The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10
by
Richard F. Burton

Part 10 out of 10



began. It brewed a storm of wrath and the author was fortunate to
escape with only imprisonment.

[FN#317] According to Socrates the verdict was followed by a free
fight of the Bishop-voters over the word "consubstantiality."

[FN#318] Servetus burnt (in A.D. 1553 for publishing his Arian
tractate) by Calvin, whom half-educated Roman Catholics in
England firmly believe to have been a pederast. This arose I
suppose, from his meddling with Rabelais who, in return for the
good joke Rabie læsus, presented a better anagram, "Jan (a pimp
or cuckold) Cul" (Calvinus).

[FN#319] There is no more immoral work than the "Old Testament."
Its deity is an ancient Hebrew of the worst type, who condones,
permits or commands every sin in the Decalogue to a Jewish
patriarch, quâ patriarch. He orders Abraham to murder his son and
allows Jacob to swindle his brother; Moses to slaughter an
Egyptian and the Jews to plunder and spoil a whole people, after
inflicting upon them a series of plagues which would be the
height of atrocity if the tale were true. The nations of Canaan
are then extirpated. Ehud, for treacherously disembowelling King
Eglon, is made judge over Israel. Jael is blessed above women
(Joshua v. 24) for vilely murdering a sleeping guest; the horrid
deeds of Judith and Esther are made examples to mankind; and
David, after an adultery and a homicide which deserved
ignominious death, is suffered to massacre a host of his enemies,
cutting some in two with saws and axes and putting others into
brick-kilns. For obscenity and impurity we have the tales of Onan
and Tamar, Lot and his daughters, Amnon and his fair sister (2
Sam. xiii.), Absalom and his father's concubines, the "wife of
whoredoms" of Hosea and, capping all, the Song of Solomon. For
the horrors forbidden to the Jews who, therefore, must have
practiced them, see Levit. viii. 24, xi. 5, xvii. 7, xviii. 7, 9,
10, 12, 15, 17, 21, 23, and xx. 3. For mere filth what can be
fouler than 1st Kings xviii. 27; Tobias ii. 11; Esther xiv. 2,
Eccl. xxii. 2; Isaiah xxxvi. 12, Jeremiah iv. 5, and (Ezekiel iv.
12-15), where the Lord changes human ordure into "Cow-chips!" Ce
qui excuse Dieu, said Henri Beyle, c'est qu'il n'existe pas,--I
add, as man has made him.

[FN#320] It was the same in England before the "Reformation," and
in France where, during our days, a returned priesthood collected
in a few years "Peter-pence" to the tune of five hundred millions
of francs. And these men wonder at being turned out!

[FN#321] Deutsch on the Talmud: Quarterly Review, 1867.

[FN#322] Evidently. Its cosmogony is a myth read literally: its
history is, for the most part, a highly immoral distortion, and
its ethics are those of the Talmudic Hebrews. It has done good
work in its time; but now it shows only decay and decrepitude in
the place of vigour and progress. It is dying hard, but it is
dying of the slow poison of science.

[FN#323] These Hebrew Stoics would justly charge the Founder of
Christianity with preaching a more popular and practical
doctrine, but a degradation from their own far higher and more
ideal standard.

[FN#324] Dr. Theodore Christlieb ("Modern Doubt and Christian
Belief," Edinburgh: Clark 1874) can even now write:--"So then the
'full age' to which humanity is at present supposed to have
attained, consists in man's doing good purely for goodness sake!
Who sees not the hollowness of this bombastic talk. That man has
yet to be born whose practice will be regulated by this insipid
theory (dieser grauen theorie). What is the idea of goodness per
se? * * * The abstract idea of goodness is not an effectual
motive for well-doing" (p. 104). My only comment is c'est
ignolile! His Reverence acts the part of Satan in Holy Writ,
"Does Job serve God for naught?" Compare this selfish,
irreligious, and immoral view with Philo Judæus (On the Allegory
of the Sacred Laws, cap. 1viii.), to measure the extent of the
fall from Pharisaism to Christianity. And the latter is still
infected with the "bribe-and-threat doctrine:" I once immensely
scandalised a Consular Chaplain by quoting the noble belief of
the ancients, and it was some days before he could recover mental
equanimity. The degradation is now inbred.

[FN#325] Of the doctrine of the Fall the heretic Marcion wrote:
"The Deity must either be deficient in goodness if he willed, in
prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not
prevent it."

[FN#326] In his charming book, "India Revisited."

[FN#327] This is the answer to those who contend with much truth
that the moderns are by no means superior to the ancients of
Europe: they look at the results of only 3000 years instead of
30,000 or 300,000.

[FN#328] As a maxim the saying is attributed to the Duc de Lévis,
but it is much older.

[FN#329] There are a few, but only a few, frightful exceptions to
this rule, especially in the case of Khálid bin Walíd, the Sword
of Allah, and his ferocious friend, Darár ibn al-Azwar. But their
cruel excesses were loudly blamed by the Moslems, and Caliph Omar
only obeyed the popular voice in superseding the fierce and
furious Khalid by the mild and merciful Abú Obaydah.

[FN#330] This too when St. Paul sends the Christian slave
Onesimus back to his unbelieving (?) master, Philemon; which in
Al-Islam would have created a scandal.

