Supplemental Nights, Volume 2
by
Richard F. Burton
Part 8 out of 8
olives, a kind of sacramental food like bread and wine in
southern Europe. But his retort would be acceptable to the True
Believer who, the strictest of conservatives, prides himself on
imitating in all points, the sayings and doings of the Apostle.
[FN#320] i.e. animals that died without being ceremonially
killed.
[FN#321] Koran ii. 168. This is from the Chapter of the Cow where
"that which dieth of itself (carrion), blood, pork, and that over
which other name but that of Allah (i.e. idols) hath been
invoked" are forbidden. But the verset humanely concludes:
"Whoso, however, shall eat them by constraint, without desire, or
as a transgressor, then no sin shall be upon him."
[FN#322] i.e. son of Simeon=a Christian.
[FN#323] Arab. and Heb. "Haykal," suggesting the idea of large
space, a temple, a sanctuary, a palace which bear a suspicious
likeness to the Accadian E-kal or Great House = the old Egyptian
Perao (Pharaoh?), and the Japanese "Mikado."
[FN#324] Wine, carrion and pork being lawful to the Moslem if
used to save life. The former is also the sovereignest thing for
inward troubles, flatulence, indigestion, etc. See vol. v. 2, 24.
[FN#325] Arab. "Nazilah," i.e., a curse coming down from Heaven.
[FN#326] Here and below, a translation of her name.
[FN#327] "A picture of Paradise which is promised to the
God-fearing! Therein are rivers of water which taint not; and
rivers of milk whose taste changeth not; and rivers of wine,
etc."--Koran xlvii. 16.
[FN#328] Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Don Juan ii. 178.
[FN#329] The ox (Bakar) and the bull (Taur, vol. i. 16) are the
Moslem emblems of stupidity, as with us are the highly
intelligent ass and the most sagacious goose.
[FN#330] In Arab. "'Ud" means primarily wood; then a lute. See
vol. ii. 100. The Muezzin, like the schoolmaster, is popularly
supposed to be a fool.
[FN#331] I have noticed that among Arab lovers it was the fashion
to be jealous of the mistress's nightly phantom which, as amongst
mesmerists, is the lover's embodied will.
[FN#332] i.e. I will lay down my life to save thee from sorrow--a
common-place hyperbole of love.
[FN#333] Arab. "Katl." I have noticed the Hibernian "kilt" which
is not a bull but, like most provincialisms and Americanisms, a
survival, an archaism. In the old Frisian dialect, which agrees
with English in more words than "bread, butter and cheese," we
find the primary meaning of terms which with us have survived
only in their secondary senses, e.g. killen = to beat and slagen
= to strike. Here is its great value to the English philologist.
When the Irishman complains that he is "kilt" we know through the
Frisian what he really means.
[FN#334] The decency of this description is highly commendable
and I may note that the Bresl. Edit. is comparatively free from
erotic pictures.
[FN#335] i.e. "I commit him to thy charge under God."
[FN#336] This is an Americanism, but it translates passing well
"Al-ilaj" = insertion.
[FN#337] Arab. (and Heb.) "Tarjuman" = a dragoman, for which see
vol. i. 100. In the next tale it will occur with the sense of
polyglottic.
[FN#338] See vol. i. p. 35.
[FN#339] After putting to death the unjust Prefect.
[FN#340] Arab. "Lajlaj." See vol. ix. 322.
[FN#341] Arab. "Mawalid" lit. = nativity festivals (plur. of
Maulid). See vol. ix. 289.
[FN#342] Bresl. Edit., vol. xii. pp. 116-237, Nights
dcccclxvi-dcccclxxix. Mr. Payne entitles it "El Abbas and the
King's Daughter of Baghdad."
[FN#343] "Of the Shayban tribe." I have noticed (vol. ii. 1) how
loosely the title Malik (King) is applied in Arabic and in
mediaeval Europe. But it is ultra-Shakespearean to place a Badawi
King in Baghdad, the capital founded by the Abbasides and ruled
by those Caliphs till their downfall.
[FN#344] i.e. Irak Arabi (Chaldaea) and 'Ajami (Western Persia).
For the meaning of Al-Irak, which always, except in verse, takes
the article, see vol. ii. 132.
