The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume III Part 34

"Say:--Refuge I take with the Lord of men *

the sovran of men *

the G.o.d of men *

from the Tempter, the Demon *

who tempteth in whisper the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men *

and from Jinnis and (evil) men."

[FN#238] The recitations were Nafilah, or superogatory, two short chapters only being required and the taking refuge was because he slept in a ruin, a noted place in the East for Ghuls as in the West for ghosts.

[FN#239] Lane (ii. 222) first read "Muroozee" and referred it to the Muruz tribe near Herat he afterwards (iii. 748) corrected it to "Marwazee," of the fabric of Marw (Margiana) the place now famed for "Mervousness." As a man of Rayy (Rhages) becomes Razi (e.g. Ibn Faris al-Razi), so a man of Marw is Marazi, not Muruzi nor Marwazi. The "Mikna' " was a veil forming a kind of "respirator," defending from flies by day and from mosquitos, dews and draughts by night. Easterns are too sensible to sleep with bodies kept warm by bedding, and heads bared to catch every blast. Our grandfathers and grandmothers did well to wear bonnets-de-nuit, however ridiculous they may have looked.

[FN#240] Iblis, meaning the Despairer, is called in the Koran (chaps. xviii. 48) "One of the genii (Jinnis) who departed from the command of his Lord." Mr. Rodwell (in loco) notes that the Satans and Jinnis represent in the Koran (ii. 32, etc.) the evil-principle and finds an admixture of the Semitic Satans and demons with the "Genii from the Persian (Babylonian ?) and Indian (Egyptian ?) mythologies."

[FN#241] Of course she could not see his eyes when they were shut; nor is this mere Eastern inconsequence. The writer means, "had she seen them, they would have showed," etc.

[FN#242] The eyes are supposed to grow darker under the influence of wine and s.e.xual pa.s.sion.

[FN#243] To keep off the evil eye.

[FN#244] Like Dahnash this is a fanciful P. N., fit only for a Jinni. As a rule the appellatives of Moslem "genii" end in?us (oos), as Tarnus, Huliya.n.u.s, the Jewish in--nas, as Jattunas; those of the Tarsa (the "funkers" i.e. Christians) in--dus, as Sidus, and the Hindus in--tus, as Naktus (who entered the service of the Prophet Shays, or Seth, and was converted to the Faith).

The King of the Genii is Malik Katshan who inhabits Mount Kaf; and to the west of him lives his son-in-law, Abd al-Rahman with 33,000 domestics: these names were given by the Apostle Mohammed.

"Bakta.n.u.s" is lord of three Moslem troops of the wandering Jinns, which number a total of twelve bands and extend from Sind to Europe. The Jinns, Divs, Peris ("fairies") and other pre-Adamitic creatures were governed by seventy-two Sultans all known as Sulayman and the last I have said was Jan bin Jan. The angel Haris was sent from Heaven to chastise him, but in the pride of victory he also revolted with his followers the Jinns whilst the Peris held aloof. When he refused to bow down before Adam he and his chiefs were eternally imprisoned but the other Jinns are allowed to range over earth as a security for man's obedience.

The text gives the three orders. flyers. walkers and divers.

[FN#245] i.e. distracted (with love); the Lakab, or poetical name, of apparently a Spanish poet.

[FN#246] Nothing is more "anti-pathetic" to Easterns than lean hips and flat hinder-cheeks in women and they are right in insisting upon the characteristic difference of the male and female figure. Our modern sculptors and painters, whose study of the nude is usually most perfunctory, have often scandalised me by the lank and greyhound-like fining off of the frame, which thus becomes rather simian than human.

[FN#247] The small fine foot is a favourite with Easterns as well as Westerns. Ovid (A.A.) is not ashamed "ad teneros Oscula (not basia or suavia) ferre pedes." Ariosto ends the august person in

Il breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piece, (The short-sized, clean-cut, roundly-moulded foot).

And all the world over it is a sign of "blood," i.e. the fine nervous temperament.