[FN#331] This too when the Founder of Christianity talks of
"Eating and drinking at his table!" (Luke xxn. 29.) My notes have
often touched upon this inveterate prejudice the result, like the
soul-less woman of Al-Islam, of ad captandum, pious fraud. "No
soul knoweth what joy of the eyes is reserved for the good in
recompense for their works" (Koran xxxn. 17) is surely as
"spiritual" as St. Paul (I Cor. ii., 9). Some lies, however are
very long-lived, especially those begotten by self interest.

[FN#332] I have elsewhere noted its strict conservatism which,
however, it shares with all Eastern faiths in the East. But
progress, not quietism, is the principle which governs humanity
and it is favoured by events of most different nature. In Egypt
the rule of Mohammed Ali the Great and in Syria the Massacre of
Damascus (1860) have greatly modified the constitution of Al-
Islam throughout the nearer East.

[FN#333] Chapt. viii. "Narrative of a Year's Journey through
Central and Eastern Arabia;" London, Macmillan, 1865.

[FN#334] The Soc. Jesu has, I believe, a traditional conviction
that converts of Israelitic blood bring only misfortune to the
Order.

[FN#335] I especially allude to an able but most superficial
book, the "Ten Great Religions" by James F. Clarke (Boston,
Osgood, 1876), which caricatures and exaggerates the false
portraiture of Mr. Palgrave. The writer's admission that,
"Something is always gained by learning what the believers in a
system have to say in its behalf," clearly shows us the man we
have to deal with and the "depths of his self-consciousness."

[FN#336] But how could the Arabist write such hideous grammar as
"La Il h illa All h" for "Lá iláha (accus.) ill' Allah"?

[FN#337] p. 996 "Muhammad" in vol. iii. Dictionary of Christian
Biography. See also the Illustration of the Mohammedan Creed,
etc., from Al-Ghazáli introduced (pp. 72-77) into Bell and Sons'
"History of the Saracens" by Simon Ockley, B.D. (London, 1878). I
regret some Orientalist did not correct the proofs: everybody
will not detect "Al-Lauh al-Mahfúz" (the Guarded Tablet) in
"Allauh ho'hnehphoud" (p. 171); and this but a pinch out of a
camel-load.

[FN#338] The word should have been Arianism. This "heresy" of the
early Christians was much aided by the "Discipline of the
Secret," supposed to be of apostolic origin, which concealed from
neophytes, catechumens and penitents all the higher mysteries,
like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Metastoicheiosis
(transubstantiation), the Real Presence, the Eucharist and the
Seven Sacraments; when Arnobius could ask, Quid Deo cum vino est?
and when Justin, fearing the charge of Polytheism, could
expressly declare the inferior nature of the Son to the Father.
Hence the creed was appropriately called Symbol i.e., Sign of the
Secret. This "mental reservation" lasted till the Edict of
Toleration, issued by Constantine in the fourth century, held
Christianity secure when divulging her "mysteries"; and it
allowed Arianism to become the popular creed.

[FN#339] The Gnostics played rather a fantastic rôle in
Christianity with their Demiurge, their Æonogony, their Æons by
syzygies or couples, their Maio and Sabscho and their beatified
bride of Jesus, Sophia Achamoth, and some of them descended to
absolute absurdities, e.g., the Tascodrugitæ and the
Pattalorhinchitæ who during prayers placed their fingers upon
their noses or in their mouths, &c., reading Psalm cxli. 3.

[FN#340] "Kitáb al-'Unwán fí Makáid al-Niswán" = The Book of the
Beginnings on the Wiles of Womankind (Lane i. 38).

[FN#341] This person was one of the Amsál or Exampla of the
Arabs. For her first thirty years she whored; during the next
three decades she pimped for friend and foe, and, during the last
third of her life, when bed-ridden by age and infirmities, she
had a buckgoat and a nanny tied up in her room and solaced
herself by contemplating their amorous conflicts.

[FN#342] And modern Moslem feeling upon the subject has
apparently undergone a change. Ashraf Khan, the Afghan poet,
sings,

Since I, the parted one, have come the secrets of the world to
ken,
Women in hosts therein I find, but few (and very few) of men.

And the Osmanli proverb is, "Of ten men nine are women!"

[FN#343] His Persian paper "On the Vindication of the Liberties
of the Asiatic Women" was translated and printed in the Asiatic
Annual Register for 1801 (pp. 100-107); it is quoted by Dr. Jon.
Scott (Introd. vol. i. p. xxxiv. et seq.) and by a host of
writers. He also wrote a book of Travels translated by Prof.
Charles Stewart in 1810 and re-issued (3 vols. 8vo.) in 1814.

[FN#344] The beginning of which I date from the Hijrah, lit.= the
separation, popularly "The Flight." Stating the case broadly, it
has become the practice of modern writers to look upon Mohammed
as an honest enthusiast at Meccah and an unscrupulous despot at
Al- Medinah, a view which appears to me eminently unsound and
unfair. In a private station the Meccan Prophet was famed as a
good citizen, teste his title Al-Amín =The Trusty. But when
driven from his home by the pagan faction, he became de facto as
de jure a king: nay, a royal pontiff; and the preacher was merged
in the Conqueror of his foes and the Commander of the Faithful.
His rule, like that of all Eastern rulers, was stained with
blood; but, assuming as true all the crimes and cruelties with
which Christians charge him and which Moslems confess, they were
mere blots upon a glorious and enthusiastic life, ending in a
most exemplary death, compared with the tissue of horrors and
havock which the Law and the Prophets attribute to Moses, to
Joshua, to Samuel and to the patriarchs and prophets by express
command of Jehovah.

