The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume V Part 35

[FN#102] As has been said, "Sahib" (preceding the name not following it as in India) is a Wazirial t.i.tle in mediaeval Islam.

[FN#103] This parapet was rendered obligatory by Moses (Deut.

xxii. 8) on account of the danger of leaving a flat roof without garde-fou. Eastern Christians neglect the precaution and often lose their children by the neglect.

[FN#104] Arab. "Lauh." A bit of thin board washed white used for lessons as slates are amongst us, and as easily cleaned because the inks contain no minerals. It is a long parallelogram with triangular ears at the short sides; and the shape must date from ages immemorial as it is found, throughout Syria and its adjoinings, in the oldest rock inscriptions to which the form serves as a frame. Hence the "abacus" or counting table derived from the Gr. , a slab (or in Phenician "sand"), dust or sand in old days having been strewed on a table or tablet for school- boys' writings and mathematical diagrams.

[FN#105] A pre-Islamic bard and friend to Tarafah the poet of the Suspended or "Prize Poem." The tale is familiar to all the Moslem East. Tarafah's Laura was one Khaula.

[FN#106] King of Hirah in Chaldaea, a drunken and bloodthirsty tyrant. When offended by the lampoons of the two poets he sent them with litterae Bellerophontiae to the Governor of Al-Bahrayn.

Al-Mutalammis "smelt a rat" and destroyed his charged, but Tarafah was mutilated and buried alive, the victim of a trick which is old as (and older than) good King David and Uriah. Of course neither poet could read.

[FN#107] On this occasion, and in presence of the women only, the groom first sees or is supposed to see the face of his wife.

It is, I have said, the fas.h.i.+on for both to be greatly overcome and to appear as if about to faint: the groom looks especially ridiculous when so att.i.tudinising.

[FN#108] This leisurely operation of the "deed of kind" was sure to be noticed; but we do not find in The Nights any allusion to that systematic prolongatio veneris which is so much cultivated by Moslems under the name Imsak = retention, withholding i.e. the s.e.m.e.n. Yet Eastern books on domestic medicine consist mostly of two parts; the first of general prescriptions and the second of aphrodisiacs especially those qui prolongent le plaisir as did the Gaul by thinking of sa pauvre mere. The Ananga-Ranga, by the Reverend Koka Pandit before quoted, gives a host of recipes which are used, either externally or internally, to hasten the paroxysm of the woman and delay the o.r.g.a.s.m of the man (p. 27). Some of these are curious in the extreme. I heard of a Hindi who made a candle of frogs' fat and fibre warranted to retain the seed till it burned out; it failed notably because, relying upon it, he worked too vigorously. The essence of the "retaining art" is to avoid over-tension of the muscles and to pre-occupy the brain: hence in coition Hindus will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut and even smoke. Europeans ignoring the science and practice, are contemptuously compared with village-c.o.c.ks by Hindu women who cannot be satisfied, such is their natural coldness, increased doubtless by vegetable diet and unuse of stimulants, with less than twenty minutes. Hence too while thousands of Europeans have cohabited for years with and have had families by "native women," they are never loved by them:--at least I never heard of a case.

[FN#109] Abu 'l Abbas al-Rakas.h.i.+, a poet of the time. The saying became proverbial (Burckhardt's A. Proverbs No. 561) and there are variants, e.g. The night's promise is spread with b.u.t.ter that melteth when day ariseth.

[FN#110] Koran xxvi. 5,6 or "And those who err (Arab. Al- ghawun) follow the footsteps of the poets," etc.

[FN#111] Half-brother of Abdullah bin al-Zubayr, the celebrated pretender.

[FN#112] Grand-daughter of the Caliph Abu Bakr and the most beautiful woman of her day.

[FN#113] The Calc. Edit. by mistake reads "Izzah." Torrens (notes i.-xi.) remarks "The word Ghoonj is applied to this sort of blandishment (i.e. an affected gait), and says Burckhardt (Prov. No. 685), "The women of Cairo flatter themselves that their Ghoonj is superior to that of all other females in the Levant." But Torrens did not understand and Burckhardt would not explain "Ghunj" except by "a.s.sumed airs" (see No. 714). It here means the art of moving in coition, which is especially affected, even by modest women, throughout the East and they have many books teaching the genial art. In China there are professors, mostly old women, who instruct young girls in this branch of the gymnastic.

