The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XIII Part 25

[FN#195] In truly Oriental countries the Wazir is expected to know everything, and if he fail in this easy duty he may find himself in sore trouble.

[FN#196] i.e. must he obeyed.

[FN#197] We see that "China" was in those days the normal Oriental "despotism tempered by a.s.sa.s.sination."

[FN#198] In the H. V. Alaeddin promises, "if I fail to find and fetch the Princess, I will myself cut off my head and cast it before the throne." Hindus are adepts in suicide and this self- decapitation, which sounds absurd further West, is quite possible to them.

[FN#199] In Galland Alaeddin unconsciously rubbed the ring against un pet.i.t roc, to which he clung in order to prevent falling into the stream. In the H. V. "The bank was high and difficult of descent and the youth would have rolled down headlong had he not struck upon a rock two paces from the bottom and remained hanging over the water. This mishap was of the happiest for during his fall he struck the stone and rubbed his ring against it," etc.

[FN#200] In the H. V. he said, "First save me that I fall not into the stream and then tell me where is the pavilion thou builtest for her and who hath removed it."

[FN#201] Alluding to the preparatory was.h.i.+ng, a mere matter of cleanliness which precedes the formal Wuz-ablution.

[FN#202] In the H. V. the Princess ends with, "I had made this resolve that should he approach me with the design to win his wish perforce, I would destroy my life. By day and by night I abode in fear of him; but now at the sight of thee my heart is heartened."

[FN#203] The Fellah had a natural fear of being seen in fine gear, which all would have supposed to be stolen goods; and Alaeddin was justified in taking it perforce, because necessitas non habet legem. See a similar exchange of dress in Spitta-Bey's "Contes Arabes Modernes," p. 91. In Galland the peasant when pressed consents; and in the H. V. Alaeddin persuades him by a gift of money.

[FN#204] i.e. which would take effect in the shortest time.

[FN#205] Her modesty was startled by the idea of sitting: at meat with a strange man and allowing him to make love to her.

[FN#206] In the text Kid, pop. for Ka-zlika. In the H. V. the Magician replies to the honeyed speech of the Princess, "O my lady, we in Africa have not so gracious customs as the men of China. This day I have learned of thee a new courtesy which I shall ever keep in mind."

[FN#207] Galland makes the Princess poison the Maghrabi, which is not gallant. The H. V. follows suit and describes the powder as a mortal poison.

[FN#208] Contrast this modesty with the usual scene of reunion after severance, as in the case of Kamar al-Zamn and immodest Queen Budr, vol. iii. pp. 302-304.

[FN#209] His dignity forbade him to walk even the length of a carpet: see vol. vii. for this habit of the Mameluke Beys. When Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d made his famous pilgrimage afoot from Baghdad to Meccah (and he was the last of the Caliphs who performed this rite), the whole way was spread with a "P-andz" of carpets and costly cloths.

[FN#210] The proverb suggests our "par n.o.bile fratrum," a pair resembling each other as two halves of a split bean.

[FN#211] In the H. V. "If the elder Magician was in the East, the other was in the West; but once a year, by their skill in geomancy, they had tidings of each other."

[FN#212] The act was religiously laudable, but to the Eastern, as to the South European mind, fair play is not a jewel; moreover the story-teller may insinuate that vengeance would be taken only by foul and unlawful means--the Black Art, perjury, murder and so forth

[FN#213] For this game, a prime favourite in Egypt, see vol. vi.

145, De Sacy (Chrestomathie i. 477) and his authorities Hyde, Syntagma Dissert. ii. 374, P. Labat, "Memoires du Chev d'Arvieux," iii. 321; Thevenot, "Voyage du Levant," p. 107, and Niebuhr, "Voyages," i. 139, Plate 25, fig. H.

[FN#214] Evidently="(jeu de) dames" (supposed to have been invented in Paris during the days of the Regency: see Littr); and, although in certain Eastern places now popular, a term of European origin. It is not in Galland. According to Ibn Khallikan (iii. 69) "Nard" = tables, arose with King Ardashr son of Babuk, and was therefore called Nardashr (Nard Ardashr? ). He designed it as an image of the world and its people, so the board had twelve squares to represent the months; the thirty pieces or men represented the days, and the dice were the emblems of Fate and Lot.