[FN#345] It was not, however, incestuous: the scandal came from
its ignoring the Arab "pundonor."

[FN#346] The "opportunism" of Mohammed has been made a matter of
obloquy by many who have not reflected and discovered that
time-serving is the very essence of "Revelation." Says the Rev.
W. Smith ("Pentateuch," chaps. xiii.), "As the journey (Exodus)
proceeds, so laws originate from the accidents of the way," and
he applies this to successive decrees (Numbers xxvi. 32-36;
xxvii. 8-11 and xxxvi. 1-9), holding it indirect internal
evidence of Mosaic authorship (?). Another tone, however, is used
in the case of Al-Islam. "And now, that he might not stand in awe
of his wives any longer, down comes a revelation," says Ockley in
his bluff and homely style, which admits such phrases as, "the
imposter has the impudence to say." But why, in common honesty,
refuse to the Koran the concessions freely made to the Torah? It
is a mere petitio principii to argue that the latter is
"inspired" while the former is not, moreover, although we may be
called upon to believe things beyond Reason, it is hardly fair to
require our belief in things contrary to Reason.

[FN#347] This is noticed in my wife's volume on The Inner Life of
Syria, chaps. xii. vol. i. 155.

[FN#348] Mirza preceding the name means Mister and following it
Prince. Addison's "Vision of Mirza" (Spectator, No. 159) is
therefore "The Vision of Mister."

[FN#349] And women. The course of instruction lasts from a few
days to a year and the period of puberty is fêted by magical
rites and often by some form of mutilation. It is described by
Waitz, Réclus and Schoolcraft, Páchue-Loecksa, Collins, Dawson,
Thomas, Brough Smyth, Reverends Bulmer and Taplin, Carlo
Wilhelmi, Wood, A. W. Howitt, C. Z. Muhas (Mem. de la Soc.
Anthrop. Allemande, 1882, p. 265) and by Professor Mantegazza
(chaps. i.) for whom see infra.

[FN#350] Similarly certain Australian tribes act scenes of rape
and pederasty saying to the young, If you do this you will be
killed.

[FN#351] "Báh," is the popular term for the amatory appetite:
hence such works are called Kutub al-Báh, lit. = Books of Lust.

[FN#352] I can make nothing of this title nor can those whom I
have consulted: my only explanation is that they may be fanciful
names proper.

[FN#353] Amongst the Greeks we find erotic specialists (1)
Aristides of the Libri Milesii; (2) Astyanassa, the follower of
Helen who wrote on androgvnisation; (3) Cyrene, the artist of
amatory Tabellæ or ex-votos offered to Priapus; (4) Elephantis,
the poetess who wrote on Varia concubitus genera; (5) Evemerus,
whose Sacra Historia, preserved in a fragment of Q. Eunius, was
collected by Hieronymus Columnar (6) Hemitheon of the Sybaritic
books, (7) Musæus, the Iyrist; (8) Niko, the Samian girl; (9)
Philænis, the poetess of Amatory Pleasures, in Athen. viii. 13,
attributed to Polycrates the Sophist; (10) Protagorides, Amatory
Conversations; (11) Sotades, the Mantinæan who, says Suidas,
wrote the poem "Cinædica"; (12) Sphodrias the Cynic, his Art of
Love; and (13) Trepsicles, Amatory Pleasures. Amongst the Romans
we have Aedituus, Annianus (in Ausonius), Anser, Bassus Eubius,
Helvius Cinna, Lævius (of Io and the Erotopægnion), Memmius,
Cicero (to Cerellia), Pliny the Younger, Sabellus (de modo
coeundi); Sisenna, the pathic Poet and translator of Milesian
Fables and Sulpitia, the modest erotist. For these see the
Dictionnaire Érotique of Blondeau pp. ix. and x. (Paris, Liseux,
1885).

[FN#354] It has been translated from the Sanskrit and annotated
by A.F.F. and B.F.R. Reprint Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxv.: for the Kama
Shastra Society, London and Benares, and for private circulation
only. The first print has been exhausted and a reprint will
presently appear.

[FN#355] The local press has often proposed to abate this
nuisance of erotic publication which is most debasing to public
morals already perverted enough. But the "Empire of Opinion"
cares very little for such matters and, in the matter of the
"native press," generally seems to seek only a quiet life. In
England if erotic literature were not forbidden by law, few would
care to sell or to buy it, and only the legal pains and penalties
keep up the phenomenally high prices.

[FN#356] The Spectator (No. 119) complains of an "infamous piece
of good breeding," because "men of the town, and particularly
those who have been polished in France, make use of the most
coarse and uncivilised words in our language and utter themselves
often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear."

[FN#357] See the Novelle of Bandello the Bishop (Tome 1, Paris,
Liseux, 1879, small in 18) where the dying fisherman replies to
his confessor, "Oh! Oh! your reverence, to amuse myself with boys
was natural to me as for a man to eat and drink; yet you asked me
if I sinned against nature!" Amongst the wiser ancients sinning
contra naturam was not marrying and begetting children.

