The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VIII Part 31

[FN#223] Arab. "Bi-fardayn" = with two baskets, lit. "two singles," but the context shows what is meant. English Frail and French Fraile are from Arab. "Farsalah" a parcel (now esp. of coffee-beans) evidently derived from the low Lat. "Parcella" (Du Cange, Paris, firmin Didot 1845). Compare "ream," vol. v. 109.

[FN#224] Arab. "Satur," a kind of chopper which here would be used for the purpose of splitting and cleaning and scaling the fish.

[FN#225] And, consequently, that the prayer he is about to make will find ready acceptance.

[FN#226] Arab. "Ruh bila Fuzul" (lit. excess, exceeding) still a popular phrase.

[FN#227] i.e. better give the fish than have my head broken.

[FN#228] Said ironice, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.

[FN#229] The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. 274.

[FN#230] This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be admired wherever Arabs are not "frankified."

[FN#231] Arab. "s.h.i.+babah;" Lane makes it a kind of reed- flageolet.

[FN#232] These lines occur in vol. i. 76: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#233] The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar and going to church.

[FN#234] Arab. "Ya Shukayr," from Shakar, being red (clay, etc.): Shukar is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim.

Form. Lane's Shaykh made it a dim. of "Ashkar" = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former writes, "O Shukeyr." Mr. Payne prefers "O Rosy cheeks."

[FN#235] For "Sandal," see vol. ii. 50. Sandali properly means an Eunuch clean rase, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandal-wood.

[FN#236] Arab. "Ya mumatil," one who r.e.t.a.r.ds payment.

[FN#237] Arab. "Kirsh al-Nukhal" = guts of bran, a term too little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a Fallah-grazioso of normal a.s.surance shrewd withal; he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and he uses the first epithet that comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii.

for the sudden change in Khalifah.

[FN#238] So the Persian "May your shadow never be less" means, I have said, the shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade, cold water and fresh breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.

[FN#239] When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the Government of Egypt, he was a once imprisoned for arrears of taxes and thus prevented from being troublesome. I am told that matters have improved under English rule, but I "doubt the fact."

[FN#240] This freak is of course not historical. The tale- teller introduces it to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d, and the vulgar would regard it as a right kingly diversion. Westerns only wonder that such things could be.

[FN#241] Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage ii.

248.

[FN#242] First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abu Talib, a brother of Al-Abbas from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.

[FN#243] i.e. I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell me.

[FN#244] Arab. "Nakhuzah Zulayt." The former, from the Persian Nakhoda or s.h.i.+p-captain which is also used in a playful sense "a G.o.dless wight," one owning no (na) G.o.d (Khuda). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.

[FN#245] Yasamin and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.

[FN#246] Arab. Tamar-hanna, the cheapest of dyes used ever by the poorest cla.s.ses. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.

[FN#247] The formula (meaning, "What has he to do here?") is by no means complimentary.

[FN#248] Arab. "Jarrah" (p.r.o.n. "Garrah") a "jar." See Lane (M.E. chapt. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial notices. The "Jarrah" is of pottery, whereas the "Dist" is a large copper chauldron and the Khalkinah one of lesser size.

[FN#249] i.e. What a bother thou art, etc.

[FN#250] This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of their distinguished men, especially students.

A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and after repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an Allamah (doctissimus).

[FN#251] Arab. "Bismillah, Nami!" here it is not a blessing, but a simple invitation, "Now please go to sleep."

[FN#252] The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an ill.u.s.tration of that of "Amasis, the good G.o.d and lord of the two lands" (circ. B.C. 1350) in British Museum (p. 41, "The Dwellers on the Nile," by E. A. Wallis Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).

[FN#253] This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of inverted speech--Thou art in luck this time!

[FN#254] Arab. "Marhub" = terrible: Lane reads "Mar'ub" = terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with something terrible.

[FN#255] i.e. in Kut al-Kulub.

[FN#256] Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, i.e. Mohammed.

[FN#257] In the text he tells of the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.: but -- "of no avail is a twice-told tale."

[FN#258] Koran x.x.xix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.

[FN#259] Easterns find it far easier to "get the chill of poverty out of their bones" than Westerns.

[FN#260] Arab. "Dar al-Na'im." Name of one of the seven stages of the Moslem heaven. This style of inscription dates from the days of the hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of Raamses ends with these lines.--

Daily is there a supply of food: Within it gladness doth ever brood * * * *

Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc., etc.

[FN#261] Arab. "Ansar" = auxiliaries, the men of Al-Medinah (Pilgrimage ii. 130, etc.).

[FN#262] Arab. "Ashab" = the companions of the Prophet who may number 500 (Pilgrimage ii. 81, etc.).

[FN#263] Arab. "Hasilah" prob. a corner of a "G.o.down" in some Khan or Caravanserai.

[FN#264] Arab. "Funduk" from the Gr. , whence the Italian Fondaco e.g. at Venice the Fondaco de' Turchi.

[FN#265] Arab. "Astar" plur. of Satr: in the Mac. Edit. Satur, both (says Dozy) meaning "Couperet" (a hatchet). Hab.i.+.c.ht translates it "a measure for small fish," which seems to be a shot and a bad shot as the text talks only of means of carrying fish. Nor can we accept Dozy's emendation Astal (plur. of Satl) pails, situlae. In Petermann's Reisen (i. 89) Satr=a.s.siette.

[FN#266] Which made him expect a heavy haul.

[FN#267] Arab. "Urkub" = tendon Achilles in man hough or pastern in beast, etc. It is held to be an incrementative form of 'Akab (heel); as Kur'ub of Ka'b (heel) and Khurtum of Khatm (snout).

[FN#268] Arab. "Karmut" and "Zakzuk." The former (p.r.o.nounced Garmut) is one of the many Siluri (S. Carmoth Niloticus) very common and resembling the Shal. It is smooth and scaleless with fleshy lips and soft meat and as it haunts muddy bottoms it was forbidden to the Ancient Egyptians. The Zakzuk is the young of the Shal (Synodontis Schal: Seetzen); its plural form Zakazik (p.r.o.nounced Zigazig) gave a name to the flouris.h.i.+ng town which has succeeded to old Bubastis and of which I have treated in "Midian" and "Midian Revisited."

[FN#269] "Ya A'awar"=O one-eye! i.e.. the virile member. So the vulgar insult "Ya ibn al-aur" (as the vulgar p.r.o.nounce it) "O son of a yard!" When AlMas'udi writes (Fr. Trans. vii. 106), "Udkhul usbu'ak fi aynih," it must not be rendered "Il faut lui faire violence": thrust thy finger into his eye ('Ayn) means "put thy p.e.n.i.s up his fundament!" ('Ayn being=Dubur). The French remarks, "On en trouverait l'equivalent dans les bas-fonds de notre langue," So in English "pig's eye," "blind eye," etc.