[FN#114] When reciting the Fatihah (opening Koranic chapter), the hands are held in this position as if to receive a blessing falling from Heaven; after which both palms are pa.s.sed down the face to distribute it over the eyes and other organs of sense.

[FN#115] The word used is "biza'at" = capital or a share in a mercantile business.

[FN#116] This and the following names are those of noted traditionists of the eighth century, who derive back to Abdallah bin Mas'ud, a "Companion of the Apostle." The text shows the recognised formula of ascription for quoting a "Hadis" = saying of Mohammed; and sometimes it has to pa.s.s through half a dozen mouths.

[FN#117] Traditionists of the seventh and eighth centuries who refer back to the "Father of the Kitten" (Abu Horayrah), an uncle of the Apostle.

[FN#118] Eastern story-books abound in these instances. Pilpay says in "Kalilah was Dimnah," "I am the slave of what I have spoken and the lord of what I keep hidden." Sa'adi follows suit, "When thou speakest not a word, thou hast thy hand upon it; when it is once spoken it hath laid its hand on thee." Caxton, in the "Dyctes, or Sayings of Philosophers" (printed in 1477) uses almost the same words.

[FN#119] i.e. for her husband's and her sin in using a man like a beast.

[FN#120] See the Second Lady's story (tantot Kadi, tantot bandit), pp. 20-26 by my friend Yacoub Artin Pasha in the Bulletin before quoted, series ii. No. 4 of 1883. The sharpers'

trick is common in Eastern folk-lore, and the idea that underlies is always metempsychosis or metamorphosis. So, in the Kalilah wa Dimnah (new Syriac), the three rogues persuade the ascetic that he is leading a dog not a sheep.

[FN#121] This is the popular prejudice and it has doubtless saved many a reputation. The bat is known to Moslems as the Bird of Jesus, a legend derived by the Koran from the Gospel of Infancy (1 chapt. xv. Hone's Apocryphal New Testament), in which the boy Jesus amuses herself with making birds of clay and commanding them to fly when (according to the Moslems) they became bats. These Apocryphal Gospels must be carefully read, if the student would understand a number of Moslem allusions to the Injil which no Evangel contains.

[FN#122] Because it quibbled away out of every question, a truly diplomatic art.

[FN#123] This Caliph, the orthodox Abbaside of Egypt (A.D.

1261) must not be confounded with the Druze-G.o.d, the heretical Fatimite (A.D. 996-1021). D'Herbelot (Hakem") gives details.

Mr. S.L. Poole (The Academy, April 26, '79) is very severe on the slip of Mr. Payne.

[FN#124] The beautiful name is Persian "a.n.u.s.h.i.+n-rawan" = Sweet of Soul; and the glorious t.i.tle of this contemporary of Mohammed is "Al-Malik al-Adil" = the Just King. Kisra, the Chosroe per excellentiam, is also applied to the G.o.dly Guebre of whom every Eastern dictionary gives details.

[FN#125] "Sultan" is here an anachronism: I have noted that the t.i.tle was first a.s.sumed independently by Mohammed of Ghazni after it had been conferred by the Caliph upon his father the Amir Al- Umara (Mayor of the Palace), Sabuktagin A.D. 974.

[FN#126] The "Sakka" or water-carrier race is peculiar in Egypt and famed for trickery and intrigue. Opportunity here as elsewhere makes the thief.

[FN#127] A famous saying of Mohammed is recorded when an indiscretion of his young wife Ayishah was reported to him, "There be no adultress without an adulterer (of a husband)."

Fatimah the Apostle's daughter is supposed to have remained a virgin after bearing many children: this coa.r.s.e symbolism of purity was known to the cla.s.sics (Pausanias), who made Juno recover her virginity by bathing in a certain river every year.

