The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VIII Part 28

[FN#99] This is the "House of Sadness" of our old chivalrous Romances. See chapt. vi. of "Palmerin of England," by Francisco de Moraes (ob. 1572), translated by old Anthony Munday (dateless, 1590?) and "corrected" (read spoiled) by Robert Southey, London, Longmans, 1807.

[FN#100] The lines have occurred in Night clix. (vol. iii. 183), I quote Mr. Payne who, like Lane, prefers "in my bosom" to "beneath my ribs."

[FN#101] In this tale the Bresl. Edit. more than once adds "And let us and you send a blessing to the Lord of Lords" (or to "Mohammed," or to the "Prophet"); and in vol. v. p. 52 has a long prayer. This is an act of contrition in the tale-teller for romancing against the expressed warning of the Founder of Al-Islam.

[FN#102] From Bresl. Edit. (vi. 29): the four in the Mac. Edit.

are too irrelevant.

[FN#103] Arab. "Ghayur"--jealous, an admirable epithet which Lane dilutes to "changeable"--making a truism of a metaphor.

[FN#104] These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#105] i.e. One fated to live ten years.

[FN#106] This poetical way of saying "fourteen" suggests Camoens (The Lusiads) Canto v. 2.

[FN#107] Arab. "Surrah," lit. = a purse: a few lines lower down it is called "'Ulbah" = a box which, of course, may have contained the bag.

[FN#108] The month which begins the Moslem year.

[FN#109] As an Arab often does when deep in thought. Lane appositely quotes John viii. 6. "Jonas stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground." Mr. Payne translates, "He fell a-drumming on the earth with his fingers," but this does not complete the sense.

[FN#110] i.e."And the peace of Allah be upon thee! that will end thy story." The Arab formula, "Wa al-Salam" (p.r.o.n. Wa.s.salam) is used in a variety of senses.

[FN#111] Like Camoens, one of the model lovers, he calls upon Love to torment him still more--ad majorern Dei (amoris) gloriam.

[FN#112] p.r.o.n. Aboor-Ruwaysh. "The Father of the little Feather": he is afterwards called "Son of the daughter of the accursed Iblis"; yet, as Lane says, "he appears to be a virtuous person."

[FN#113] Arab. "Kantara al-lijam fi Karbus (bow) sarjih."

[FN#114] I do not translate "beckoned" because the word would give a wrong idea. Our beckoning with the finger moved towards the beckoner makes the so-beckoned Eastern depart in all haste.

To call him you must wave the hand from you.

[FN#115] The Arabs knew what large libraries were; and a learned man could not travel without camel-loads of dictionaries.

[FN#116] Arab. "Adim;" now called Bulghar, our Moroccan leather.

[FN#117] Arab. "Zinad," which Lane renders by "instruments for striking fire," and Mr. Payne, after the fas.h.i.+on of the translators of Al-Hariri, "flint and steel."

[FN#118] A congener of Hasan and Husayn, little used except in Syria where it is a favourite name for Christians. The Muhit of Butrus Al-Bostani (s.v.) tells us that it also means a bird called Abu Hasan and supplies various Egyptian synonyms. In Mod.

Arab. Grammar the form Fa''ul is a diminutive as Hammud for Ahmad, 'Ammur for 'Amru. So the fem. form, Fa''ulah, e.g.

Khaddugah = little Khadijah and Naffusah=little Nafisah; Ar'urah = little c.l.i.toris - whereas in Heb. it is an incrementative e.g.

dabbulah a large dablah (cake or lump of dried figs, etc.).

[FN#119] In the Mac. Edit. "Soldiers of Al-Daylam" i.e. warlike as the Daylamites or Medes. See vol. ii. 94.

[FN#120] Bilkis, it will be remembered, is the Arab. name of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon. In Abyssinia she is termed Kebra za negest or za makada, the latter (according to Ferdinand Werne's "African Wanderings," Longmans, 1852) being synonymous with Ityopia or Habash (Ethiopia or Abyssinia).

[FN#121] Arab. "Dakkah," which Lane translates by "settee."

[FN#122] Arab. "Ambar al-Kham" the latter word (raw) being pure Persian.

[FN#123] The author neglects to mention the ugliest part of old-womanhood in the East, long empty b.r.e.a.s.t.s like tobacco-pouches. In youth the bosom is beautifully high, arched and rounded, firm as stone to the touch, with the nipples erect and pointing outwards. But after the girl-mother's first child (in Europe le premier embellit) all changes. Nature and bodily power have been overtasked; then comes the long suckling at the mother's expense: the extension of the skin and the enlargement of its vessels are too sudden and rapid for the diminished ability of contraction and the bad food aids in the continual consumption of vitality. Hence, among Eastern women age and ugliness are synonymous. It is only in the highest civilisation that we find the handsome old woman.

[FN#124] The name has occurred in the Knightly tale of King Omar and his sons, Vol. ii. 269. She is here called Mother of Calamities,but in p. 123, Vol. iv. of the Mac. Edit. she becomes "Lady (Zat) al-Dawahi." It will be remembered that the t.i.tle means calamitous to the foe.

[FN#125] By this address she a.s.sured him that she had no design upon his chast.i.ty. In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman, no matter how young, with, "Ya Ummi!" = O my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to make love to her.

