The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 15 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (world best books to read txt) 📗

text “La’bat Shaw�ribu-hu”=lit. his mustachios played.

 

[FN#378] For the “Wak�lah,” or caravanserai, see vol. i. 266.

 

[FN#379] In text “Kab�t,” plur. Kab�b�t:

 

Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, In his snowy camise and his shaggy capote?

“Childe Harold,” Canto II.

 

And here I cannot but notice the pitiful contrast (on the centenary of the poet’s nativity, Jan. 22nd, ‘88) between the land of his birth and that of his death. The gallant Greeks honoured his memory with wreaths and panegyrics and laudatory articles, declaring that they will never forget the anniversaries of his nativity and his decease. The British Pharisee and Philistine, true to his miserable creed, ignored all the “real Lord Byron”—his generosity, his devotion to his friends, his boundless charity, and his enthusiasm for humanity. They exhaled their venom by carping at Byron’s poetry (which was and is to Europe a greater boon than Shakespeare’s), by condemning his morality (in its dirty sexual sense) and in prophesying for him speedy oblivion. Have these men no shame in presence of the noble panegyric dedicated by the Prince of German poets, Goethe, to his brother bard whom he welcomed as a prophet? Can they not blush before Heine (the great German of the future), before Flaubert, Alfred de Musset, Lamartine, Leopardi and a host of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese notables? Whilst England will not forgive Byron for having separated from his unsympathetic wife, the Literary society of Moscow celebrated his centenary with all honour; and Prof. Nicholas Storojenko delivered a speech which has found an echo

 

further west Than his sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”

 

He rightly remarked that Byron’s deadly sin in the eyes of the Georgian-English people was his Cosmopolitanism. He was the poetical representative of the <I>Sturm und Drang</I> period of the xixth century. He reflected, in his life and works, the wrath of noble minds at the collapse of the cause of freedom and the reactionary tendency of the century. Even in the distant regions of Monte Video Byron’s hundredth birthday was not forgotten, and Don Luis Desteffanio’s lecture was welcomed by literary society.

 

[FN#380] He cried out thinking of the mystical meaning of such name. So {Greek}, would mean in Suf� language—Learn from thyself what is thy Lord;—corresponding after a manner with the Christian “looking up through Nature to Nature’s God.”

 

[FN#381] The phrase prob. means so drunk that his circulation had apparently stopped.

 

[FN#382] This is the article usually worn by the professional buffoon. The cap of the “Sutar�” or jester of the Arnaut (Albanian) regiments—who is one of their professional braves—is usually a felt cone garnished with foxes’ brushes.

 

[FN#383] In Arab. “Sabbal alayhim (for Alayhinna, the usual masc.

pro fem.) Al-Satt�r”=lit. the Veiler let down a curtain upon them.

 

[FN#384] The barber being a surgeon and ever ready to bleed a madman.

 

[FN#385] i.e. Can play off equally well the soft-brained and the hard-headed.

 

[FN#386] i.e. a deputy (governor, etc.); in old days the governor of Constantinople; in these times a lieutenant-colonel, etc.

 

[FN#387] Which, as has been said, is the cab of Modern Egypt, like the gondola and the ca�que. The heroine of the tale is a Nilotic version of “Aurora Floyd.”

 

[FN#388] In text “Rafaka” and infr� (p. 11) “Zafaka.”

 

[FN#389] [In text “Misla ‘l-Kal�m,” which I venture to suggest is another clerical blunder for: “misla ‘l-Kil�b”=as the dogs do.—

ST.]

 

[FN#390] i.e. My wife. In addition to notes in vols. i. 165, and iv. 9, 126, I would observe that “Har�m” (women) is the broken plur. of “Hurmah;” from Haram, the honour of the house, forbidden to all save her spouse. But it is also an infinitive whose plur.

is Har�m�t=the women of a family; and in places it is still used for the women’s apartment, the gynaeceum. The latter by way of distinction I have mostly denoted by the good old English corruption “Harem.”

 

[FN#391] In text “Misla ‘l-kh�r�f” (for Khar�f) a common phrase for an “innocent,” a half idiot, so our poets sing of “silly (harmless, Germ. Selig) sheep.”

 

[FN#392] In text this ends the tale.