In the last phrase, "Al-Salaf" (ancestry) refers to Mohammed and his family.

[FN#128] Khusrau Parwiz, grandson of a.n.u.s.h.i.+rwan, the Guebre King who tore his kingdom by tearing Mohammed's letter married the beautiful Maria or Irene (in Persian "s.h.i.+rin = the sweet) daughter of the Greek Emperor Maurice: their loves were sung by a host of poets; and likewise the pa.s.sion of the sculptor Farhad for the same s.h.i.+rin. Mr. Lyall writes "Parwez" and holds "Parwiz" a modern form.

[FN#129] he could afford it according to historians. His throne was supported by 40,000 silver pillars; and 1,000 globes, hung in the dome, formed an orrery, showing the motion of the heavenly bodies; 30,000 pieces of embroidered tapestry overhung the walls below were vaults full of silver, gold and gems.

[FN#130] Arab. "Khunsa," meaning also a catamite as I have explained. Lane (ii. 586) has it; "This fish is of a mixed kind." (!).

[FN#131] So the model lovers became the ordinary married couple.

[FN#132] Arab. "Jamm." Heb. "Yamm." Al-Hariri (a.s.s. Of Sinjar and Sawah) uses the rare form Yam for sea or ocean.

[FN#133] Al-Hadi, immediate predecessor of Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d, called "Al-Atbik": his upper lip was contracted and his father placed a slave over him when in childhood, with orders to say, "Musa! atbik!" (draw thy lips together) when he opened his mouth.

[FN#134] Immediate successor of Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d. Al-Amin is an imposing physical figure, fair, tall, handsome and of immense strength; according to Al-Mas'udi, he killed a lion with his own hands; but his mind and judgement were weak. He was fond of fis.h.i.+ng; and his reply to the courtier bringing important news, "Confound thee! leave me! for Kausar (an eunuch whom he loved) hath caught two fish and I none," reminds one of royal frivolity in France.

[FN#135] Afterwards governor in Khorasan under Al-Maamun.

[FN#136] Intendant of the palace under Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d.

[FN#137] Moslem women have this advantage over their Western sisterhood: they can always leave the house of father or husband and, without asking permission, pay a week or ten days' visit to their friends. But they are not expected to meet their lovers.

[FN#138] The tale of "Susannah and the Elders" in Moslem form.

Daniyal is the Arab Daniel, supposed to have been buried at Alexandria. (Pilgrimage, i. 16.)

[FN#139] According to Moslem law, laid down by Mohammed on a delicate occasion and evidently for a purpose, four credible witnesses are required to prove fornication, adultery, sodomy and so forth; and they must swear that actually saw rem in re, the "Kohl-needle in the Kohl-etui," as the Arabs have it. This practically prevents conviction and the sabre cuts the Gordian knot.

[FN#140] Who, in such case, would represent our equerry.

[FN#141] The Badawi not only always tells the truth, a perfect contrast with the townsfolk; he is blunt in speech addressing his Sultan "O Sa'id!" and he has a hard rough humour which we may fairly describe as "wut." When you chaff him look out for falls.

[FN#142] The answer is as old as the hills, teste the tale of what happened when Amasis (who on horseback) raised his leg, "broke wind and bad the messenger carry it back to Apries."

Herod. Ii. 162. But for the full significance of the Badawi's most insulting reply see the Tale of Abu Hasan in Night ccccxi.

[FN#143] Arab. "Ya saki" al-Dakan" meaning long bearded (foolish) as well as frosty bearded.

[FN#144] P. N. of the tribe, often mentioned in The Nights.

[FN#145] Adnan, which whom Arab genealogy begins, is generally supposed to be the eighth (Al-Tabari says the fortieth) descendant from Ishmael and nine generations are placed between him and Fahr (Fihr) Kuraysh. The Prophet cut all disputes short by saying, "Beyond Adnan none save Allah wotteth and the genealogists lie." (Pilgrimage ii. 344) M.C. de Perceval dates Adnan about B.C. 130.

[FN#146] Koran x.x.xiii., 38.