[FN#126] Apparently the Wakites numbered their Islands as the Anglo-Americans do their streets. For this they have been charged with "want of imagination"; but the custom is strictly cla.s.sical. See at Pompeii "Reg (io) I; Ins (ula) 1, Via Prima, Secunda," etc.

[FN#127] These are the Puellae Wakwakienses of whom Ibn Al-Wardi relates after an ocular witness, "Here too is a tree which bears fruits like women who have fair faces and are hung by their hair.

They come forth from integuments like large leathern bags (calabash-gourds?) and when they sense air and sun they cry 'Wak!

Wak!' (G.o.d! G.o.d!) till their hair is cut, and when it is cut they die; and the islanders understand this cry wherefrom they augure ill." The Ajaib al-Hind (chapt. xv.) places in Wak-land the Samandal, a bird which enters the fire without being burnt evidently the Egyptian "Pi-Benni," which the Greeks metamorphised to "Phoenix." It also mentions a hare-like animal, now male then female, and the Somal behind Cape Guardafui tell the same tale of their Cynhyaenas.

[FN#128] i.e. I will keep thee as though thou wert the apple of my eye.

[FN#129] A mere exaggeration of the "Gull-fairs" noted by travellers in sundry islands as Ascension and the rock off Brazilian Santos.

[FN#130] Arab. "Kamil wa Basit wa Wafir" = the names of three popular metres, for which see the Terminal Essay.

[FN#131] Arab. "Manas.h.i.+f" = drying towels, Plur. of Minshafah, and the popular term which Dr. Jonathan Swift corrupted to "Munna.s.saf." Lane (Nights, Introduct. p. ix.).

[FN#132] Arab. "Shafaif" opposed to "Shafah" the mouth-lips.

[FN#133] Fountains of Paradise. This description is a fair instance of how the Saj'a (prose-rhyme) dislocates the order; an Arab begins with hair, forehead, eyebrows and lashes and when he reaches the nose, he slips down to the toes for the sake of the a.s.sonance. If the latter be neglected the whole list of charms must be otherwise ordered; and the student will compare Mr.

Payne's version of this pa.s.sage with mine.

[FN#134] A fair specimen of the Arab logogriph derived from the Abjad Alphabet which contains only the Hebrew and Syriac letters not the six Arabic. Thus 4 X 5=20 which represents the Kaf (K) and 6 X 10=60, or Sin (S). The whole word is thus "Kos", the Greek or , and the lowest word, in Persian as in Arabic, for the female pudenda, extensively used in vulgar abuse.

In my youth we had at the University something of the kind,

To five and five and fifty-five The first of letters add To make a thing to please a King And drive a wise man mad.

Answer VVLVA. Very interesting to the anthropological student is this excursus of Hasan, who after all manner of hards.h.i.+ps and horrors and risking his life to recover his wife and children, breaks out into song on the subject of her privities. And it can hardly be tale-teller's gag as both verse and prose show considerable art in composition. (See p. 348.)

Supplementary Note To Hasan of Ba.s.sorah.

Note(p.93)--There is something wondrous nave in a lover who, when asked by his mistress to sing a song in her honour, breaks out into versical praises of her parts. But even the cla.s.sical Arab authors did not disdain such themes. See in Al-Hariri (a.s.s.

of Mayyafarikin) where Abu Zayd laments the impotency of old age in form of a Rasy or funeral oration (Preston p. 484, and Chenery p. 221). It completely deceived Sir William Jones, who inserted it into the chapter "De Poesi Funebri," p. 527 (Poeseos Asiaticae Commentarii), gravely noting, "Haec Elegia non admodum dissimilis esse videtur pulcherrimi illius carminis de Sauli et Jonathani obitu; at que ade versus iste ?ubi provocant adversarios nunquam rediit a pugnae contentione sine spiculo sanguine imbuto, ?ex Hebraeoreddi videtur,

A sanguine occisorum, a fortium virorum adipe, Arcus Jonathani non rediit irritus."

I need hardly say with Captain Lockett (226) that this "Sabb warrior," this Arabian Achilles, is the celebrated Bonus Deus or h.e.l.lespontiacus of the Ancients. The oration runs thus:--

O folk I have a wondrous tale, so rare Much shall it profit hearers wise and ware!

I saw in salad-years a potent Brave And sharp of edge and point his warrior glaive; Who entered joust and list with hardiment Fearless of risk, of victory confident, His vigorous onset straitest places oped And easy pa.s.sage through all narrows groped: He ne'er encountered foe in single fight But came from tilt with spear in blood stained bright; Nor stormed a fortress howso strong and stark-- With fenced gates defended deep and dark-- When shown his flag without th' auspicious cry "Aidance from Allah and fair victory nigh!"?

Thus wise full many a night his part he played In strength and youthtide's stately garb arrayed, Dealing to fair young girl delicious joy And no less welcome to the blooming boy.

But Time ne'er ceased to stint his wondrous strength (Steadfast and upright as the gallow's length) Until the Nights o'erthrew him by their might And friends contemned him for a f.e.c.kless wight; Nor was a wizard but who wasted skill Over his case, nor leach could heal his ill.

Then he abandoned arms abandoned him Who gave and took salutes so fierce and grim; And now lies prostrate drooping haughty crest; For who lives longest him most ills molest.

Then see him, here he lies on bier for bet;-- Who will a shroud bestow on stranger dead?