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

[FN#338] Arab. "Musamirah"=chatting at night. Easterns are inordinately fond of the practice and the wild Arabs often sit up till dawn, talking over the affairs of the tribe, indeed a Shaykh is expected to do so. "Early to bed and early to rise" is a civilised, not a savage or a barbarous saying. Samir is a companion in night talk; Rafik of the road; Rahib in riding horse or camel, Ka'id in sitting, Sharib and Rafis at drink, and Nadim at table: Ahid is an ally. and Sharik a partner all on the model of "Fa'il."

[FN#339] In both lover and beloved the excess of love gave them this clairvoyance.

[FN#340] The prayer will be granted for the excess (not the purity) of her love.

[FN#341] This wailing over the Past is one of the common-places of Badawi poetry. The traveller cannot fail, I repeat, to notice the chronic melancholy of peoples dwelling under the brightest skies.

[FN#342] Moons=Budur

[FN#343] in Paradise as a martyr.

[FN#344] i.e. to intercede for me in Heaven; as if the young woman were the prophet.

[FN#345] The comparison is admirable as the two letters are written. It occurs in Al-Hariri (a.s.s. of Ramlah).

"So I embraced him close as Lam cleaves to Alif:"

And again;

"She laid aside reluctance and I embraced her close As if I were Lam and my love Alif."

The Lomad Olaph in Syriac is similarly colligated.

[FN#346] Here is a double entendre "and the infirm letters (viz.

a, w and y) not subject to accidence, left him." The three make up the root "Awi"=pitying, condoling.

[FN#347] Showing that consummation had taken place. It was a sign of good breeding to avoid all "indecent hurry" when going to bed.

In some Moslem countries the bridegroom does not consummate the marriage for seven nights; out of respect for (1) father (2) mother (3) brother and so forth. If he hurry matters he will be hooted as an "impatient man" and the wise will quote, "Man is created of precipitation" (Koran chaps. xxi. 38), meaning hasty and inconsiderate. I remark with pleasure that the whole of this tale is told with commendable delicacy. O si sic omnia!

[FN#348] Pers. "Nauroz"(=nau roz, new day):here used in the Arab.

plur.'Nawariz, as it lasted six days. There are only four: universal-festivals; the solstices and the equinoxes; and every successive religion takes them from the sun and perverts them to its own private purposes. Lane (ii. 496) derives the venerable Nauroz whose birth is hid in the outer glooms of antiquity from the "Jewish Pa.s.sover"(!)

[FN#349] Again the "babes" of the eyes.

[FN#350] i.e. whose glance is as the light of the glowing braise or (embers). The Arab. "Mikbas"=pan or pot full of small charcoal, is an article well known in Italy and Southern Europe. The word is apparently used here because it rhymes with "Anfas" (souls, spirits).

[FN#351] i.e. martyrdom; a Koranic term "fi sabili 'llahi" = on the way of Allah

[FN#352] These rhymes in -y, -ee and -ie are purposely affected, to imitate the cadence of the Arabic.

[FN#353] Arab. "Sujud," the ceremonial-prostration, touching the ground with the forehead So in the Old Testament "he bowed (or fell down) and wors.h.i.+pped" (Gen. xxiv., 26 Mat. ii., 11), of which our translation gives a wrong idea.

[FN#354] A girl is called "Alfiyyah " = A-shaped.

[FN#355] i.e. the medial-form of m.

[FN#356] i.e. the inverted n.

[FN#357] It may also mean a "Sevigne of pearls."

[FN#358] Koran xxvii. 12. This was one of the nine "signs" to wicked "Pharaoh." The "hand of Moses" is a symbol of power and ability (Koran vii. 105). The whiteness was supernatural-beauty, not leprosy of the Jews (Exod. iv. 6); but brilliancy, after being born red or black: according to some commentators, Moses was a negro.

[FN#359] Koran iii. 103; the other faces become black. This explains I have noticed the use of the phrases in blessing and cursing.

[FN#360] Here we have the naked legend of the negro's origin, one of those nursery tales in which the ignorant of Christendom still believe But the deduction from the fable and the testimony to the negro's lack of intelligence, though unpleasant to our ignorant negrophils, are factual-and satisfactory.

[FN#361] Koran, xcii. 1, 2: an oath of Allah to reward and punish with Heaven and h.e.l.l.

[FN#362] Alluding to the "black drop" in the heart: it was taken from Mohammed's by the Archangel Gabriel. The fable seems to have arisen from the verse ' Have we not opened thy breast?" (Koran, chaps. xciv. 1). The popular tale is that Halimah, the Badawi nurse of Mohammed, of the Banu Sa'ad tribe, once saw her son, also a child, running towards her and asked him what was the matter. He answered, 'My little brother was seized by two men in white who stretched him on the ground and opened his bellyl" For a full account and deductions see the Rev. Mr. Badger's article, "Muhammed" (p. 959) in vol. in. "Dictionary of Christian Biography."