[FN#358] Avis au Lecteur "L'Amour dans l'Humanité," par P.
Mantegazza, traduit par Emilien Chesneau, Paris, Fetscherin et
Chuit, 1886.

[FN#359] See "H. B." (Henry Beyle, French Consul at Civita
Vecchia) par un des Quarante H. B." (Prosper Mérimee),
Elutheropolis, An mdccclxiv. De l'Imposture du Nazaréen.

[FN#360] This detail especially excited the veteran's curiosity.
The reason proved to be that the scrotum of the unmutilated boy
could be used as a kind of bridle for directing the movements of
the animal. I find nothing of the kind mentioned in the Sotadical
literature of Greece and Rome; although the same cause might be
expected everywhere to the same effect. But in Mirabeau
(Kadhésch) a grand seigneur moderne, when his valet-de-chambre de
confiance proposes to provide him with women instead of boys,
exclaims, "Des femmes! eh! c'est comme si tu me servais un gigot
sans manche." See also infra for "Le poids du tisserand."

[FN#361] See Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, London, John
Van Voorst, 1852.

[FN#362] Submitted to Government on Dec. 3', '47, and March 2,
'48, they were printed in "Selections from the Records of the
Government of India." Bombay. New Series. No. xvii. Part 2, 1855.
These are (1) Notes on the Population of Sind, etc., and (2)
Brief Notes on the Modes of Intoxication, etc., written in
collaboration with my late friend Assistant-Surgeon John E.
Stocks, whose early death was a sore loss to scientific botany.

[FN#363] Glycon the Courtesan in Athen. xiii. 84 declares that
"boys are handsome only when they resemble women," and so the
Learned Lady in The Nights (vol. v. 160) declares "Boys are
likened to girls because folks say, Yonder boy is like a girl."
For the superior physical beauty of the human male compared with
the female, see The Nights, vol. iv. 15; and the boy's voice
before it breaks excels that of any diva.

[FN#364] "Mascula," from the priapiscus, the over-development of
clitoris (the veretrum muliebre, in Arabic Abu Tartúr, habens
cristam), which enabled her to play the man. Sappho (nat. B.C.
612) has been retoillée like Mary Stuart, La Brinvilliers, Marie
Antoinette and a host of feminine names which have a savour not
of sanctity. Maximus of Tyre (Dissert. xxiv.) declares that the
Eros of Sappho was Socratic and that Gyrinna and Atthis were as
Alcibiades and Chermides to Socrates: Ovid who could consult
documents now lost, takes the same view in the Letter of Sappho
to Phaon and in Tristia ii. 265.

Lesbia quid docuit Sappho nisi amare puellas?

Suidas supports Ovid. Longinus eulogises the (a
term applied only to carnal love) of the far-famed Ode to
Atthis:--

Ille mî par esse Deo videtur * * *
(Heureux! qui près de toi pour toi seule soupire * * *
Blest as th' immortal gods is he, etc.)

By its love symptoms, suggesting that possession is the sole cure
for passion, Erasistratus discovered the love of Antiochus for
Stratonice. Mure (Hist. of Greek Literature, 1850) speaks of the
Ode to Aphrodite (Frag. 1) as "one in which the whole volume of
Greek literature offers the most powerful concentration into one
brilliant focus of the modes in which amatory concupiscence can
display itself." But Bernhardy, Bode, Richter, K. O. Müller and
esp. Welcker have made Sappho a model of purity, much like some
of our dull wits who have converted Shakespeare, that most
debauched genius, into a good British bourgeois.

[FN#365] The Arabic Sabhákah, the Tractatrix or Subigitatrix who
has been noticed in vol. iv. 134. Hence to Lesbianise ( )
and tribassare ( ); the former applied to the love of
woman for woman and the latter to its mecanique: this is either
natural, as friction of the labia and insertion of the clitoris
when unusually developed, or artificial by means of the fascinum,
the artificial penis (the Persian "Mayájang"); the patte de chat,
the banana-fruit and a multitude of other succedanea. As this
feminine perversion is only glanced at in The Nights I need
hardly enlarge upon the subject.

[FN#366] Plato (Symp.) is probably mystical when he accounts for
such passions by there being in the beginning three species of
humanity, men, women and men-women or androgynes. When the latter
were destroyed by Zeus for rebellion, the two others were
individually divided into equal parts. Hence each division seeks
its other half in the same sex, the primitive man prefers men and
the primitive woman women. C'est beau, but--is it true? The idea
was probably derived from Egypt which supplied the Hebrews with
androgynic humanity, and thence it passed to extreme India, where
Shiva as Ardhanárí was male on one side and female on the other
side of the body, combining paternal and maternal qualities and
functions. The first creation of humans (Gen. i. 27) was
hermaphrodite (=Hermes and Venus), masculum et fœminam creavit
eos--male and female created He them--on the sixth day, with the
command to increase and multiply (ibid. v. 28), while Eve the
woman was created subsequently. Meanwhile, say certain
Talmudists, Adam carnally copulated with all races of animals.
See L'Anandryne in Mirabeau's Erotika Biblion, where Antoinette
Bourgnon laments the undoubling which disfigured the work of God,
producing monsters incapable of independent self-reproduction
like the vegetable kingdom.

[FN#367] De la Femme, Paris, 1827.

[FN#368] Die Lustseuche des Alterthum's, Halle, 1839.

