The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume V Part 38

[FN#234] The secondary meaning is "Fa'il" = the active sodomite and "Mafa'ul" = the pa.s.sive, a catamite: the former is not an insulting word, the latter is a most injurious expression.

"Novimus et qui te!"

[FN#235] It is an unpleasant fact that almost all the poetry of Hafiz is addressed to youths, as we see by the occasional introduction of Arabic (e.g., Afaka'llah). Persian has no genders properly so called, hence the effect is less striking. Sa'di, the "Persian Moralist" begins one of the tales, "A certain learned man fell in love with a beautiful son of a blacksmith," which Gladwin, translating for the general, necessarily changed to "daughter."

[FN#236] The famous author of the Anthology called Al-Hamasah.

[FN#237] i.e., teeth under the young mustachio.

[FN#238] The "Silk man" and the celebrated author of the Makamat, a.s.semblies or seances translated (or attempted) into all the languages of Europe. We have two in English, the first by Theodore Preston, M.A. (London, Madden, 1850); but it contains only twenty of the fifty pieces. The second by the late Mr.

Chenery (before alluded to) ends with the twenty-sixth a.s.sembly: one volume in fact, the other never having been finished. English readers, therefore, are driven to the grand edition of the Makamat in folio by Baron Silvestre de Sacy.

[FN#239] The sword of the eye has a Hamail (baldrick worn over right shoulder, Pilgrimage i. 352) to support the "Ghimd" (vulg.

Ghamad) or scabbard (of wood or leather): and this baldrick is the young whisker.

[FN#240] The conceit of "Sulafat" (ptisane, grape juice allowed to drain on the slabs) and "Sawalif" (tresses, locks) has been explained. The newest wine is the most inebriating, a fact not much known in England, but familiar to the drinker of "Vino novo."

[FN#241] Koran xii. 51, this said by the n.o.bleman's (Potiphar's) wife who adds, "I selected him to lie with me; and he (Joseph) is one of those who speak truth."

[FN#242] Here we have a specimen of the strained Saj'a or balanced prose: slave-girls (jawari) are ma.s.sed with flowing tears (dam'u jari) on account of the Kafiyah or rhyme.

[FN#243] The detected sodomite is punished with death according to Moslem law, but again comes the difficulty of proof. At s.h.i.+raz I have heard of a pious Moslem publicly executing his son.

[FN#244] Koran xxvi. 165 et seq. The Lord speaks to the "people of Lot" (Sodomites). Mr. Payne renders "Min al-alamima," "from the four corners of the world."

[FN#245] Meaning before and behind, a Moslemah "Bet Balmanno."

[FN#246] Arab. " Luti," (plur. Lawati), much used in Persian as a buffoon, a debauchee, a rascal. The orig. sig. is "One of (the people of) Lot." The old English was Ingle or Yngle (a bardachio, a catamite, a boy kept for sodomy), which Minsheu says is, "Vox hispanica et significat Latine Inguen" (the groin). Our vulgar modern word like the Italian bugiardo is pop. derived from Fr.

Bougre, alias Bulgarus, a Bulgarian, a heretic: hence Boulgrin (Rabelais i. chaps. ii.) is popularly applied to the Albigeois (Albigenses, whose persecution began shortly after A.D. 1200) and the Lutherans. I cannot but think that "bougre" took its especial modern signification after the French became acquainted with the Brazil, where the Huguenots (in A.D. 1555) were founding a Nouvelle France, alias Equinoctiale, alias Antarctique, and whence the savages were carried as curiosities to Paris. Their generic name was "Bugre" (properly a tribe in Southern Brazil, but applied to all the redskins) and they were all born Sodomites. More of this in the terminal Essay.

[FN#247] His paper is the whiteness of his skin. I have quoted the Persian saying of a young beard: "his cheeks don mourning for his beauty's death."

[FN#248] Arab. "Khabal," lit. the pus which flows from the bodies of the d.a.m.ned.

[FN#249] Most characteristic of Egypt is all this scene. Her reverence, it is true, sits behind a curtain; but her virtue uses language which would shame the lowest European prost.i.tute; and which is filthy almost as Dean Swift's.

[FN#250] Arab. "Niyat:" the Moslem's idea of intentions quite runs with the Christian's. There must be a "Niyat" or purpose of prayer or the devotion is valueless. Lane tells a pleasant tale of a thief in the Mosque, saying "I purpose (before Prayer) to carry off this nice pair of new shoes!"

[FN#251] Arab. "Ya 'l-Ajuz" (in Cairo "Agooz" p.r.o.nounced "Ago-o- oz"): the address is now insulting and would elicit "The old woman in thine eye" (with fingers extended). In Egypt the polite address is "O lady (Sitt), O pilgrimess, O bride, and O daughter"

(although she be the wrong side of fifty). In Arabia you may say "O woman (Imraah)" but in Egypt the reply would be "The woman shall see Allah cut out thy heart!" So in Southern Italy you address "bella fe" (fair one) and cause a quarrel by "vecchiarella."

[FN#252] Governor of Egypt, Khorasan, etc. under Al-Maamun.

[FN#253] i.e., a companion, a solacer: it is also a man's name (vol. i. xxiv.).

[FN#254] At Baghdad; evidently written by a Baghdad or Mosul man.

[FN#255] A blind traditionist of Ba.s.sorah (ninth century).

[FN#256] Arab. "Zaghab"=the chick's down; the warts on the cuc.u.mber which sometimes develop into projections.