[FN#363] Arab. "Sumr," lit. brown (as it is afterwards used), but politely applied to a negro: "Ya Abu Sumrah!" O father of brownness.

[FN#364] Arab. 'Luma"=dark hue of the inner lips admired by the Arabs and to us suggesting most umpleasant ideas. Mr. Chenery renders it "dark red,' and "ruddy" altogether missing the idea.

[FN#365] Arab. "Sauda," feminine of aswad (black), and meaning black bile (melancholia) as opposed to leucocholia,

[FN#366] i.e. the Magians, Sabians, Zoroastrians.

[FN#367] The "Unguinum fulgor" of the Latins who did not forget to celebrate the s.h.i.+ning of the nails although they did not Henna them like Easterns. Some, however, have suggested that alludes to colouring matter.

[FN#368] Women with white skins are supposed to be heating and unwholesome: hence the Hindu Rajahs slept with dark girls in the hot season.

[FN#369] Moslems sensibly have a cold as well as a hot h.e.l.l, the former called Zamharir (lit. "intense cold")or AI-Barahut, after a well in Hazramaut; as Gehenna (Arab. "Jahannam") from the furnace-like ravine East of Jerusalem (Night cccxxv.). The icy h.e.l.l is necessary in terrorem for peoples who inhabit cold regions and who in a hot h.e.l.l only look forward to an eternity of "coals and candles" gratis. The sensible missionaries preached it in Iceland till foolishly forbidden by Papal-Bull.

[FN#370] Koran ii. 26; speaking of Abraham when he entertained the angels unawares.

[FN#371] Arab. "Rakb," usually applied to a fast-going caravan of dromedary riders (Pilgrimage ii. 329). The "Cafilah" is Arab.: "Caravan" is a corruption of the Pers. "Karwan."

[FN#372] A popular saying. It is interesting to contrast this dispute between fat and thin with the Shakespearean humour of Falstaff and Prince Henry.

[FN#373] Arab. "Dalak" vulg. Hajar al-Hammam (Hammam-stone). The comparison is very apt: the rasps are of baked clay artificially roughened (see ill.u.s.trations in Lane M. E. chaps. xvi.). The rope is called "Masad," a bristling line of palm-fibre like the coir now familiarly known in England.

[FN#374] Although the Arab's ideal-of beauty, as has been seen and said, corresponds with ours the Egyptians (Modern) the Maroccans and other negrofied races like "walking tun-b.u.t.ts" as Clapperton called his amorous widow.

[FN#375] Arab. "Khayzar" or "Khayzaran" the rattan-palm. Those who have seen this most graceful "palmijuncus" in its native forest will recognize the neatness of the simile.

[FN#376] This is the popular idea of a bushy "veil of nature" in women: it is always removed by depilatories and vellication. When Bilkis Queen of Sheba discovered her legs by lifting her robe (Koran xxvii.), Solomon was minded to marry her, but would not do so till the devils had by a depilatory removed the hair. The popular preparation (called Nurah) consists of quicklime 7 parts, and Zirnik or orpiment, 3 parts: it is applied in the Hammam to a perspiring skin, and it must be washed off immediately the hair is loosened or it burns and discolours. The rest of the body-pile (Sha'arat opp. to Sha'ar=hair) is eradicated by applying a mixture of boiled honey with turpentine or other gum, and rolling it with the hand till the hair comes off. Men I have said remove the p.u.b.es by shaving, and pluck the hair of the arm-pits, one of the vestiges of pre-Adamite man. A good depilatory is still a desideratum, the best perfumers of London and Paris have none which they can recommend. The reason is plain: the hair bulb can be eradicated only by destroying the skin.

[FN#377] Koran, ii. 64: referring to the heifer which the Jews were ordered to sacrifice,

[FN#378] Arab. "kalla," a Koranic term possibly from Kull (all) and la (not) =prorsus non-altogether not!

[FN#379] "Habab" or "Haba," the fine particles of dust, which we call motes. The Cossid (Arab. "Kasid") is the Anglo-Indian term for a running courier (mostly under Government), the Persian "Shatir"

and the Guebre Ravand.

[FN#380] Arab. "Sambari" a very long thin lance so called after Samhar, the maker, or the place of making. See vol. ii. p. 1. It is supposed to cast, when planted in the ground, a longer shadow in proportion to its height, than any other thing of the kind.

[FN#381] Arab. "Sulafah ;" properly prisane which flows from the grapes before pressure. The plur. "Sawalif" also means tresses of hair and past events: thus there is a "triple entendre." And again "he" is used for "she."