent for the procuress and ascertained that the girl had been brought up on goat’s milk.

 

[FN#501] M�lusine: Revue de Mythologie, Litt�rature Populaire, Traditions, et Usages. Dirig�e par H. Gaidoz et E. Rolland.—

Paris

 

[FN#502] The trick of the clever Magyar in marking all the other sleepers as the king’s mother had marked herself occurs in the folk-tales of most countries, especially in the numerous versions of the Robbery of the King’s Treasury, which are brought together in my work on the Migrations of Popular Tales and Fictions (Blackwood), vol. ii., pp. 113-165.

 

[FN#503] A mythical saint, or prophet, who, according to the Muslim legend, was despatched by one of the ancient kings of Persia to procure him some of the Water of Life. After a tedious journey, Khizr reached the Fountain of Immortality, but having drank of its waters, it suddenly vanished. Muslims believe that Khizr still lives, and sometimes appears to favoured individuals, always clothed in green, and acts as their guide in difficult enterprises.

 

[FN#504] “Spake these words to the king”—certainly not those immediately preceding! but that, if the king would provide for him during three years, at the end of that period he would show Khizr to the king.

 

[FN#505] Mr. Gibb compares with this the following passage from Boethius, “De Consolatione Philosophi�,” as translated by Chaucer: “All thynges seken ayen to hir propre course, and all thynges rejoysen on hir retourninge agayne to hir nature.”

 

[FN#506] In this tale, we see, Khizr appears to the distressed in white raiment.

 

[FN#507] In an old English metrical version of the “Seven Sages,”

the tutors of the prince, in order to test his progress in general science, secretly place an ivy leaf under each of the four posts of his bed, and when he awakes in the morning—

 

“Par fay!” he said, “a ferli cas!

Other ich am of wine y-drunk, Other the firmament is sunk, Other wexen is the ground, The thickness of four leav�s round!

So much to-night higher I lay, Certes, than yesterday.”

 

[FN#508] See also the same story in The Nights, vols. vii. and viii., which Mr. Kirby considers as probably a later version.

(App. vol. x. of The Nights, p. 442).

 

[FN#509] So, too, in the “Bah�r-i-D�nish” a woman is described as being so able a professor in the school of deceit, that she could have instructed the devil in the science of stratagem: of another it is said that by her wiles she could have drawn the devil’s claws; and of a third the author declares, that the devil himself would own there was no escaping from her cunning!

 

[FN#510] There is a similar tale by the Spanish novelist Isidro de Robles (circa 1660), in which three ladies find a diamond ring in a fountain; each claims it; at length they agree to refer the dispute to a count of their acquaintance who happened to be close by. He takes charge of the ring and says to the ladies, “Whoever in the space of six weeks shall succeed in playing off on her husband the most clever and ingenious trick (always having due regard to his honour) shall possess the ring; in the meantime it shall remain in my hands.” This story was probably brought by the Moors to Spain, whence it may have passed into France, since it is the subject of a faliau, by Haisiau the trouvr�, entitled “Des Trois Dames qui trouverent un Anel,” which is found in M�on’s edition of Barbazan, 1808, tome iii. pp. 220-229, and in Le Grand, ed. 1781, tome iv. pp. 163-165.

 

[FN#511] Idiots and little boys often figure thus in popular tales: readers of Rabelais will remember his story of the Fool and the Cook; and there is a familiar example of a boy’s precocity in the story of the Stolen Purse—“Craft and Malice of Women,” or the Seven Wazirs, vol. vi. of The Nights.

 

[FN#512] I have considerably abridged Mr. Knowles’ story in several places.

 

[FN#513] A species of demon.

 

[FN#514] This is one of the innumerable parallels to the story of Jonah in the “whale’s” belly which occur m Asiatic fictions. See, for some instances, Tawney’s translation of the “Kath� Sarit S�gara,” ch. xxxv. and [xxiv.; “Indian Antiquary,” Sept. 1885, Legend of Ahl�; Miss Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales,” pp. 75, 76, and Steel and Temple’s “Wide-Awake Stories from the Panj�b and Kashm�r,” p. 411. In Lucian’s “Vera Historia,” a monster fish swallows a ship and her crew, who live a long time in the extensive regions comprised in its internal economy. See also Herrtage’s “Gesta Romanorum” (Early English Text Society), p.

297.