[FN#257] The Persian saying is, A kiss without moustachio is bread without salt.

[FN#258] "And We will prove you with evil, and with good, for a trial of you; and unto Us shall ye return." (Koran xxi. 36.) The saying is always in the Moslem's mouth.

[FN#259] Arab. "Sunnat," lit.=a law, especially applied to the habit and practice of the Apostle in religious and semi-religious matters, completing the "Hadis," or his spoken words. Anything unknown is ent.i.tled "Bida'ah"=innovation. Hence the strict Moslem is a model Conservative whose exemplar of life dates from the seventh century. This fact may be casuistically explained away; but is not less an obstacle to all progress and it will be one of the princ.i.p.al dangers threatening Al-Islam. Only fair to say that an "innovation" introduced by a perfect follower of the Prophet is held equal theoretically to a Sunnat; but vulgarly it is said, "The rabble will not take gold which is not coined."

[FN#260] Arab. "Arsh"=the ninth Heaven, the Throne of the Deity, above the Seven Heavens of the planets and the Primum Mobile which, in the Ptolemaic system, sets them all in motion.

[FN#261] This description of a good Moslem's death is at once concise, pathetic and picturesque.

[FN#262] This is the first mention of coffee; apparently introduced by the scribe: the word rendered "coffee-makers" is "Kahwajiyah"; an Arab. plur. of a Turkish termination (-ji) to an Arab. word "Kahwah" (before noticed).

[FN#263] Picnics are still made to Rauzah (Rodah) island: I have enjoyed many a one, but the ground is all private property.

[FN#264] Arab. "Hosh," plur. Hishan, the low courts surrounded by mean lodgings which in "native" Cairo still contrast so strongly with the "gingerbread" of the new buildings.

[FN#265] This is the Moslem equivalent of "thank you." He looks upon the donor as the channel through which Allah sends him what he wants and prays for more to come. Thus "May your shadow never be less" means, May you increase in prosperity so that I may gain thereby! And if a beggar is disposed to be insolent (a very common case), he will tell you his mind pretty freely on the subject, and make it evident to you that all you have is also his and that La propriete (when not shared) est le vol.

[FN#266] I have noticed in my Pilgrimage (i. 51-53) the kindly care with which the stranger is treated by Moslems, a marvellous contrast to the ways of "civilization."

[FN#267] Arab. "Dimyat," vulg. p.r.o.nounced "Dumiyat."

[FN#268] Where the door-keepers sit and receive their friends.

[FN#269] This is a traveller's 'Kit' in the East.

[FN#270] Arab. "Takht-rawan," from Persian meaning "moveable throne."

[FN#271] The use of the expression proved the speaker to be a Moslem Jinni.

[FN#272] The "haunted" house proper, known to the vulgar and to spiritualists becomes, I have said, amongst Moslems a place tenanted by Jinns.

[FN#273] Needless to say there never was a Sultan or a King of Baghdad nor a Duke of Athens. This story would seem not to have been written by the author of "the Emir bin Tahir," etc. Night ccccxxiv.

[FN#274] Plur. of alim=one learned in the law, a D.D. Mohammed did his best to abolish the priest and his craft by making each Moslem paterfamilias a pontifex in his own household and he severely condemned monkery and celibacy. But human nature was too much for him: even before his death ascetic a.s.sociations began to crop up. Presently the Olema in Al-Islam formed themselves into a kind of clergy; with the single but highly important difference that they must (or ought to) live by some honest secular calling and not by the "cure of souls"; hence Mahomet IV. of Turkey was solemnly deposed. So far and no farther Mohammed was successful and his success has secured for him the lively and lasting hatred of the ecclesiastical caste which he so honestly and wisely attempted to abate. Even to the present day missionaries have a good word for the Guebre and the Buddhist, the Brahmanist and the Confucian, but none for the Moslem: Dr. Livingstone, for one instance of many, evidently preferred the Fetichist, whom he could convert, to the Unitarian Faithful whom he could not.

[FN#275] i.e. they recited seven times (an unusual number), for greater solemnity, the opening Chapter of the Koran which does general duty on such occasions as making covenants and swearing fealty. This proclaiming a King by acclamation suggests the origin of the old and venerable Portuguese inst.i.tution.

[FN#276] By affixing his own seal and that of the King. This in later times was supplanted by the "Tughra," the imperial cypher or counter-mark (much like a writing master's flourish), with which Europe has now been made familiar through the agency of Turkish tobacco.

[FN#277] Arab. "Wird"=the twenty-five last chapters of the Koran which are repeated, one or more at a time, after the end of the "Farz," or obligatory prayers and ad libitum with the Sunnat or customary, and the Nafilah or supererogatory.

[FN#278] The sensible creed of Al-Islam freely allows anthropophagy when it saves life; a contrast to the sentimentalism of the West which brings a "charge of cannibalism"

against unfortunate expeditionists. I particularly allude to the scandalous pulings of the English Press over the gallant and unfortunate Greely voyage. (The Academy, Sept. 25, 1884.)

[FN#279] The story is mere aesopic: the "Two dogs" contains it all. One of Mohammed's sensible sayings is recorded and deserves repet.i.tion:--"Empire endureth with infidelity (idolatry, etc.), but not with tyranny."

[FN#280] This couplet occurs in Night xxi. (vol. i. 207); so I give Torrens (p.207) by way of variety.