[FN#369] See his exhaustive article on (Grecian) "Paederastie" in
the Allgemeine Encyclopædie of Ersch and Gruber, Leipzig,
Brockhaus, 1837. He carefully traces it through the several
states, Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, the Attic cities and those of
Asia Minor. For these details I must refer my readers to M.
Meier; a full account of these would fill a volume not the
section of an essay.

[FN#370] Against which see Henri Estienne, Apologie pour
Hérodote, a society satire of xvith century, lately reprinted by
Liseux.

[FN#371] In Sparta the lover was called or x
and the beloved as in Thessaly or x.

[FN#372] The more I study religions the more I am convinced that
man never worshipped anything but himself. Zeus, who became
Jupiter, was an ancient king, according to the Cretans, who were
entitled liars because they showed his burial-place. From a
deified ancestor he would become a local god, like the Hebrew
Jehovah as opposed to Chemosh of Moab; the name would gain
amplitude by long time and distant travel, and the old island
chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who
possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some
fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a
symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be
raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply
signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it
rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastía of the
Gods see Bayle under Chrysippe.

[FN#373] See Dissertation sur les idées morales des Grecs et sur
les dangers de lire Platon. Par M. Audé, Bibliophile, Rouen,
Lemonnyer, 1879. This is the pseudonym of the late Octave
Delepierre, who published with Gay, but not the Editio
Princeps--which, if I remember rightly, contains much more
matter.

[FN#374] The phrase of J. Matthias Gesner, Comm. Reg. Soc.
Gottingen i. 1-32. It was founded upon Erasmus' "Sancte Socrate,
ore pro nobis," and the article was translated by M. Alcide
Bonmaire, Paris, Liseux, 1877.

[FN#375] The subject has employed many a pen, e.g.,Alcibiade
Fanciullo a Scola, D. P. A. (supposed to be Pietro Aretino--ad
captandum?), Oranges, par Juann Wart, 1652: small square 8vo of
pp. 102, including 3 preliminary pp. and at end an unpaged leaf
with 4 sonnets, almost Venetian, by V. M. There is a
re-impression of the same date, a small 12mo of longer format,
pp. 124 with pp. 2 for sonnets: in 1862 the Imprimerie Racon
printed 102 copies in 8vo of pp. iv.-108, and in 1863 it was
condemned by the police as a liber spurcissimus atque execrandus
de criminis sodomici laude et arte. This work produced "Alcibiade
Enfant à l'école," traduit pour la première fois de l'Italien de
Ferrante Pallavicini, Amsterdam, chez l'Ancien Pierre Marteau,
mdccclxvi. Pallavicini (nat. 1618), who wrote against Rome, was
beheaded, aet. 26 (March 5, 1644), at Avignon in 1644 by the
vengeance of the Barberini: he was a bel esprit déréglé, nourri
d'études antiques and a Memb. of the Acad. Degl' Incogniti. His
peculiarities are shown by his "Opere Scelte," 2 vols. 12mo,
Villafranca, mdclxiii.; these do not include Alcibiade Fanciullo,
a dialogue between Philotimus and Alcibiades which seems to be a
mere skit at the Jesuits and their Péché philosophique. Then came
the "Dissertation sur l'Alcibiade fanciullo a scola," traduit de
l'Italien de Giambattista Baseggio et accompagnée de notes et
d'une post-face par un bibliophile francais (M. Gustave Brunet,
Librarian of Bordeaux), Paris. J. Gay, 1861--an octavo of pp. 78
(paged), 254 copies. The. same Baseggio printed in 1850 his
Disquisizioni (23 copies) and claims for F. Pallavicini the
authorship of Alcibiades which the Manuel du Libraire wrongly
attributes to M. Girol. Adda in 1859. I have heard of but not
seen the "Amator fornaceus, amator ineptus" (Palladii, 1633)
supposed by some to be the origin of Alcibiade Fanciullo; but
most critics consider it a poor and insipid production.

[FN#376] The word is from numbness, torpor, narcotism: the
flowers, being loved by the infernal gods, were offered to the
Furies. Narcissus and Hippolytus are often assumed as types of
morose voluptas, masturbation and clitorisation for nymphomania:
certain mediæval writers found in the former a type of the
Saviour, and 'Mirabeau a representation of the androgynous or
first Adam: to me Narcissus suggests the Hindu Vishnu absorbed in
the contemplation of his own perfections.

[FN#377] The verse of Ovid is parallel'd by the song of Al-Záhir
al-Jazari (Ibn Khall. iii. 720).

Illum impuberem amaverunt mares; puberem feminæ.
Gloria Deo! nunquam amatoribus carebit.

[FN#378] The venerable society of prostitutes contained three
chief classes. The first and lowest were the Dicteriads, so
called from Diete (Crete), who imitated Pasiphaë, wife of Minos,
in preferring a bull to a husband; above them was the middle
class, the Aleutridæ, who were the Almahs or professional
musicians, and the aristocracy was represented by the Hetairai,
whose wit and learning enabled them to adorn more than one page
of Grecian history. The grave Solon, who had studied in Egypt,
established a vast Dicterion (Philemon in his Delphica), or
bordel whose proceeds swelled the revenue of the Republic.

[FN#379] This and Saint Paul (Romans i. 27) suggested to
Caravaggio his picture of St. Rosario (in the museum of the Grand
Duke of Tuscany), showing a circle of thirty men turpiter ligati.

