The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XI Part 25

[FN#546] I have noted (i. 293) that Kamis ( , Chemise, Cameslia, Camisa) is used in the Hindostani and Bengali dialects.

Like its synonyms praetexta and s.h.i.+ft, it has an equivocal meaning and here probably signifies the dress peculiar to Arab devotees and devout beggars.

[FN#547] I omit here and elsewhere the parenthetical formula "Kala al-Rawi," etc.=The Story-teller sayeth, reminding the reader of its significance in a work collected from the mouths of professional Tale-tellers and intended mainly for their own use.

[FN#548] The usual sign of emotion, already often mentioned.

[FN#549] It being no shame to Moslems if a slave become King.

[FN#550] Arab. "Tarbiyati," i.e., he was brought up in my house.

[FN#551] There is no Salic law amongst Moslems; but the Rasm or custom of AlIslam, established by the succession of the four first Caliphs, to the prejudice of Ayishah and other masterful women would be a strong precedent against queenly rule. It is the reverse with the Hindus who accept a Rani as willingly as a Rajah and who believe with Europeans that when kings reign women rule, and vice versa. To the vulgar Moslem feminine government appears impossible, and I was once asked by an Afghan, "What would happen if the queen were in childbed?"

[FN#552] Arab. "Khutbah," the sermon preached from the pulpit (Mimbar) after the congregational prayers on Friday noon. It is of two kinds, for which see Lane, M.E., chap. iii. This public mention of his name and inscribing it upon the newly-minted money are the special prerogatives of the Moslem king: hence it often happens that usurpers cause a confusion of Khutbah and coinage.

[FN#553] For a specimen of which, blowing a man up with bellows, see Al-Mas'udi, chap. cxxiii.

[FN#554] i.e. a long time: the idiom has been noted before more than once.

[FN#555] i.e. with what he had heard and what he was promised.

[FN#556] Arab. "Shakhs mafsud," i.e. an infidel.

[FN#557] Arab. "Bunud," plur. of Persian "band"=hypocrisy, deceit.

[FN#558] Arab. "Buruj" pl. of Burj. lit.=towers, an astrological term equivalent to our "houses" or constellations which form the Zodiacal signs surrounding the heavens as towers gird a city; and applied also to the 28 lunar Mansions. So in Al-Hariri (a.s.s. of Damascus) "I swear by the sky with its towers," the incept of Koran chapt. lx.x.xv.; see also chapts. xv. 26 and xxv. 62. "Burj"

is a word with a long history: {Greek} burg, burgh, etc.

[FN#559] Arab. "Bundukah"=a little bunduk, nut, filbert, pellet, rule, musket bullet.

[FN#560] See John Raister's "Booke of the Seven Planets; or, Seven Wandering Motives," London, 1598.

[FN#561] i.e. for the king whom I love as my own soul.

[FN#562] The Bresl. Edit. (xi. 318-21) seems to a.s.sume that the tales were told in the early night before the royal pair slept.

This is no improvement; we prefer to think that the time was before peep of day when Easterns usally awake and have nothing to do till the dawn-prayer.

[FN#563] See vol. ii. 161.

[FN#564] Arab. Al-Fakhir. No wonder that the First Hand who moulded the Man-mud is a lieu commun in Eastern thought. The Pot and the Potter began with the old Egyptians. "Sitting as a potter at the wheel, G.o.d Cneph (in Philae) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life (the Genesitic "breath") to the nostrils of Osiris." Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being, "by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated."

We find him next in Jeremiah (xviii. 2) "Arise and go down unto the Potter's house," etc., and in Romans (ix. 20), "Hath not the Potter power over the clay?" He appears in full force in Omar-i- Khayyam (No. x.x.xvii.):--

For I remember stopping by the way To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: An with its all obliterated Tongue I murmur'd?"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"

Lastly the Potter shows in the Kasidah of Haji Abdu al-Yezid (p.4):--

"The first of pots the Potter made by Chrysorrhoas' blue- green wave; Methinks I see him smile to see what guerdon to the world he gave.