 

[FN#393] In text “Wa l� huwa ‘ashamn� min-ka talkash ‘al�

Harimi-n�.” “‘Ashama,” lit.=he greeded for; and “Lakasha”=he conversed with. [There is no need to change the “talkas” of the text into “talkash.” “Lakasa” is one of the words called “Zidd,”

i.e. with opposite meanings: it can signify “to incline passionately towards,” or “to loath with abhorrence.” As the noun “Laks” means “itch” the sentence might perhaps be translated: “that thou hadst an itching after our Har�m.” What would lead me to prefer the reading of the MS. is that the verb is construed with the preposition “‘al�”=upon, towards, for, while “lakash,”

to converse, is followed by “ma’”=with.—ST.]

 

[FN#394] Such was the bounden duty of a good neighbour.

 

[FN#395] He does not insist upon his dancing because he looks upon the offence as serious, but he makes him tell his tale—for the sake of the reader.

 

[FN#396] “S�hib al-Hay�t:” this may also=a physiognomist, which, however, is probably not meant here.

 

[FN#397] In text “Har�rah”=heat, but here derived from “Hurr”=freeborn, noble.

 

[FN#398] In text “Azay m� taf�t-n�?”

 

[FN#399] In the Arab. “Rajul Khuzar�”=a green-meat man. [The reading “Khuzar�” belongs to Lane, M.E. ii. 16, and to Bocthor.

In Schiaparelli’s Vocabulista and the Muh�t the form “Khuzr�” is also given with the same meaning.—ST.]

 

[FN#400] [In text “Far�rij�,” as if the pl. of “Farr�j”=chicken were “Far�rij” instead of “Far�r�j.” In modern Egyptian these nouns of relation from irregular plurals to designate tradespeople not only drop the vowel of the penultimate but furthermore, shorten that of the preceding syllable, so that “Far�rij�” becomes “Fararj�.” Thus “San�dik�,” a maker of boxes, becomes “Sanadk�,” and “Dakh�khin�, a seller of tobacco brands,”

“Dakhakhn�.” See Spitta Bey’s Grammar, p. 118.—ST.]

 

[FN#401] In the Arab. “Al-M�j�r,” for “Maaj�r”=a vessel, an utensil.

 

[FN#402] In text “shaklaba” here=“shakala”=he weighed out (money, whence the Heb. Shekel), he had to do with a woman.

 

[FN#403] [The trade of the man is not mentioned here, p. 22 of the 5th vol. of the MS., probably through negligence of the copyist, but it only occurs as far lower down as p. 25.—ST.]

 

[FN#404] A certain reviewer proposes “stained her eyes with Kohl,” showing that he had never seen the Kohl-powder used by Asiatics.

 

[FN#405] [“Bi-M� al-fas�kh ‘al� Akr�s al-Jullah.” “M�

al-Fas�kh”=water of salt-fish, I would translate by “dirty brine”

and “Akr�s al-Jullah” by “dung-cakes,” meaning the tale should be written with a filthy fluid for ink upon a filthy solid for paper, more expressive than elegant.—ST.]

 

[FN#406] “Al-Jan�n�ti”; or, as the Egyptians would pronounce the word, “Al-Gan�n�t�”. [Other Egyptian names for gardener are “Jan�in�,” pronounced “Gan�in�,” “Bust�nj�” pronounced “Bustangi,” with a Turkish termination to a Persian noun, and “Bakhshaw�ng�,” for Baghchaw�nj�,” where the same termination is pleonastically added to a Persian word, which in Persian and Turkish already means “gardener.”—ST.]

 

[FN#407] A Koranic quotation from “Joseph,” chap. xii. 28: Sale has “for verily your cunning is great,” said by Potiphar to his wife.

 

[FN#408] I have inserted this sentence, the tale being absolutely without termination. So in the Mediaeval Lat. translations the MSS. often omit “explicit capitulum (primum). Sequitur capitulum secundum,” this explicit being a sine qua non.

 

[FN#409] In text “Fat�ir�” = a maker of “Fat�rah” = pancake, or rather a kind of pastry rolled very thin, folded over like a napkin, saturated with butter and eaten with sugar or honey poured over it.

 

[FN#410] In Arab. “Nay�z�ti,” afterwards “Nuwayz�t�,” and lastly “Rayh�n�” (p. 34)=a man who vends sweet and savoury herbs. We have neither the craft nor the article, so I have rendered him by “Herbalist.”

 

[FN#411] In text a “Miht�r”=a prince, a sweeper, a scavenger, the Pers. “Mihtar,” still used in Hindostani. [In Quatrem�re’s Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks “Mihtar” occurs also in the sense of superintendent, of head-equerry, and of chief of a military band. See Dozy Supp. s. v.—ST.]