[FN#380] Properly speaking, "Medicus" is the third or ring
finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses,

Est pollex Veneris; sed Jupiter indice gaudet,
Saturnus medium; Sol medicumque tenet.

[FN#381] So Seneca uses digito scalpit caput. The modern Italian
does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and
medius to suggest the clitoris.

[FN#382] What can be wittier than the now trite Tale of the
Ephesian Matron, whose dry humour is worthy of The Nights? No
wonder that it has made the grand tour of the world. It is found
in the neo-Phædrus, the tales of Musæus and in the Septem
Sapientes as the "Widow which was comforted." As the "Fabliau de
la Femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son Mari," it tempted
Brantôme and La Fontaine; and Abel Rémusat shows in his Contes
Chinois that it is well known to the Middle Kingdom. Mr. Walter
K. Kelly remarks, that the most singular place for such a tale is
the "Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor, who
introduces it into his chapt. v.--"Of the Contingencies of Death
and Treating our Dead." But in those days divines were not
mealy-mouthed.

[FN#383] Glossarium eroticum linguæ Latinæ, sive theogoniæ, legum
et morum nuptialium apud Romanos explanatio nova, auctore P. P.
(Parisiis, Dondey-Dupré, 1826, in 8vo). P. P. is supposed to be
Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues, an engineer who made a plan of
Bordeaux and who annotated the Erotica Biblion. Gay writes, "On
s'est servi pour cet ouvrage des travaux inédits de M. Ie Baron
de Schonen, etc. Quant au Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues qu'on
désignait comme l'auteur de ce savant volume, son existence n'est
pas bien avérée, et quelques bibliographes persistent à penser
que ce nom cache la collaboration du Baron de Schonen et d'Eloi
Johanneau." Other glossicists as Blondeau and Forberg have been
printed by Liseux, Paris.

[FN#384] This magnificent country, which the petty jealousies of
Europe condemn, like the glorious regions about Constantinople,
to mere barbarism, is tenanted by three Moslem races. The
Berbers, who call themselves Tamazight (plur. of Amazigh), are
the Gætulian indigenes speaking an Africo-Semitic tongue (see
Essai de Grammaire Kabyle, etc., par A. Hanoteau, Paris, Benjamin
Duprat). The Arabs, descended from the conquerors in our eighth
century, are mostly nomads and camel-breeders. Third and last are
the Moors proper, the race dwelling in towns, a mixed breed
originally Arabian but modified by six centuries of Spanish
residence and showing by thickness of feature and a
parchment-coloured skin, resembling the American Octaroon's, a
negro innervation of old date. The latter are well described in
"Morocco and the Moors," etc. (Sampson Low and Co., 1876), by my
late friend Dr. Arthur Leared, whose work I should like to see
reprinted.

[FN#385] Thus somewhat agreeing with one of the multitudinous
modern theories that the Pentapolis was destroyed by discharges
of meteoric stones during a tremendous thunderstorm. Possible,
but where are the stones?

[FN#386] To this Iranian domination I attribute the use of many
Persic words which are not yet obsolete in Egypt. "Bakhshísh,"
for instance, is not intelligible in the Moslem regions west of
the Nile-Valley, and for a present the Moors say Hadíyah, regalo
or favor.

[FN#387] Arnobius and Tertullian, with the arrogance of their
caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often
concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to
taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored
"Consuistis in precibus 'Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,' dicere!" These
men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man's
brains and armed him with a despotism of omnipotence which
rendered their creation truly dreadful.

[FN#388] Gallus lit. = a cock, in pornologic parlance is a capon,
a castrato.

[FN#389] The texts justifying or enjoining castration are Matt.
xviii. 8-9; Mark ix. 43-47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St.
Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his
wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained
from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself
after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly
excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D.
250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and
dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the
spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first
appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two
Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former
was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna
and is called by the chronicles Nawjè or the Corpse. But in the
early part of the last century (1715-1733) a sect arose in the
circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or
flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this
extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift für Ethn. Berlin,
1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.

[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious
"Dead Sea" in the Purchas v. 84.

[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying
men instead of teaching them better. But, "Nous faisons les Dieux
à notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur
la terre." The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the
Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at
Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.

[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarát al-Ashará, a
clump of trees near the village Al-Ghájar (of the Gypsies?) at
the foot of Hermon.

[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the
planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Müller and
Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn
and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic
Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have
proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the
west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the
Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.

[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of
Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metáwali heretics,
a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry
of "Bilád B'sharrah," which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah,
still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the
Sayyidat al-Kabírah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them
of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they
suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt--the Lady's tree--an
Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only
here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of
Kasrawán, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a
peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the
far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the
Kadashah of the Phœnicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary "Handbooks," but amply deserves the study
of the anthropologist.

[FN#395] Some commentators understand "the tabernacles sacred to
the reproductive powers of women;" and the Rabbis declare that
the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.

[FN#396] Dog" is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and
the Catamite, and thus they understand the "price of a dog" which
could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have
noticed it in one of the derivations of cinædus and can only
remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.

[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some,
"King's mother": she founded the sect of Communists who rejected
marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their
splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians
followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the
Turlupins, long infested Savoy.

[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous
development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.

[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2-11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught
the "Art of le Thalaba" to his son Pan who wandered about the
mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed
it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.

