The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XI Part 18

[FN#227] Arab. "Nafas" lit.=breath. Arabs living in a land of caverns know by experience the danger of asphyxiation in such places.

[FN#228] This simple tale is told with much pathos not of words but of sense.

[FN#229] Arab. "Ajal"=the appointed day of death, also used for sudden death. See vol. i. 74.

[FN#230] i.e. the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two great festival days (the other being the New Year) of the Persians, and surviving in our Michaelmas. According to Al-Mas'udi (chap.

xxi.), it was established to commemorate the capture of Zahhak (Azhi-Dahaka), the biting snake (the Hindu Ahi) of night and darkness, the Greek Astyages, by Furaydun or Feridun. Prof. Sayce (Principles of Comparative Philology, p. 11) connects the latter with the Vedic deity Trita, who harnessed the Sun-horse (Rig. v.

i. 163, 2, 3), the of Homer, a t.i.tle of Athene, the Dawn-G.o.ddess, and Burnouf proved the same Trita to be Thraetaona, son of Athwya, of the Avesta, who finally became Furaydun, the Greek Kyrus. See vol. v. 1.

[FN#231] In Chavis and Cazotte, "Story of Selimansha and his Family."

[FN#232] Arab. for Pers. Pahluwan (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him "Balavan"; and the Bresl. text in more than one place (p.

312) calls him "Bahwan."

[FN#233] i.e. King (Arab.) King (Persian): we find also Sultan Malik Shah=King King King.

[FN#234] Arab. "Aulad-i," a vulgarism, plural for dual.

[FN#235] Mr. Payne translates, "so he might take his father's leavings" i.e. heritage, reading "asar" which I hold to be a clerical error for Sar=Vendetta, blood revenge (Bresl. Edit. vi.

310).

[FN#236] Arab. "Al-'asi" the pop. term for one who refuses to obey a const.i.tuted authority and syn. with Pers. "Yaghi." "Ant 'asi?" Wilt thou not yield thyself? says a policeman to a refractory Fellah.

[FN#237] i.e. of the Greeks: so in Kor. x.x.x. 1. "Alif Lam Mim, the Greeks (Al-Roum) have been defeated." Mr. Rodwell curiously remarks that "the vowel-points for ?defeated' not being originally written, would make the prophecy true in either event, according as the verb received an active or pa.s.sive sense in p.r.o.nunciation." But in discovering this mare's nest, a rank piece of humbug like Aio te Aeacida, etc., he forgets that all the Prophet's "Companions," numbering some 5000, would p.r.o.nounce it only in one way and that no man could mistake "ghalabat" (active) for "ghulibat" (pa.s.sive).

[FN#238] The text persistently uses "Jariyah"=damsel, slave-girl, for the politer "Sabiyah"=young lady, being written in a rude and uncourtly style.

[FN#239] So our familiar phrase "Some one to back us."

[FN#240] Arab. "'Akkada lahu ray," plur. of rayat, a banner. See vol. iii. 307.

[FN#241] i.e. "What concern hast thou with the king's health?"

The question is offensively put.

[FN#242] Arab. "Masalah," a question; here an enigma.

[FN#243] Arab. "Lialla" (i.e. li, an, la) lest; but printed here and elsewhere with the ya as if it were "laylan,"=for a single night.

[FN#244] i.e. if my death be fated to befal to-day, none may postpone it to a later date.

[FN#245] Arab. "Dusti": so the ceremony vulgarly called "Doseh"

and by the ItaloEgyptians "Dosso," the riding over disciples'

backs by the Shaykh of the Sa'diyah Darwayshes (Lane M.E. chapt.

xxv.) which took place for the last time at Cairo in 1881.

[FN#246] In Chavis and Cazotte she conjures him "by the great Maichonarblatha Sarsourat" (Miat wa arba'at ashar Surat)=the 114 chapters of the Alcoran.

[FN#247] I have noted that Moslem law is not fully satisfied without such confession which, however, may be obtained by the bastinado. It is curious to compare English procedure with what Moslem would be in such a case as that of the famous Tichborne Claimant. What we did need hardly be noticed. An Arab judge would in a case so suspicious at once have applied the stick and in a quarter of an hour would have settled the whole business; but then what about the "Devil's own," the lawyers and lawyers' fees?

And he would have remarked that the truth is not less true because obtained by such compulsory means.