 

[FN#412] “Ant’ aysh” for “man,” decidedly not complimentary, “What (thing) art thou?”

 

[FN#413] Arab. “Kabsh.” Amongst the wilder tubes of the East ram’s mutton is preferred because it gives the teeth more to do: on the same principle an old cock is the choicest guest-gift in the way of poultry.

 

[FN#414] “Naubah,” lit.=a period, keeping guard, and here a band of pipes and kettledrums playing before the doors of a great man at certain periods.

 

[FN#415] In text “Al-Mubtali.”

 

[FN#416] Arab. “Haww�l�n”; the passage is apparently corrupt.

[“Haw�l�n” is clerical error for either “haw�l�”=all around, or “Haw�l�” = surroundings, surrounding parts, and “Aud�n” is pl. of the popular “Widn” or “Wudn” for the literary “Uzn,” ear.—ST.]

 

[FN#417] The exclamation would be uttered by the scribe or by Shahrazad. I need hardly remind the reader that “Khizr” is the Green Prophet and here the Prophet of greens.

 

[FN#418] For “Isr�f�l”=Raphael, the Archangel who will blow the last trump, see vol. ii. 287.

 

[FN#419] Gen. meaning “Look sharp,” here syn. with “Allah!

Allah!”=I conjure thee by God. Vol. i. 346.

 

[FN#420] A Persian would say, “I am a Ir�n� but Wall�hi indeed I am not lying.”

 

[FN#421] [This sentence of wholesale extermination passed upon womankind, reminds me of the Persian lines which I find quoted in ‘Abdu ‘l-Jal�l’s History of the Barmecides: Agar nek b�d� Zan u R�y-i-Zan

Zan-r� Ma-zan N�m b�d�, na Zan, and which I would render Anglic�:

 

If good there were in Woman and her way Her name would signify “Slay not,” not “Slay.”

 

“Zan” as noun=woman; as imp. of “zadan”=strike, kill, whose negative is “mazan.”—ST.]

 

[FN#422] In the text the Shaykh, to whom “Am�n” was promised, is also gelded, probably by the neglect of the scribe.

 

[FN#423] This tale is a variant of “The First Constable’s History:” Suppl. Nights, vol. ii. 3-11.

 

[FN#424] In text “Al-Baww�bah”=a place where door-keepers meet, a police-station; in modern tongue “Karakol,” for “Karaghol-kh�nah”=guard-house.

 

[FN#425] In text ‘K�z� al-‘Askar”=the great legal authority of a country: vol. vi. 131.

 

[FN#426] Anglo-Indice “Mucuddum”=overseer, etc., vol. iv. 42.

 

[FN#427] i.e. is not beyond our reach.

 

[FN#428] In text “Y� Sult�n-am” with the Persian or Turkish suffixed possessional pronoun.

 

[FN#429] In text “m�l,” for which see vol. vi. 267. Amongst the Badawin it is also applied to hidden treasure.

 

[FN#430] I carefully avoid the obnoxious term “intoxication”

which properly means “poisoning,” and should be left to those amiable enthusiasts the “Teetotallers.”

 

[FN#431] A sign of foul play; the body not having been shrouded and formally buried.

 

[FN#432] For the title, the office and the date see vol. ix. 289.

 

[FN#433] The names are=Martha and Mary.

 

[FN#434] MS. vi. 57-77, not translated by Scott, who entitles it (vi. 461) “Mhassun, the Liberal, and Mouseh, the treacherous Friend.” It is a variant of “The Envier and the Envied:” vol. i.

123.

 

[FN#435] The Arab. “Jarrah”: vol. viii. 177.

 

[FN#436] i.e. One who does good, a benefactor.

 

[FN#437] In the text “M�s� wa M�zi,” the latter word==vexatious, troublesome. [I notice that in the MS. the name is distinctly and I believe purposely spelt with Hamzah above the W�w and Kasrah beneath the S�n, reading “Muus�.” It is, therefore, a travesty of the name M�s�, and the exact counterpart of “Muhsin”, being the active participle of “as�a”, 4th form of “s�a,”==he did evil, he injured, and nearly equivalent with the following “Muuz�.” The two names may perhaps be rendered: Muhsin, the Beneficent, and Muus�, the Malignant, the Malefactor.—ST.]

 

[FN#438] In text “Fat�r” for “Fat�rah”==a pancake, before described.

 

[FN#439] In text “Bi-kh�tiri-k”==Thy will be done; the whole dialogue is in pure Fellah speech.

 

[FN#440] Supposed to be