[FN#345] See supra, p. 135. Mr. Payne suspects a clerical error
for "Turkumaniyah" = Turcomanish; but this is hardly acceptable.
[FN#346] As fabulous a personage as "King Kays."
[FN#347] Possibly a clerical error for Zabid, the famous capital
of the Tahamah or lowlands of Al-Yaman.
[FN#348] The Moslem's Holy Land whose capital is Meccah.
[FN#349] A hinted protest against making a picture or a statue
which the artist cannot quicken; as this process will be demanded
of him on Doomsday. Hence also the Princess is called Mariyah
(Maria, Mary), a non-Moslem name.
[FN#350] i.e. day and night, for ever.
[FN#351] Koran xxxiii. 38; this concludes a "revelation"
concerning the divorce and marriage to Mohammed of the wife of
his adopted son Zayd. Such union, superstitiously held incestuous
by all Arabs, was a terrible scandal to the rising Faith, and
could be abated only by the "Commandment of Allah." It is hard to
believe that a man could act honestly after such fashion; but we
have seen in our day a statesman famed for sincerity and
uprightness honestly doing things the most dishonest possible.
Zayd and Abu Lahab (chap. cxi. i.) are the only contemporaries of
Mohammed named in the Koran.
[FN#352] i.e. darkened behind him.
[FN#353] Here we have again, as so common in Arab romances, the
expedition of a modified Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
[FN#354] Arab. "Arzi-ha" = in its earth, its outlying suburbs.
[FN#355] The king's own tribe.
[FN#356] i.e. he was always "spoiling for a fight."
[FN#357] In the text the two last sentences are spoken by Amir
and the story-teller suddenly resumes the third person.
[FN#358] Mr. Payne translates this "And God defend the right" (of
plunder according to the Arabs).
[FN#359] Arab. "Lillahi darruk"; see vol. iv. 20. Captain Lockett
(p.28) justly remarks that "it is a sort of encomiastic
exclamation of frequent occurrence in Arabic and much easier to
comprehend than translate." Darra signifies flowing freely (as
milk from the udder) and was metaphorically transferred to bounty
and to indoles or natural capacity. Thus the phrase means "your
flow of milk is by or through Allah." i.e., of unusual abundance.
[FN#360] The words are euphemistic: we should say "comest thou to
our succour."
[FN#361] i.e. If his friend the Devil be overstrong for thee,
flee him rather than be slain; as
He who fights and runs away
Shall live to fight another day.
[FN#362] i.e. I look to Allah for said (and keep my powder dry).
[FN#363] i.e. to the next world.
[FN#364] This falling backwards in laughter commonly occurs
during the earlier tales; it is, however, very rare amongst the
Badawin.
[FN#365] i.e. as he were a flying Jinni, swooping down and
pouncing falcon-like upon a mortal from the upper air.
[FN#366] This may be (reading Imraan = man, for Amran = matter)
"a masterful man"; but I can hardly accept it.
[FN#367] Arab. "Bunduki," the adj. of Bunduk, which the Moslems
evidently learned from Slav sources; Venedik being the Dalmatian
corruption of Venezia. See Dubrovenedik in vol. ii. 219.
[FN#368] i.e. the castle's square.
[FN#369] In sign of quitting possession. Chess in Europe is
rarely played for money, with the exception of public matches:
this, however, is not the case amongst Easterns, who are also for
the most part as tricky as an old lady at cribbage rightly named.
[FN#370] i.e, he was as eloquent and courtly as he could be.
[FN#371] Arab. "Ya Zinat al-Nisa," which may either be a P.N. or
a polite address as Bella fe (Handsome woman) is to any feminine
in Southern Italy.
[FN#372] Arab. "Raas Ghanam": this form of expressing singularity
is common to Arabic and the Eastern languages, which it has
influenced.
[FN#373] This most wearisome form of politeness is common in the
Moslem world, where men fondly think that the more you see of
them the more you like of them. Yet their Proverbial Philosophy
("the wisdom of many and the wit of one") strongly protests
against the practice: I have already quoted Mohammed's saying,
"Zur ghibban, tazid Hibban"--visits rare keep friendship fair.
[FN#374] This clause in the text is evidently misplaced (vol.
xii.144).