[FN#215] i.e. a weaner, a name of good omen for a girl-child: see vol. vi. 145. The Hindi translator, Totrm Shayyn, calls her Hamdah = the Praiseworthy.

[FN#216] Arab. Kirmt: see vols. ii. 237; iv. 45. The Necromancer clearly smells a rat holding with Diderot:

De par le Roi! Defense Dieu De faire miracle en ce lieu;

and the stage properties afterwards found with the holy woman, such as the gallipot of colouring ointment, justify his suspicion.

[FN#217] " 'Ajib" plur. of " 'Ajb," a common exclamation amongst the populace. It is used in Persian as well as in Arabic.

[FN#218] Evidently la force de l'imagination, of which a curious ill.u.s.tration was given in Paris during the debauched days of the Second Empire. Before a highly "fas.h.i.+onable" a.s.sembly of men appeared a youth in fles.h.i.+ngs who sat down upon a stool, bared his pudenda and closed his eyes when, by "force of fancy,"

erection and emission took place. But presently it was suspected and proved that the stool was hollow and admitted from below a hand whose t.i.tillating fingers explained the phenomenon.

[FN#219] a Moslems are curious about sleeping postures and the popular saying is:--Lying upon the right side is proper to Kings; upon the left to Sages, to sleep supine is the position of Allah's Saints and p.r.o.ne upon the belly is peculiar to the Devils.

[FN#220] This " As," a staff five to six feet long, is one of the properties of Moslem Saints and reverends who, imitating that furious old Puritan, Caliph Omar, make and are allowed to make a pretty liberal distribution of its caresses.

[FN#221] i.e. as she was in her own home.

[FN#222] Arab. "Sulk" a Sufistical expression, the road to salvation, &c.

[FN#223] In the H. V. her diet consisted of dry bread and fruits.

[FN#224] This is the first mention of the windows in the Arabic MS.

[FN#225] For this "Roc" of the older writers see vols. v. 122; vi. 16-49. I may remind the reader that the O. Egyptian "Rokh,"

or "Rukh," by some written "Rekhit," whose ideograph is a monstrous bird with one claw raised, also denotes pure wise Spirits, the Magi, &c. I know a man who derives from it our "rook" = beak and parson.

[FN#226] In the H. V he takes the Lamp from his bosom, where he had ever kept it since his misadventure with the African Magician

[FN#227] Here the mythical Rukh is mixed up with the mysterious bird Smurgh, for which see vol. x. 117.

[FN#228] The H. V. adds, "hoping thereby that thou and she and all the household should fall into perdition."

[FN#229] Rank mesmerism, which has been practiced in the East from ages immemorial. In Christendom Santa Guglielma wors.h.i.+pped at Brunate, "works many miracles, chiefly healing aches of head."

In the H. V. Alaeddin feigns that he is ill and fares to the Princess with his head tied up.

[FN#230] Mr. Morier in "The Mirza" (vol. i. 87) says, "Had the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, with all their singular fertility of invention and never-ending variety, appeared as a new book in the present day, translated literally and not adapted to European taste in the manner attempted in M. Galland's translation, I doubt whether they would have been tolerated, certainly not read with the avidity they are, even in the dress with which he has clothed them, however imperfect that dress maybe." But in Morier's day the literal translation was so despised that an Eastern book was robbed of half its charms, both of style and idea.

[FN#231] In the MS. Of the Bibliothque National, Supplement Arabe (No. 2523, vol. ii. fol. 147), the story which follows "Aladdin" is that of the Ten Wazirs, for which see Supp. Nights ii. In Galland the Histoire de Codadad et des ses Frres comes next to the tale of Zayn al-Asnam: I have changed the sequence in order that the two stories directly translated from the Arabic may be together.