[FN#248] i.e. "full moons": the French have corrupted it to "Badoure"; we to "Badoura." winch is worse.

[FN#249] As has been said a single drop of urine renders the clothes ceremoniously impure, hence a Stone or a handful of earth must be used after the manner of the torche-cul. Scrupulous Moslems, when squatting to make water, will prod the ground before them with the point o f stick or umbrella, so as to loosen it and prevent the spraying of the urine.

[FN#250] It is not generally known to Christians that Satan has a wife called Awwa ("Hawwa" being the Moslem Eve) and, as Adam had three sons, the Tempter has nine, viz., Zu 'l-baysun who rules in bazars. Wa.s.sin who prevails in times of trouble. Awan who counsels kings; Haffan patron of wine-bibbers; Marrah of musicians and dancers; Masbut of news-spreaders (and newspapers ?); Dulhan who frequents places of wors.h.i.+p and interferes with devotion. Dasim, lord of mansions and dinner tables, who prevents the Faithful saying "Bismillah" and "Inshallah," as commanded in the Koran (xviii. 23), and Lakis, lord of Fire wors.h.i.+ppers (Herklots, chap. xxix. sect. 4).

[FN#251] Strong perfumes, such as musk (which we Europeans dislike and suspect), are always insisted upon in Eastern poetry, and Mohammed's predilection for them is well known. Moreover the young and the beautiful are held (justly enough) to exhale a natural fragrance which is compared with that of the blessed in Paradise. Hence in the Mu'allakah of Imr al-Keys:--

Breathes the scent of musk when they rise to rove, *

As the Zephyr's breath with the flavour o'clove.

It is made evident by dogs and other fine-nosed animals that every human being has his, or her, peculiar scent which varies according to age and health. Hence animals often detect the approach of death.

[FN#252] Arab. "Kahla." This has been explained. Mohammed is said to have been born with "Kohl'd eyes."

[FN#253] Hawa al-'uzri, before noticed (Night cxiv.).

[FN#254] These lines, with the n.a.z.ir (eye or steward), the Hajib (Groom of the Chambers or Chamberlain) and Joseph, are also repeated from Night cxiv. For the n.a.z.ir see Al-Hariri (Nos. xiii.

and xxii.)

[FN#255] The usual allusion to the Hur (Houris) from "Hangar,"

the white and black of the eye s.h.i.+ning in contrast. The Persian Magi also placed in their Heaven (Bihisht or Minu) "Huran," or black-eyed nymphs, under the charge of the angel Zamiyad.

[FN#256] In the first hemistich, "bi-s.h.i.+tt 'it wady" (by the wady-bank): in the second, "wa shatta 'l wady" ("and my slayer"-- i.e. wady act. part. of wady, killing--"hath paced away").

[FN#257] The double entendre is from the proper names Budur and Su'ad (Beatrice) also meaning "auspicious (or blessed) full moons."

[FN#258] Arab. "Hazir" (also Ahl al-hazer, townsmen) and Badi, a Badawi, also called "Ahl al-Wabar," people of the camel's hair (tent) and A'arab (Nomadic) as opposed to Arab (Arab settled or not). They still boast with Ibn Abbas, cousin of Mohammed, that they have kerchiefs (not turbands) for crowns, tents for houses, loops for walls, swords for scarves and poems for registers or written laws.

[FN#259] This is a peculiarity of the Jinn tribe when wearing hideous forms. It is also found in the Hindu Rakshasa.

[FN#260] Which, by the by, are small and beautifully shaped. The animal is very handy with them, as I learnt by experience when trying to "Rareyfy" one at Bayrut.

[FN#261] She being daughter of Al-Dimiryat, King of the Jinns.

Mr. W. F. Kirby has made him the subject of a pretty poem.

[FN#262] These lines have occurred in Night xxii. I give Torrens's version (p. 223) by way of variety.