[FN#375] Arab. Dara' or Dira'=armour, whether of leather or
metal; here the coat worn under the mail.
[FN#376] Called from Rustak, a quarter of Baghdad. For Rustak
town see vol. vi. 289.
[FN#377] From Damietta comes our "dimity." The classical name was
Tamiathis apparently Coptic graecised: the old town on the shore
famed in Crusading times was destroyed in A.H. 648 = 1251.
[FN#378] Easterns are always startled by sudden summons to the
presence either of King or Kazi: here the messenger gives the
youth to understand that it is in kindness, not in anger.
[FN#379] i.e. in not sending for thee to court instead of
allowing thee to live in the city without guest-rite.
[FN#380] In sign of agitation: the phrase has often been used in
this sense and we find it also in Al-Mas'udi.
[FN#381] I would remind the reader that the "Dawat" (ink-case)
contains the reed-pens.
[FN#382] Two well-known lovers.
[FN#383] On such occasions the old woman (and Easterns are hard
de dolo vetularum) always assents to the sayings of her prey,
well knowing what the doings will inevitably be.
[FN#384] Travellers, Nomads, Wild Arabs.
[FN#385] Whither they bear thee back dead with the women crying
and keening.
[FN#386] Arab. Aznani = emaciated me.
[FN#387] Either the Deity or the Love-god.
[FN#388] Arab. "Hima" = the tribal domain, a word which has often
occurred.
[FN#389] "O ye who believe! seek help through patience and
prayer: verily, Allah is with the patient." Koran ii. 148. The
passage refers to one of the battles, Bedr or Ohod.
[FN#390] Arab. "Sirr" (a secret) and afterwards "Kitman"
(concealment) i.e. Keeping a lover down-hearted.
[FN#391] Arab. "'Alkam" = the bitter gourd, colocynth; more
usually "Hanzal."
[FN#392] "For Jazirah" = insula, island, used in the sense of
"peninsula," see vol. i. 2.
[FN#393] Meccah and Al-Medinah. Pilgrimage i. 338 and ii. 57,
used in the proverb "Sharr fi al-Haramayn" = wickedness in the
two Holy Places.
[FN#394] Arab. Al-hamd (o li'llah).
[FN#395] i.e. play, such as the chase, or an earnest matter, such
as war, etc.
[FN#396] Arab. "Mizwad," or Mizwad = lit. provision-bag, from Zad
= viaticum; afterwards called Kirbah (pron. Girbah, the popular
term), and Sakl. The latter is given in the Dictionaries as
Askalah = scala, echelle, stage, plank.
[FN#397] Those blood-feuds are most troublesome to the traveller,
who may be delayed by them for months: and, until a peace be
patched up, he will never be allowed to pass from one tribe to
their enemies. A quarrel of the kind prevented my crossing Arabia
from Al-Medinah to Maskat (Pilgrimage, ii. 297), and another in
Africa from visiting the head of the Tanganyika Lake. In all such
journeys the traveller who has to fight against Time is almost
sure to lose.
[FN#398] i.e. his fighting-men.
[FN#399] The popular treatment of a detected horse-thief, for
which see Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia (1829), and Notes on the
Bedouins and Wahabys (1830).
[FN#400] Arab "Ashirah": see vol. vii. 121.
[FN#401] Arab. "Musafahah" -. see vol. vi. 287.
[FN#402] In the text, "To the palace of the king's daughter."
[FN#403] Arab. "Marj Sali'" = cleft meadow (here and below). Mr.
Payne suggests that this may be a mistranscription for Marj Sali'
(with a Sad) = a treeless champaign. It appears to me a careless
blunder for the Marj akhzar (green meadow) before mentioned.
[FN#404] The palace, even without especial and personal reasons,
not being the place for a religious and scrupulous woman.
[FN#405] "i.e. those of El Aziz, who had apparently entered the
city or passed through it on their way to the camp of El Abbas."
This is Mr. Payne's suggestion.
[FN#406] Arab "Hatif"; gen. = an ally.
[FN#407] Not wishing to touch the hand of a strange woman.
[FN#408] i.e. a mere passer-by, a stranger; alluding to her
taunt.
[FN#409] The Bactrian or double-humped dromedary. See vol. iii.