[FN#232] M. Hermann Zotenberg lately informed me that "Khudadad and his Brothers" is to be found in a Turkish MS., "Al-Faraj ba'd al-s.h.i.+ddah"--Joy after Annoy--in the Bibliothque Nationale of Paris. But that work is a mere derivation from the Persian "Hazr o yek Roz" for which see my vol. x. p.441. The name Khudadad is common to most Eastern peoples, the Sansk. Devadatta, the Gr.

{Greek} and Dorotheus; the Lat. Deodatus, the Ital. Diodato, and Span. Diosdado, the French Dieu-donn, and the Arab.-Persic Alladd, Dvdd and Khudbaksh. Khud is the mod. Pers. form of the old Khud=sovereign, king, as in Mh-i-Khud=the sovereign moon, Km-Khud=master of his pa.s.sions, etc.

[FN#233] Lit. Homes (or habitations) of Bakr (see vol. v. 66), by the Turks p.r.o.nounced "Diyr-i-Bekr." It is the most famous of the four provinces into which Mesopotamia (Heb. Naharaym, Arab.

Al-Jazrah) is divided by the Arabs; viz: Diyr Bakr (capital Amdah); Diyr Modhar (cap. Rakkah or Aracta); Diyr Rab'ah (cap. Nisibis) and Diyr al-Jazrah or Al-Jazrah (cap. Mosul).

As regards the "King of Harrn," all these ancient cities were at some time the capitals of independent chiefs who styled themselves royalties.

[FN#234] The Heb. Charran, the Carrh of the cla.s.sics where, according to the Moslems, Abraham was born, while the Jews and Christians make him emigrate thither from "Ur (hod. Mughayr) of the Chaldees." Hence his Arab. t.i.tle "Ibrahim al-Harrni." My late friend Dr. Beke had a marvellous theory that this venerable historic Harrn was identical with a miserable village to the east of Damascus because the Fellahs call it Harrn al-'Awmd--of the Columns--from some Gr co-Roman remnants of a paltry provincial temple. See "Jacob's Flight," etc., London, Longmans, 1865.

[FN#235] Prozah=turquoise, is the Persian, Firzah and Firuzakh (De Sacy, Chrest. ii. 84) the Arab. forms. The stone is a favourite in the East where, as amongst the Russians (who affect to despise the Eastern origin of their blood to which they owe so much of its peculiar merit), it is supposed to act talisman against wounds and death in battle; and the Persians, who hold it to be a guard against the Evil Eye, are fond of inscribing "turquoise of the old rock" with one or more of the "Holy Names."

Of these talismans a modern Spiritualist asks, "Are rings and charms and amulets magnetic, to use an a.n.a.logue for what we cannot understand, and has the immemorial belief in the power of relics a natural not to say a scientific basis?"

[FN#236] Samaria is a well-known name amongst Moslems, who call the city Shamrn and Shamrn. It was built, according to Ibn Batrik, upon Mount Samir by Amri who gave it the first name; and the Tarkh Samr, by Aba al-Fath Ab al-Hasan, is a detailed account of its garbled annals. As Nabls (Neapolis of Herod., also called by him Sebaste) it is now familiar to the Cookite.

[FN#237] In the text Zangi-i-Adam-kh'wr afterwards called Habas.h.i.+=an Abyssinian. Galland simply says un negre. In India the "Habsh" (chief) of Jinjirah (=Al-Jazirah, the Island) was admiral of the Grand Moghul's fleets. These negroids are still dreaded by Hinds and Hinds and, when we have another "Sepoy Mutiny," a few thousands of them bought upon the Zanzibar coast, dressed, drilled and officered by Englishmen, will do us yeomans'

service.

[FN#238] This seems to be a fancy name for a country: the term is Persian=the Oceanland or a seaport town: from "Dary" the sea and br=a region, tract, as in Zanzibr=Black-land. The learned Weil explains it (in loco) by Gegend der Brunnen, brunnengleicher ort, but I cannot accept Scott's note (iv. 400), "Signifying the seacoast of every country; and hence the term is applied by Oriental geographers to the coast of Malabar."