 

[FN#515] In the Arabian version the people resolve to leave the choice of a new king to the royal elephant because they could not agree among themselves (vol. i., p. 224), but in Indian fictions such an incident frequently occurs as a regular custom. In the “Sivandhi Sthala Purana,” a legendary account of the famous temple at Trichinopoli, as supposed to be told by Gautama to Matanga and other sages, it is related that a certain king having mortally offended a holy devotee, his capital and all its inhabitants were, in consequence of a curse pronounced by the enraged saint, buried beneath a shower of dust. ”Only the queen escaped, and in her flight she was delivered of a male-child.

After some time. the chiefs of the Chola kingdom, proceeding to elect a king, determined, by the advice of the saint to crown whomsoever the late monarch’s elephant should pitch upon. Being turned loose for this purpose, the elephant discovered and brought to Trisira-m�l� the child of his former master, who accordingly became the Chola king.” (Wilson’s Desc. Catal. of Mackenzie MSS., i. 17.) In a Manipur� story of two brothers, Turi and Basanta—“Indian Antiquary,” vol. iii.—the elder is chosen king in like manner by an elephant who meets him in the forest, and takes him on his back to the palace, where he is immediately placed on the throne See also “Wide-Awake Stories Tom the Panj�b and Kashm�r,” by Mrs. Steel and Captain Temple, p. 141; and Rev.

Lal Behari Day’s “Folk-Tales of Bengal,” p. 100 for similar instances. The hawk taking part, in this story, with the elephant in the selection of a king does not occur m any other tale known to me.

 

[FN#516] So that their caste might not be injured. A dhob�, or washerman, is of much lower caste than a Br�hman or a Khshatriya.

 

[FN#517] A responsible position in a r�j�‘s palace.

 

[FN#518] “And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” R�j� Amb� must have been fully twelve years in the stomach of the alligator.

 

[FN#519] This device of the mother to obtain speech of the king is much more natural than that adopted in the Kashmiri version.

 

[FN#520] The story of Ab� S�bir (see vol. i. p. 58 ff.) may also be regarded as an analogue. He is unjustly deprived of all his possessions, and, with his wife and two young boys, driven forth of his village. The children are borne off by thieves, and their mother forcibly carried away by a horseman. Ab� S�bir, after many sufferings, is raised from a dungeon to a throne. He regains his two children and his wife, who had steadfastly refused to cohabit with her captor.

 

[FN#521] Introduction to the romance of “Torrent of Portingale,”

re-edited (for the Early English Text Society, 1886) by E. Adam, Ph.D., pp. xxi. xxii.

 

[FN#522] Morning.

 

[FN#523] Bird.

 

[FN#524] Mean; betoken.

 

[FN#525] Thee.

 

[FN#526] Tho: then.

 

[FN#527] Yede: went.

 

[FN#528] Case.

 

[FN#529] Avaunced: advanced; promoted.

 

[FN#530] Holpen: helped.

 

[FN#531] Brent: burnt.

 

[FN#532] But if: unless.

 

[FN#533] To wed: in pledge, in security.

 

[FN#534] Beth: are.

 

[FN#535] Or: either.

 

[FN#536] Lever dey: rather die.

 

[FN#537] Far, distant.

 

[FN#538] Unless.

 

[FN#539] Oo: one.

 

[FN#540] Ayen: again.

 

[FN#541] Or: ere, before.

 

[FN#542] Army; host.

 

[FN#543] Part.

 

[FN#544] That.

 

[FN#545] Grief, sorrow.

 

[FN#546] Poor.

 

[FN#547] Gathered, or collected, together.

 

[FN#548] Arms; accoutrements; dress.

 

[FN#549] Bravely.

 

[FN#550] Those.

 

[FN#551] Done, ended.

 

[FN#552] Their lodgings, inn.

 

[FN#553] Since.

 

[FN#554] Comrades.

 

[FN#555] Truly.

 

[FN#556] Lodged.

 

[FN#557] Inn.

 

[FN#558] Hem: them.

 

[FN#559] Chief of the army.

 

[FN#560] I note: I know not.

 

[FN#561] Nor.

 

[FN#562] Place.

 

[FN#563] That is by means of his hounds.

 

[FN#564] A wood.

 

[FN#565] Those.

 

[FN#566] Her: their.

 

[FN#567] Looks towards; attends