67. Al-Mas'udi (vii. 169) calls it "Jamal falij," lit. = the
palsy-camel.
[FN#410] i.e. Stars and planets.
[FN#411] i.e. Sang in tenor tones which are always in falsetto.
[FN#412] Arab. Tahzib = reforming morals, amending conduct,
chastening style.
[FN#413] i.e. so as to show only the whites, as happens to the
"mesmerised."
[FN#414] i.e. for love of and longing for thy youth.
[FN#415] i.e. leather from Al-Taif: see vol. viii. 303. The text
has by mistake Talifi.
[FN#416] i.e. she was at her last breath, when cured by the magic
of love.
[FN#417] i.e. violateth my private apartment.
[FN#418] The voice (Shazz) is left doubtful: it may be girl's,
nightingale's, or dove's.
[FN#419] Arab. "Hiba" partly induced by the rhyme. In desert
countries the comparison will be appreciated: in Sind the fine
dust penetrates into a closed book.
[FN#420] i.e. he smuggled it in under his 'Aba-cloak: perhaps it
was a better brand than that made in the monastery.
[FN#421] i.e. the delights of Paradise promised by the Prophet.
[FN#422] Again, "he" for "she," making the lover's address more
courtly and delicate.
[FN#423] i.e. take refuge with Allah from the evil eye of her
charms.
[FN#424] i.e. an thou prank or adorn thyself: I have translated
literally, but the couplet strongly suggests "nonsense verses."
[FN#425] Arab. "Santir:" Lane (M.E., chapt. xviii.) describes it
as resembling the Kanun (dulcimer or zither) but with two oblique
peg-pieces instead of one and double chords of wire (not treble
strings of lamb's gut) and played upon with two sticks instead of
the little plectra. Dozy also gives Santir from {Greek}, the
Fsaltrun of Daniel.
[FN#426] i.e. That which is ours shall be thine, and that which
is incumbent on thee shall be incumbent on us = we will assume
thy debts and responsibilities.
[FN#427] This passage is sadly disjointed in the text: I have
followed Mr. Payne's ordering.
[FN#428] The Arab of noble tribe is always the first to mount his
own mare: he also greatly fears her being put out to full speed
by a stranger, holding that this should be reserved for occasions
of life and death; and that it can be done to perfection only
once during the animal's life.
[FN#429] The red (Ahmar) dromedary like the white-red (Sabah)
were most valued because they are supposed best to bear the heats
of noon; and thus "red camels" is proverbially used for wealth.
When the head of Abu Jahl was brought in after the Battle of
Bedr, Mahommed exclaimed, "'Tis more acceptable to me than a red
camel!"
[FN#430] i.e. Couriers on dromedaries, the only animals used for
sending messages over long distances.
[FN#431] These guest-fires are famous in Arab poetry. So
Al-Hariri (Ass. of Banu Haram) sings:--
A beacon fire I ever kindled high;
i.e. on the hill-tops near the camp, to guide benighted
travellers. Also the Lamiyat al-Ajam says:--
The fire of hospitality is ever lit on the high
stations.
This natural telegraph was used in a host of ways by the Arabs of
The Ignorance; for instance, when a hated guest left the camp
they lighted the "Fire of Rejection," and cried, "Allah, bear him
far from us!" Nothing was more ignoble than to quench such fire:
hence in obloquy of the Fazar tribe it was said:--
Ne'er trust Fazar with an ass, for they
Once roasted ass-pizzle, the rabble rout:
And, when sight they guest, to their dams they say,
"Piss quick on the guest-fire and put it out!"
(Al-Mas"udi vi. 140.)
[FN#432] i.e. of rare wood, set with rubies.
[FN#433] i.e. whose absence pained us.
[FN#434] Mr. Payne and I have long puzzled over these enigmatical
and possibly corrupt lines: he wrote to me in 1884, "This is the
first piece that has beaten me." In the couplet above (vol. xii.
230) "Rayhani" may mean "my basil-plant" or "my food" (the latter
Koranic), "my compassion," etc.; and Susani is equally ancipitous
"My lilies" or "my sleep": see Bard al-Susan = les douceurs du
sommeil in Al-Mas'udi vii. 168.
