The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VII Part 21

[FN#174] There are two of this name. The Upper al-Akik contains the whole site of Al-Medinah; the Lower is on the Meccan road about four miles S.W. of the city. The Prophet called it "blessed" because ordered by an angel to pray therein. The poets have said pretty things about it, e.g.

O friend, this is the vale Akik; here stand and strive in thought: If not a very lover, strive to be by love distraught!

for whose esoteric meaning see Pilgrimage ii. 24. I pa.s.sed through Al-Akik in July when it was dry as summer dust and its "beautiful trees" were mere vegetable mummies.

[FN#175] Those who live in the wet climates of the Northern temperates can hardly understand the delight of a shower in rainless lands, like Arabia and Nubia. In Sind we used to strip and stand in the downfall and raise faces sky-wards to get the full benefit of the douche. In Southern Persia food is hastily cooked at such times, wine strained, Kaliuns made ready and horses saddled for a ride to the nearest gardens and a happy drinking-bout under the cypresses. If a man refused, his friends would say of him, " See how he turns his back upon the blessing of Allah!" (like an a.s.s which presents its tail to the weather).

[FN#176] i.e. the destruction of the Barmecides.

[FN#177] He was Wazir to the Great "Saladin" (Salah al-Din = one conforming with the Faith):, ) See vol. iv. 271, where Saladin is also ent.i.tled Al-Malik c al-Nasir = the Conquering King. He was a Kurd and therefore fond of boys (like Virgil, Horace, etc.), but that perversion did not prey prevent his being one of the n.o.blest of men. He lies in the Great Amawi Mosque of Damascus and I never visited a tomb with more reverence.

[FN#178] Arab. "Aha.s.sa bi'l-Shurbah :" in our idiom "he smelt a rat".

[FN#179] This and the next tale are omitted by Lane (iii. 254) on "account of its vulgarity, rendered more objectionable by indecent incidents." It has been honoured with a lithographed reprint at Cairo A.H. 1278 and the Bresl. Edit. ix. 193 calls it the "Tale of Ahmad al-Danaf with Dalilah."

[FN#180] "Ahmad, the Distressing Sickness," or "Calamity;"

Hasan the Pestilent and Dalilah the bawd. See vol. ii. 329, and vol. iv. 75.

[FN#181] A f?tus, a foundling, a contemptible fellow.

[FN#182] In the Mac. Edit. "her husband": the end of the tale shows the error, infra, p. 171. The Bresl. Edit., x. 195, informs us that Dalilah was a "Faylasufiyah"=philosopheress.

[FN#183] Arab. "Ibrik" usually a ewer, a spout-pot, from the Pers. Ab-riz=water-pourer: the old woman thus vaunted her ceremonial purity. The basin and ewer are called in poetry "the two rumourers," because they rattle when borne about.

[FN#184] Khatun in Turk. is=a lady, a dame of high degree; at times as here and elsewhere, it becomes a P. N.

[FN#185] Arab. "Maut," a word mostly avoided in the Koran and by the Founder of Christianity.

[FN#186] Arab. "Akakir," drugs, spices, simples which cannot be distinguished without study and practice. Hence the proverb (Burckhardt, 703), Is this an art of drugs?--difficult as the druggist's craft?

[FN#187] i.e. Beautiful as the fairy damsels who guard enchanted treasures, such as that of Al-Shamardal (vol. vi.

221).

[FN#188] i.e. by contact with a person in a state of ceremonial impurity; servants are not particular upon this point and "Salat mamlukiyah" (Mameluke's prayers) means praying without ablution.

[FN#189] i.e. Father of a.s.saults, burdens or pregnancies; the last being here the meaning.

[FN#190] Ex votos and so forth.

[FN#191] Arab. "Iksah," plaits, braids, also the little gold coins and other ornaments worn in the hair, now mostly by the middle and lower cla.s.ses. Low Europeans sometimes take advantage of the native prost.i.tutes by detaching these valuables, a form of "bilking" peculiar to the Nile-Valley.

[FN#192] In Bresl. Edit. Malih Kawi (p.r.o.n. 'Awi), a Cairene vulgarism.

[FN#193] Meaning without veil or upper clothing.