[FN#248] The Hudhud, so called from its cry "Hood! Hood!" It is the Lat. upupa, Gr. from its supposed note epip or upup; the old Egyptian Kukufa; Heb. Dukiphath and Syriac Kikupha (Bochart Hierozoicon, part ii. 347). The Spaniards call it Gallo de Marzo (March-c.o.c.k) from its returning in that month, and our old writers "lapwing" (Deut. xiv. 18). This foul-feeding bird derives her honours from chapt. xxvii. of the Koran (q.v.), the Hudhud was sharp-sighted and sagacious enough to discover water underground which the devils used to draw after she had marked the place by her bill.

[FN#249] Here the vocative Ya is designedly omitted in poetical fas.h.i.+on (e.g., Khaliliyya--my friend!) to show the speaker's emotion. See p. 113 of Captain A. Lockett's learned and curious work the "Miet Amil" (=Hundred Regimens), Calcutta, 1814.

[FN#250] The story-teller introduces this last instance with considerable art as a preface to the denouement.

[FN#251] See Chavis and Cazotte "Story of the King of Haram and the slave."

[FN#252] i.e. men caught red-handed.

[FN#253] Arab. "Libwah," one of the mult.i.tudinous names for the king of beasts, still used in Syria where the animal has been killed out, soon to be followed by the bear (U. Syriacus). The author knows that lions are most often found in couples.

[FN#254] Arab. "Himyan or Hamyan,"=a girdle.

[FN#255] As he would kiss a son. I have never yet seen an Englishman endure these masculine kisses, formerly so common in France and Italy, without showing clearest signs of his disgust.

[FN#256] A cheap way of rewarding merit, not confined to Eastern monarchs, but practised by all contemporary Europe.

[FN#257] Arab. "Kasf,"=houghing a camel so as to render it helpless. The pa.s.sage may read. "we are broken to bits (Kisi) by our own sin."

[FN#258] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 251-4, Night dlxv.

[FN#259] See vol. vi. 175. A Moslem should dress for public occasions, like the mediaeval student, in vestibus (quasi) nigris aut subfuscis; though not, except amongst the Abbasides, absolutely black, as sable would denote Jewry.

[FN#260] A well-known soldier and statesman, noted for piety and austerity. A somewhat fuller version of this story, from which I have borrowed certain details, is given in the Biographical Dictionary of Ibn Khallikan (i. 303-4). The latter, however, calls the first Abd al-Malik "Ibn Bahran" (in the index Ibn Bahram), which somewhat spoils the story. "Ibn Khallikan,"

by-the-by, is derived popularly from "Khalli" (let go), and "Kana" (it was, enough), a favourite expression of the author, which at last superseded his real name, Abu al-Abbas Ahmad. He is better off than the companion nicknamed by Mohammed Abu Horayrah=Father of the She-kitten (not the cat), and who in consequence has lost his true name and pedigree.

[FN#261] In Ibn Khallikan (i. 303) he is called the "Has.h.i.+mite,"

from his ancestor, Has.h.i.+m ibn Abd Manaf. The Has.h.i.+mites and Abbasides were fine specimens of the Moslem "Pharisee," as he is known to Christians, not the n.o.ble Purus.h.i.+ of authentic history.

[FN#262] Meaning a cap, but of what shape we ignore. Ibn Khallikan afterwards calls it a "Kalansua," a word still applied to a mitre worn by Christian priests.

[FN#263] Arab. "La baas," equivalent in conversation to our "No matter," and "All right."

[FN#264] As a member of the reigning family, he wore black clothes, that being the especial colour of the Abbasides, adopted by them in opposition to the rival dynasty of the Ommiades, whose family colour was white, that of the Fatimites being green. The Moslems borrowed their sacred green, "the hue of the Pure," from the old Nabatheans and the other primitive colours from the tents of the captains who were thus distinguished. Hence also amongst the Turks and Tartars, the White Horde and the Black Horde.

[FN#265] The word has often occurred, meaning date-wine or grape-wine. Ibn Khaldun contends that in Ibn Khallikan it here means the former.

[FN#266] 25,000. Ibn Khallikan (i. 304) makes the debt four millions of dirhams or 90,000-100,000.

[FN#267] In the Biographer occurs the equivalent phrase, "That a standard be borne over his head."

[FN#268] Here again we have a suggestion that Ja'afar presumed upon his favour with the Caliph; such presumption would soon be reported (perhaps by the austere intrigant himself) to the royal ears, and lay the foundation of ill-will likely to end in utter destruction.

[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. pp. 258-60, Night dlxvii.

[FN#270] Fourth Abbaside, A.D. 785-786, vol. v. 93. He was a fantastic tyrant who was bent upon promoting to the Caliphate his own son, Ja'afar; he cast Harun into prison and would probably have slain him but for the intervention of the mother of one of the two brothers, Khayzaran widow of Al-Mahdi, and Yahya the Barmecide.