[FN#435] The "Nika" or sand hill is the swell of the throat: the
Ghaur or lowland is the fall of the waist: the flower is the
breast anent which Mr. Payne appropriately quotes the well-known
lines of Fletcher:
"Hide, O hide those hills of snow,
That thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears."
[FN#436] Easterns are right in regarding a sleepy languorous look
as one of the charms of women, and an incitement to love because
suggestive only of bed. Some men also find the same pleasure in a
lacrymose expression of countenance, seeming always to call for
consolation: one of the most successful women I know owes her
exceptional good fortune to this charm.
[FN#437] Arab. "Hajib,"eyebrow or chamberlain; see vol. iii. 233.
The pun is classical used by a host of poets including Al-Hariri.
[FN#438] Arab. "Tarfah." There is a Tarfia Island in the
Guadalquivir and in Gibraltar a "Tarfah Alto" opposed to "Tarfali
bajo." But it must not be confounded with Tarf = a side, found in
the Maroccan term for "The Rock" Jabal al-Tarf = Mountain of the
Point (of Europe).
[FN#439] For Solomon and his flying carpet see vol. iii. 267.
[FN#440] Arab. "Bilad al-Maghrib (al-Aksa," in full) = the
Farthest Land of the setting Sun, shortly called Al-Maghrib and
the people "Maghribi." The earliest occurrence of our name
Morocco or Marocco I find in the "Marakiyah" of Al-Mas'udi (iii.
241), who apparently applies it to a district whither the Berbers
migrated.
[FN#441] The necklace-pearls are the cup-bearer's teeth.
[FN#442] In these unregenerate days they would often be summoned
to the houses of the royal family; but now they had "got
religion" and, becoming freed women, were resolved to be
"respectable." In not a few Moslem countries men of wealth and
rank marry professional singers who, however loose may have been
their artistic lives, mostly distinguish themselves by decency of
behaviour often pushed to the extreme of rigour. Also jeune
coquette, vieille devote is a rule of the world, Eastern and
Western.
[FN#443] Bresl. Edit., vol. xii p. 383 (Night mi). The king is
called as usual "Shahrban," which is nearly synonymous with
Shahryar.
[FN#444] i.e. the old Sindibae-Nameh (see vol. vi. 122), or "The
Malice of Women" which the Bresl. Edit. entitles, "Tale of the
King and his Son and his Wife and the Seven Wazirs." Here it
immediately follows the Tale of Al-Abbas and Mariyah and occupies
pp. 237-383 of vol. xii, (Nights dcccclxxix-m).
[FN#445] i.e. Those who commit it.
[FN#446] The connection between this pompous introduction and the
story which follows is not apparent. The "Tale of the Two Kings
and the Wazir's Daughters" is that of Shahrazad told in the third
person, in fact a rechauffe of the Introduction. But as some
three years have passed since the marriage, and the denouement of
the plot is at hand, the Princess is made, with some art I think,
to lay the whole affair before her husband in her own words, the
better to bring him to a "sense of his duty."
[FN#447] Bresl. Edit., vol. xii. Pp. 384-412.
[FN#448] This clause is taken from the sequence, where the older
brother's kingdom is placed in China.
[FN#449] For the Tobbas = "Successors" or the Himyaritic kings,
see vol. i. 216.
[FN#450] Kayasirah, opp. to Akasirah, here and in many other
places.
[FN#451] See vol. ii. 77. King Kulayb ("little dog") al-Wa'il, a
powerful chief of the Banu Ma'ad in the Kasin district of Najd,
who was connected with the war of Al-Basus. He is so called
because he lamed a pup (kulayb) and tied it up in the midst of
his Hima (domain, place of pasture and water), forbidding men to
camp within sound of its bark or sight of his fire. Hence "more
masterful than Kulayb," A.P. ii. 145, and Al-Hariri Ass. Xxvi.
(Chenery, p. 448). This angry person came by his death for
wounding in the udder a trespassing camel (Sorab) whose owner was
a woman named Basus. Her friend (Jasus) slew him; and thus arose
the famous long war between the tribes Wa'il Bakr and Taghlib.
It gave origin to the saying, "Die thou and be an expiation for
the shoe-latchet of Kulayb."
