Tales from the Arabic Part 17

[FN#29] i.e. May thy dwelling-place never fall into ruin.

[FN#30] i.e. the raised recess situate at the upper end of an Oriental saloon, wherein is the place of honour.

[FN#31] ie, the necromancers.

[FN#32] Lit. I have not found that thou hast a heel blessed (or propitious) to me.

[FN#33] i.e. O thou who art a calamity to those who have to do with thee!

[FN#34] Abou Nuwas ibn Hani, the greatest poet of the time.

[FN#35] As a charm against evil spirits.

[FN#36] i.e. the vein said to have been peculiar to the descendants of Has.h.i.+m, grandfather of Abbas and great-grandson of Mohammed, and to have started out between their eyes in moments of anger.

[FN#37] Lit. that I may do upon her sinister deeds.

[FN#38] "The pitcher comes not always back unbroken from the well."--English proverb.

[FN#39] i.e. of sorrow for his loss.

[FN#40] i.e. of grief for her loss.

[FN#41] Breslau Text, vol. vl. pp. 182-188, Nights ccccx.x.xii-ccccx.x.xiv.

[FN#42] The eighth Khalif (A.D. 717-720) of the house of Umeyyeh and the best and most single-hearted of all the Khalifs, with the exception of the second, Omar ben Khettab, from whom he was descended.

[FN#43] A celebrated statesman of the time, afterwards governor of Cuia* and Ba.s.sora under Omar ben Abdulaziz.

[FN#44] The most renowned poet of the first century of the Hegira. He is said to have been equally skilled in all styles of composition grave and gay.

[FN#45] Or eternal.

[FN#46] Or "in him."

[FN#47] Chief of the tribe of the Benou Suleim. Et Teberi tells this story in a different way. According to him, Abbas ben Mirdas (who was a well-known poet), being dissatisfied with the portion of booty allotted to him by the Prophet, refused it and composed a lampoon against Mohammed, who said to Ali, "Cut off this tongue which attacketh me," i.e. "Silence him by giving what will satisfy him," whereupon Ali doubled the covetous chief's share.

[FN#48] Bilal ibn Rebeh was the Prophet's freedman and crier. The word bilal signifies "moisture" or (metonymically) "beneficence"

and it may well be in this sense (and not as a man's name) that it is used in the text.

[FN#49] Said to have been the best poet ever produced by the tribe of Cureish. His introduction here is an anachronism, as he died A.D. 712, five years before Omar's accession.

[FN#50] i.e. odorem pudendorum amicae?

[FN#51] A famous poet of the tribe of the Benou Udhreh, renowned for their pa.s.sionate sincerity in love-matters. He is celebrated as the lover of Butheineh, as Petrarch of Laura, and died A.D.

701, sixteen years before Omar's accession.

[FN#52] A friend of Jemil and a poet of equal renown. He is celebrated as the lover of Azzeh, whose name is commonly added to his, and kept a grocer's shop at Medina.

[FN#53] i.e. in the att.i.tude of prayer.

[FN#54] A famous satirical poet of the time, afterwards banished by Omar for the virulence of his lampoons. His name is wrongly given by the text; it should be El Ahwes. He was a descendant of the Ansar or (Medinan) helpers of Mohammed.

[FN#55] A famous poet of the tribe of the Benou Temim and a rival of Jerir, to whom he was by some preferred. He was a notorious debauchee and Jerir, in one of the satires that were perpetually exchanged between himself and El Ferezdec, accuses his rival of having "never been a guest in any house, but he departed with ignominy and left behind him disgrace."

[FN#56] A Christian and a celebrated poet of the time.

[FN#57] The poet apparently meant to insinuate that those who professed to keep the fast of Ramazan ate flesh in secret. The word rendered "in public," i.e. openly, avowedly, may also perhaps be translated "in the forenoon," and in this El Akhtel may have meant to contrast his free-thinking disregard of the ordinances of the fast with the strictness of the orthodox Muslim, whose only meals in Ramazan-time are made between sunset and dawn-peep. As soon as a white thread can be distinguished from a black, the fast is begun and a true believer must not even smoke or swallow his saliva till sunset.

[FN#58] Prominent words of the Muezzin's fore-dawn call to prayer.

[FN#59] i.e. fall down drunk.

[FN#60] i.e. she who ensnares [all] eyes.

[FN#61] Imam, the spiritual t.i.tle of the Khalif, as head of the Faith and leader (lit. "foreman") of the people at prayer.

[FN#62] Or "worldly."

[FN#63] Or "worldly."

[FN#64] A town and province of Arabia, of which (inter alia) Omar ben Abdulaziz was governor, before he came to the Khalifate.

[FN#65] Syn. munificence.

[FN#66] About 2 pounds sterling 10 s.

[FN#67] i.e. what is thy news?

[FN#68] Or "I approve of him."

[FN#69] Breslau Text, vol. vi. pp. 188-9, Night ccccx.x.xiv.

[FN#70] El Hejjaj ben Yousuf eth Thekefi, a famous statesman and soldier of the seventh and eighth centuries. He was governor of Chaldaea (Irak Arabi), under the fifth and sixth Khalifs of the Ommiade dynasty, and was renowned for his cruelty, but appears to have been a prudent and capable administrator, who used no more rigour than was necessary to restrain the proverbially turbulent populations of Ba.s.sora and Cufa, Most of the anecdotes of his brutality and tyranny, which abound in Arab authors, are, in all probability, apocryphal.

[FN#71] Used, by synecdoche, for "heads."

[FN#72] i.e. the governed, to wit, he who is led by a halter attached (metaphorically of course) to a ring pa.s.sed through his nose, as with a camel.

[FN#73] i.e. the governor or he who is high of rank.

[FN#74] i.e. their hair, which may be considered the wealth of the head. This whole pa.s.sage is a description a double-entente of a barber-surgeon.

[FN#75] Syn. cooking-pot.

[FN#76] Syn. be lowered. This pa.s.sage is a similar description of an itinerant hot bean-seller.

[FN#77] The rows of threads on a weaver's loom.