[FN#263] Arab. "Kamat Alfiyyah," like an Alif, the first of the Arabic alphabet, the Heb. Aleph. The Arabs, I have said, took the flag or water leaf form and departed very far from the Egyptian original (we know from Plutarch that the hieroglyphic abecedarium began with "a"), which was chosen by other imitators, namely the bull's head, and which in the cursive form, especially the Ph?nician, became a yoke. In numerals "Alif" denotes one or one thousand. It inherits the traditional honours of Alpha (as opposed to Omega) and in books, letters and writings generally it is placed as a monogram over the "Bismillah," an additional testimony to the Unity. (See vol. i. p. 1.) In mediaeval Christianity this place of honour was occupied by the cross: none save the wildest countries have preserved it, but our vocabulary still retains Criss' (Christ-)cross Row, for horn-book, on account of the old alphabet and nine digits disposed in the form of a Latin cross. Hence Tickell ("The Horn-book"):

----Mortals ne'er shall know More than contained of old the Chris'-cross Row.

[FN#264] The young man must have been a demon of chast.i.ty.

[FN#265] Arab. "Kirat" from i.e. bean, the seed of the Abrus precatorius, in weight=two to three (English) grains; and in length=one finger-breadth here; 24 being the total. The Moslem system is evidently borrowed from the Roman "as" and "uncia."

[FN#266] Names of women.

[FN#267] Arab. "Amsa" (lit. he pa.s.sed the evening) like "asbaha"

(he rose in the morning) "Azha" (he spent the forenoon) and "bata" (he spent the night), are idiomatically used for "to be in any state, to continue" without specification of time or season.

[FN#268] Lit. "my liver ;" which viscus, and not the heart, is held the seat of pa.s.sion, a fancy dating from the oldest days.

Theocritus says of Hercules, "In his liver Love had fixed a wound" (Idyl. xiii.). In the Anthologia "Cease, Love, to wound my liver and my heart" (lib. vii.). So Horace (Odes, i. 2); his Latin Jecur and the Persian "Jigar" being evident congeners. The idea was long prevalent and we find in Shakespeare:--

Alas, then Love may be called appet.i.te, No motion of the liver but the palate.

[FN#269] A marvellous touch of nature, love ousting affection; the same trait will appear in the lover and both ill.u.s.trate the deep Italian saying, "Amor discende, non ascende." The further it goes down the stronger it becomes as of grand-parent for grand-child and vice versa.

[FN#270] This tenet of the universal East is at once fact and unfact. As a generalism a.s.serting that women's pa.s.sion is ten times greater than man's (Pilgrimage, ii. 282), it is unfact. The world shows that while women have more philoprogenitiveness, men have more amativeness; otherwise the latter would not propose and would nurse the doll and baby. Pact, however, in low-lying lands, like Persian Mazanderan versus the Plateau; Indian Malabar compared with Maratha-land; California as opposed to Utah and especially Egypt contrasted with Arabia. In these hot damp climates the venereal requirements and reproductive powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male; and hence the dissoluteness of morals would be phenomenal, were it not obviated by seclusion, the sabre and the revolver. In cold-dry or hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either form, legal or illegal (i,e. prost.i.tution) I have discussed this curious point of "geographical morality" (for all morality is, like conscience, both geographical and chronological), a subject so interesting to the lawgiver, the student of ethics and the anthropologist, in "The City of the Saints " But strange and unpleasant truths progress slowly, especially in England.

[FN#271] This morning evacuation is considered, in the East, a sine qua non of health; and old Anglo-Indians are unanimous in their opinion of the "bard fajar" (as they misp.r.o.nounce the dawn-clearance). The natives of India, Hindus (pagans) and Hindis (Moslems), unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for:--

C'est la constipation qui rend l'homme rigoureux.

The English, since the first invasion of cholera, in October, 1831, are a different race from their costive grandparents who could not dine without a "dinner-pill." Curious to say the clyster is almost unknown to the people of Hindostan although the barbarous West Africans use it daily to "wash 'um belly," as the Bonney-men say. And, as Sonnini notes to propose the process in Egypt under the Beys might have cost a Frankish medico his life.