[FN#452] Arab. "Mukhaddarat," maidens concealed behind curtains
and veiled in the Harem.
[FN#453] i.e. the professional Rawis or tale-reciters who learned
stories by heart from books like "The Arabian Nights." See my
Terminal Essay, vol. x. 144.
[FN#454] Arab. "Bid'ah," lit. = an innovation, a new thing, an
invention, any change from the custom of the Prophet and the
universal practice of the Faith, where it be in the cut of the
beard or a question of state policy. Popularly the word =
heterodoxy, heresy; but theologically it is not necessarily used
in a bad sense. See vol. v. 167.
[FN#455] About three parts of this sentence have been supplied by
Mr. Payne, the careless scribe having evidently omitted it.
[FN#456] Here, as in the Introduction (vol. i. 24), the king
consummates his marriage in presence of his virgin sister-in-law,
a process which decency forbids amongst Moslems.
[FN#457] Al-Mas'udi (vol. iv. 213) uses this term to signify
viceroy in "Shahryar Sajastan."
[FN#458] i.e. his indifference to the principles of right and
wrong, which is a manner of moral intoxication.
[FN#459] i.e. hath mentioned the office of Wazir (in Koran xx.
30).
[FN#460] i.e. Moslems, who practice the Religion of Resignation.
[FN#461] Koran xxxiii. 35. This is a proemium to the
"revelation" concerning Zayd and Zaynab.
[FN#462] i.e. I have an embarras de richesse in my repertory.
[FN#463] The title is from the Bresl. Edit. (vol. xii. pp. 398-
402). Mr. Payne calls it "The Favourite and her Lover."
[FN#464] The practice of fumigating gugglets is universal in
Egypt (Lane, M. E., chapt. v.); but I never heard of musk being
so used.
[FN#465] Arab. "Laysa fi 'l-diyari dayyar"--a favourite jingle.
[FN#466] Arab. "Khayr Kathir" (pron. Katir) which also means
"abundant kindness."
[FN#467] Dozy says of "Hunayni" (Haini), Il semble etre le nom
d'un vetement. On which we may remark, Connu!
[FN#468] Arab. Harisah: see vol. i. 131. Westerns make a sad
mess of this dish when they describe it as une sorte d'olla
podrida (the hotch-pot), une patee de viandes, de froment et de
legumes secs (Al-Mas'udi viii. 438). Whenever I have eaten it,
it was always a meat-pudding, for which see vol. i. 131.
[FN#469] Evidently one escaped because she was sleeping with the
Caliph, and a second because she had kept her assignation.
[FN#470] Mr. Payne entitles it, "The Merchant of Cairo and the
Favourite of the Khalif el Mamoun el Hakim bi Amrillah."
[FN#471] See my Pilgrimage (i. 100): the seat would be on the
same bit of boarding where the master sits or on a stool or bench
in the street.
[FN#472] This is true Cairene chaff, give and take; and the
stranger must accustom himself to it before he can be at home
with the people.
[FN#473] i.e. In Rauzah-Island: see vol. v. 169.
[FN#474] There is no historical person who answers to these name,
"The Secure, the Ruler by Commandment of Allah." The cognomen
applies to two soldans of Egypt, of whom the later Abu al-Abbas
Ahmad the Abbaside (A.D. 1261-1301) has already been mentioned in
The Nights (vol. v. 86). The tale suggests the earlier Al-Hakim
(Abu Ali al-Mansur, the Fatimite, A.D. 995-1021), the God of the
Druze "persuasion;" and the tale-teller may have purposely
blundered in changing Mansur to Maamun for fear of offending a
sect which has been most dangerous in the matter of assassination
and which is capable of becoming so again.
[FN#475] Arab. "'Ala kulli hal" = "whatever may betide," or
"willy-nilly." The phrase is still popular.
[FN#476] The dulce desipere of young lovers, he making a buffoon
of himself to amuse her.
[FN#477] "The convent of Clay," a Coptic monastery near Cairo.
[FN#478] i.e. this is the time to show thyself a man.
[FN#479] The Eastern succedaneum for swimming corks and other
"life-preservers." The practice is very ancient; we find these
guards upon the monuments of Egypt and Babylonia.