[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the "he"
in Arabic poetry denotes a "she"; but the Arab, when
uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is
a Badawi.

[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the
masculine.

[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptæ, youths or
girls who wiped the gymnast's perspiring body with swan-down, a
practice renewed by the professors of "Massage"; Unctores who
applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or
shampooers; Dropacistæ, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the
hair, etc., etc., etc.

[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect.
2, No. 1602):

The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of
jewelry;
The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar's worth his lord,
Ali.

[FN#404] For "Sindí" Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99)
has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjábi peasant, and others vary the saying
ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.

[FN#405] See "Sind Revisited" i. 133-35.

[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs,
the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in
the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however
refused to undergo the operation.

[FN#407] Relation des découvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p.
137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci's letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and
Paro's Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains.

[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the Thèse de
Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, "Frictiones per coitum
productæ magnum mucosæ membranæ vaginalis turgorem, ac simul
hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quæritatam
afferunt."

[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins
of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in
phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.

[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as
"counterfeit hair for women's privy parts. See Bailey's Dict."
The Bailey of 1764, an "improved edition," does not contain the
word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.

[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes
to Mr. Albert Tootle's excellent translation of "The Captivity of
Hans Stade of Hesse:" London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.

[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes
200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct.
1873.

[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America,
by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.

[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were
probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraíbes) of the Brazil: they
will be noticed in page 211.

[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries,
a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.

[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.

[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.

[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.

[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.

[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Série de la Curiosité
Littéraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.

[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der
Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen
zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.

[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius
Arbiter, the "Larissa" story of Théophile Viand. His cousin, the
Sévigné, highly approved of it. See Bayle's objections to
Rabutin's delicacy and excuses for Petronius' grossness in his
"Éclaircissement sur les obscénités" (Appendice au Dictionnaire
Antique).

[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle
for Boulgre, an "indorser," derived from the Bulgarus or
Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo--liar. Bougre and
Bougrerie date (Littré) from the xiiith century. I cannot,
however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the
xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians
were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and
several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fête
in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de
Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three
hundred men (including fifty "Bugres" or Tupis) with parroquets
and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The
procession is given in the four-folding woodcut "Figure des
Brésiliens" in Jean de Prest's Edition of 1551.

[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadésch (pp. 93 et seq.),
Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues
of Bordeaux, before noticed.

[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw
in the mouth, à la Palmerston.

[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly
paid and have given the reason.

[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to,
p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.

[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the
following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide
diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so
many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have
been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Cæsar and
Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law
which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with
the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii.,
Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland
and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i.,
xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the
Composer), D'Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Condé,
Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Vallière, De
Soleinne, Count D'Avaray, Saint Mégrin, D'Epernon, Admiral de la
Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the
Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievée,
Théodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambacèrés, Marquis de
Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D'Orsay. For others refer to the
three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded
to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices
will supply the names.

[FN#429] 0f this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii.
43), "There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their
character. Abú al-Atahíyah wrote pious poems himself being an
atheist; Abú Hukayma's verses proved his impotence, yet he was
more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Házim praised
contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abú Nowás hymned
the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a
baboon."

[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet
injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour
an author's unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a
popular Review books which have been printed and not published is
hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of
literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper "The
Reviewer Reviewed" which will, amongst other things, explain the
motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the
Edinburgh.

[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of
Gladwin's "Dissertations on Rhetoric," etd., Calcutta, 1801.

[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife,
| to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for
worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to
love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it
becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose
style. In that delightful old French the Saj'a frequently
appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books:
e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.

[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration
(Ibn Khall. ii., 316).

[FN#434] He called himself "Nabiyun ummí" = illiterate prophet;
but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable
to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists,
were "Aatíní dawáta wa kalam" (bring me ink-case and pen); upon
which the Shi'ah or Persian sectaries base, not without
probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the
name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the
intention, exclaimed, "The Prophet is delirious; have we not the
Koran?" thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that
may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even
when not "under inspiration." The vulgar idea would arise from a
pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.

[FN#435] I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was
taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical
who, "by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil,
discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the
antediluvian fathers." Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius
(lib. ii ) relates how this Græco-Egyptian philosopher, passing
by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute
according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by
experiment that such was the case when different weights were
hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two
strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double
the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an
eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar
length and size, the one having four times the tension of the
other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are
Galileo's discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan
Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook
which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.

[FN#436] To what an absurd point this has been carried we may
learn from Ibn Khallikán (i. 114). A poet addressing a single
individual does not say "My friend!" or "My friends!" but "My two
friends!" (in the dual) because a Badawi required a pair of
companions, one to tend the sheep and the other to pasture the
camels.

[FN#437] For further details concerning the Sabab, Watad and
Fasilah, see at the end of this Essay the learned remarks of Dr.
Steingass.


[FN#438] e.g., the Mu'allakats of "Amriolkais," Tarafah and
Zuhayr compared by Mr. Lyall (Introduction to Translations) with
the metre of Abt Vogler, e.g.,

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told

[FN#439] e.g., the Poem of Hareth which often echoes the
hexameter

[FN#440] Gladwin, p. 80.