[FN#194] Arab. "Kallakas" the edible African arum before explained. This Colocasia is supposed to bear, unlike the palm, male and female flowers in one spathe.

[FN#195] See vol. iii. 302. The figs refer to the a.n.u.s and the pomegranates, like the sycomore, to the female parts. Me nec faemina nec puer, &c., says Horace in pensive mood.

[FN#196] It is in accordance to custom that the Shaykh be attended by a half-witted fanatic who would be made furious by seeing gold and silks in the reverend presence so coyly curtained.

[FN#197] In English, "G.o.d d.a.m.n everything an inch high!"

[FN#198] Burckhardt notes that the Wali, or chief police officer at Cairo, was exclusively termed Al-Agha and quotes the proverb (No. 156) "One night the wh.o.r.e repented and cried:--What! no Wali (Al-Agha) to lay wh.o.r.es by the heels?"

Some of these Egyptian by-words are most amusing and characteristic; but they require literal translation, not the timid touch of the last generation. I am preparing, for the use of my friend, Bernard Quaritch, a bona fide version which awaits only the promised volume of Herr Landberg.

[FN#199] Lit. for "we leave them for the present": the formula is much used in this tale, showing another hand, author or copyist.

[FN#200] Arab. "Uzrah."

[FN#201] i.e. "Thou art unjust and violent enough to wrong even the Caliph!"

[FN#202] I may note that a "donkey-boy" like our "post-boy"

can be of any age in Egypt.

[FN#203] They could legally demand to be recouped but the chief would have found some pretext to put off payment. Such at least is the legal process of these days.

[FN#204] i.e. drunk with the excess of his beauty.

[FN#205] A delicate way of offering a fee. When officers commanding regiments in India contracted for clothing the men, they found these douceurs under their dinner-napkins. All that is now changed; but I doubt the change being an improvement: the public is plundered by a "Board" instead of an individual.

[FN#206] This may mean, I should know her even were my eyes blue (or blind) with cataract and the Bresl. Edit. ix. 231, reads "Ayni"=my eye; or it may be, I should know her by her staring, glittering, hungry eyes, as opposed to the "Hawar"

soft-black and languis.h.i.+ng (Arab. Prov. i. 115, and ii. 848).

The Prophet said "blue-eyed (women) are of good omen." And when one man reproached another saying "Thou art Azrak"

(blue-eyed!) he retorted, "So is the falcon!" "Zurk-an" in Kor. xx. 102, is translated by Mr. Rodwell "leaden eyes." It ought to be blue-eyed, dim-sighted, purblind.

[FN#207] Arab, "Zalabiyah bi-'Asal."

[FN#208] Arab. "Ka'ah," their mess-room, barracks.

[FN#209] i.e. Camel shoulder-blade.

[FN#210] So in the Brazil you are invited to drink a copa d'agua and find a splendid banquet. There is a smack of Chinese ceremony in this practice which lingers throughout southern Europe; but the less advanced society is, the more it is fettered by ceremony and "etiquette."

[FN#211] The Bresl. edit. (ix. 239) prefers these lines:--

Some of us be hawks and some sparrow-hawks, *

And vultures some which at carrion pike; And maidens deem all alike we be *

But, save in our turbands, we're not alike.

[FN#212] Arab. Shar a=holy law; here it especially applies to Al-Kisas=lex talionis, which would order her eye-tooth to be torn out.

[FN#213] i.e., of the Afghans. Sulaymani is the Egypt and Hijazi term for an Afghan and the proverb says "Sulaymani harami"--the Afghan is a villainous man. See Pilgrimage i. 59, which gives them a better character. The Bresl. Edit. simply says, "King Sulayman."

[FN#214] This is a sequel to the Story of Dalilah and both are highly relished by Arabs. The Bresl. Edit. ix. 245, runs both into one.

[FN#215] Arab. "Misr" (Masr), the Capital, says Savary, applied alternately to Memphis, Fostat and Grand Cairo each of which had a Jizah (p.r.o.n. Gizah), skirt, angle, outlying suburb.

[FN#216] For the curious street-cries of old Cairo see Lane (M. E. chapt. xiv.) and my Pilgrimage (i. 120): here the rhymes are of Zabib (raisins), habib (lover) and labib (man of sense).