[FN#480] Arab. "Al-Khalij," the name, still popular, of the
Grand Canal of Cairo, whose banks, by-the-by, are quaint and
picturesque as anything of the kind in Holland.
[FN#481] We say more laconically "A friend in need."
[FN#482] Arab. "Nazir al-Mawaris," the employe charged with the
disposal of legacies and seizing escheats to the Crown when
Moslems die intestate. He is usually a prodigious rascal as in
the text. The office was long kept up in Southern Europe, and
Camoens was sent to Macao as "Provedor dos defuntos e ausentes."
[FN#483] Sir R. F. Burton has since found two more of "Galland's"
tales in an Arabic text of The Nights, 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 "Tuti Nama," which Nakhshabi
modernised, made from a Sanskrit story-book, now lost, but its
modern representative is the "Suka Saptati," 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
"Bakhtyar Nama," 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 Pretre, un
Prevot, 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 Sivadasa, and another comprised in the
"Katharnava."
[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
"Vedala 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 Hindi
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] Melusine: Revue de Mythologie, Littarature Populaire,
Traditions, et Usages. Dirigee 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 Philosophiae," 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 leaves 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 "Bahar-i-Danish" 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 trouvre, entitled
"Des Trois Dames qui trouverent un Anel," which is found in
Meon'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 "Katha Sarit
Sagara," ch. xxxv. and [xxiv.; "Indian Antiquary," Sept. 1885,
Legend of Ahla; Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales," pp. 75, 76,
and Steel and Temple's "Wide-Awake Stories from the Panjab and
Kashmir," 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-mali the child of his former master, who
accordingly became the Chola king." (Wilson's Desc. Catal. of
Mackenzie MSS., i. 17.) In a Manipuri 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 Panjab
and Kashmir," 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 dhobi, or
washerman, is of much lower caste than a Brahman or a Khshatriya.
[FN#517] A responsible position in a raja's palace.
[FN#518] "And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and
three nights." Raja Amba 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 Abu Sabir (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. Abu Sabir, 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 to.
[FN#568] Give.
[FN#569] Excepting, unless.
[FN#570] Face, countenance.
[FN#571] Care, close examination.
[FN#572] Pallata, Lat. (Paletot, O. Fr. ), sometimes signifying a
particular stuff, and sometimes a particular dress. See Du
Cange.
[FN#573] Cut; divided
[FN#574] Wept.
[FN#575] Sailing.
[FN#576] More.
[FN#577] Much.
[FN#578] Sultan.
[FN#579] Name.
[FN#580] Voice, i.e., command.
[FN#581] Slew.
[FN#582] Labour.
[FN#583] Drew.
[FN#584] Went.
[FN#585] Burning coal.
[FN#586] Pray; beg.
[FN#587] Recovered.
[FN#588] Head.
[FN#589] Weeping.
[FN#590] Saw.
[FN#591] Waving.
[FN#592] Began to climb.
[FN#593] Against.
[FN#594] More.
[FN#595] From an early volume of the "Asiatic Journal," the
number of which I did not "make a note of--thus, for once at
least, disregarding the advice of the immortal Captain Cuttle.
[FN#596] "It was no wonder," says this writer, "that his (i.e.
Galland's) version of the 'Arabian Nights' achieved a universal
popularity, and was translated into many languages, and that it
provoked a crowd of imitations, from 'Les Mille et Un Jours' to
the 'Tales of the Genii.'"
[FN#597] This is a version of The Sleeper and the Waker--with a
vengeance! Abu Hasan the Wag, the Tinker, and the Rustic, and
others thus practiced upon by frolic-loving princes and dukes,
had each, at least, a most delightful "dream." But when a man is
similarly handled by the "wife of his bosom"--in stories, only,
of course--the case is very different as the poor chief of police
experienced. Such a "dream" as his wife induced upon him we may
be sure he would remember "until that day that he did creep into
his sepulchre!"
[FN#598] I call this "strikingly similar" to the preceding
Persian story, although it has fewer incidents and the lady's
husband remains a monk, she could not have got him back even had
she wished; for, having taken the vows, he was debarred from
returning to "the world " which a kalandar or dervish may do as
often as he pleases.
[FN#599] "The Woman's trick against her Husband."
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