[FN#441] Gladwin (p. 77) gives only eight, omitting F ' l which
he or his author probably considers the Muzáhaf, imperfect or
apocopêd form of F ' l n, as M f ' l of M f ' l n. For the
infinite complications of Arabic prosody the Khafíf (soft
breathing) and Sahíh (hard breathing); the Sadr and Arúz (first
and last feet), the Ibtidá and Zarb (last foot of every line);
the Hashw (cushion-stuffing) or body part of verse, the 'Amúd
al-Kasídah or Al-Musammat (the strong) and other details I must
refer readers to such specialists as Freytag and Sam. Clarke
(Prosodia Arabica), and to Dr. Steingass's notes infra.

[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied
their Arab cousins by turning Fa'la into Pael and so forth.

[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose "Ancient Arabic Poetry" (Williams and
Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, '85, did the
absolute reverse of what is required: he preserved the metre and
sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself. For
instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier
than to write,

Ah sweet and soft wi' thee her ways: bethink thee well! The day
shall be
When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain
and free;
And if she swear that parting ne'er shall break her word of
constancy,
When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e'er
agree?

[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgär Dialekts von
Ægyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880. In pp.
489-493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawáwíl varying in length
from four to fifteen lines. The assonance mostly attempts
monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not
disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.

[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan. Our knowledge of
oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katáb al-Aghání
(Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfaháni who flourished A.H.
284-356 (= 897- 967): it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.

[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.

[FN#447] His Diwán has been published with a French translation,
par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.

[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imám Abu al-Hasan
al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob. A.D. 868; Ibn Makúla (murdered
in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob. A.D. 933)
Al-Zahr the Poet (ob. A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob. A.D.
989), Kábús ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012-13); Ibn
Nabatah the Poet (ob. A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa'ati (ob. A.D. 1028);
Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name
for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu'tasim ibn Sumadih (ob. A.D.
1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob. A.D. 1117); Ibn
Sara al-Shantaráni (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D.
1123; Ibn al-Kházin (ob. A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob. A D. 1172)
Ibn al-Ta'wizi (ob. A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabádah (ob. A.D. 1198), Bahá
al-Dín Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob. A.D.
1266) and sundry others. Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of
Ibn al-Sumám (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sáhib al-Ishbíli, of Seville
(vol. i. 100), are deficient. The most notable point in Arabic
verse is its savage satire, the language of excited
"destructiveness" which characterises the Badawi: he is "keen for
satire as a thirsty man for water:" and half his poetry seems to
consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal
abuse.

[FN#449] If the letter preceding Wáw or Yá is moved by Fathah,
they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in
"bout'" and se, pronounced as i in "bite."

[FN#450] For the explanation of this name and those of the
following terms, see Terminal Essay, p. 225.

[FN#451] This Fásilah is more accurately called sughrá, the
smaller one, there is another Fásilah kubrà, the greater,
consisting of four moved letters followed by a quiescent, or of a
Sabab sakíl followed by a Watad majmú'. But it occurs only as a
variation of a normal foot, not as an integral element in its
composition, and consequently no mention of it was needed in the
text.

[FN#452] It is important to keep in mind that the seemingly
identical feet 10 and 6, 7 and 3, are distinguished by the
relative positions of the constituting elements in either pair.
For as it will be seen that Sabab and Watad are subject to
different kinds of alterations it is evident that the effect of
such alterations upon a foot will vary, if Sabab and Watad occupy
different places with regard to each other.

[FN#453] i.e. vertical to the circumference.

[FN#454] This would be a Fásilah kubrá spoken of in the note p.
239.

[FN#455] In pause that is at the end of a line, a short vowel
counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies
of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for
the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged
pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or
long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the
pronoun of the first person aná, I, is generally read short,
although it is written with Alif.

[FN#456] On p. 236 the word akámú, as read by itself, was
identified with the foot Fa'úlun. Here it must be read together
with the following syllable as "akámulwaj," which is Mafá'ílun.

[FN#457] Prof. Palmer, p. 328 of his Grammar, identifies this
form of the Wáfir, when every Mufá' alatum of the Hashw has
become Mafá'ílun, with the second form of the Rajaz It should be
Hazaj. Professor Palmer was misled, it seems, by an evident
misprint in one of his authorities, the Muhít al-Dáirah by Dr.
Van Dayk, p. 52.

[FN#458] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac 134b "The Merchant's Wife
and the Parrot."

[FN#459] This will be found translated in my "Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. vii. p. 307, as an Appendix
to the Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac version of the story, from
which it differs in detail.

[FN#460] Called "Bekhit" in Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac
Editions.

[FN#461] Yehya ben Khalid (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac),

[FN#462] "Shar" (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac).

[FN#463] "Jelyaad" (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac.)

[FN#464] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, No. 63. See my "Book of
the Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. iv., p. 211.

[FN#465] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, "Jaafar the Barmecide."

[FN#466] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, "The Thief turned
Merchant and the other Thief," No. 88.

[FN#467] This story will be found translated in my "Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. v., p. 345.

[FN#468] After this I introduce the Tale of the Husband and the
Parrot.

[FN#469] The Bulak Edition omits this story altogether.

[FN#470] After this I introduce How Abu Hasan brake wind.

[FN#471] Probably Wakksh al-Falák=Feral of the Wild.

[FN#472] This is the date of the Paris edition. There was an
earlier edition published at La Haye in 1743.

[FN#473] There are two other Oriental romances by Voltaire; viz.,
Babouc, and the Princess of Babylon.




 


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