Part 26
A "Court hand" says Mr. Payne (i. 112): I know nothing of it. Other hands are: the Ta'alík; hanging or oblique, used for finer MSS. and having, according to Richardson, "the same analogy to the Naskhi as our Italic has to the Roman." The Nasta' lík (not Naskh-Ta'alík) much used in India, is, as the name suggests, a mixture of the Naskhi (writing of transactions) and the Ta'alík. The Shikastah (broken hand) everywhere represents our running hand and becomes a hard task to the reader. The Kirmá is another cursive character, mostly confined to the receipts and disbursements of the Turkish treasury. The Diváni, or Court (of Justice) is the official hand, bold and round, a business character, the lines often rising with a sweep or curve towards the (left) end. The Jáli or polished has a variety, the Jali-Ta'alik: the Sulsi (known in many books) is adopted for titles of volumes, royal edicts, diplomas and so forth; "answering much the same purpose as capitals with us, or the flourished letters in illuminated manuscripts" (Richardson). The Tughrái is that of the Tughrá, the Prince's cypher or flourishing signature in ceremonial writings, and containing some such sentence as: Let this be executed. There are others _e.g._ Yákuti and Sirenkil known only by name. Finally the Maghribi (Moorish) hand differs in form and diacritical points from the characters used further east almost as much as German running hand does from English. It is curious that Richardson omits the Jali (intricate and convoluted) and the divisions of the Sulusí, Sulsi or Sulus (Thuluth) character, the Sulus al-Khafíf, etc.
Footnote 236:
Arab. "Baghlah"; the male (Baghl) is used only for loads. This is everywhere the rule: nothing is more unmanageable than a restive "Macho"; and he knows that he can always get you off his back when so minded. From "Baghlah" is derived the name of the native craft Anglo-Indicè a "Buggalow."
Footnote 237:
In Heb. "Ben-Adam" is any man opp. to "Beni ish" (Psalm iv. 3)=_filii viri_, not _homines_.
Footnote 238:
This posture is terribly trying to European legs; and few white men (unless brought up to it) can squat for any time on their heels. The "tailor-fashion," with crossed legs, is held to be free and easy.
Footnote 239:
Arab. "Katá"=Pterocles Alchata, the well-known sand-grouse of the desert. It is very poor white flesh.
Footnote 240:
Arab. "Khubz" which I do not translate "cake" or "bread," as that would suggest the idea of our loaf. The staff of life in the East is a thin flat circle of dough baked in the oven or on the griddle, and corresponding with the Scotch "scone," the Spanish "tortilla" and the Australian "flap-jack."
Footnote 241:
Arab. "Harísah," a favourite dish of wheat (or rice) boiled and reduced to a paste with shredded meat, spices and condiments. The "bangles" is a pretty girl eating with him.
Footnote 242:
These lines are repeated with a difference in Night cccxxx. They affect _Rims cars_, out of the way, heavy rhymes: _e.g._ here Sakáríj (plur. of Sakrúj, platters, porringers); Tayáhíj (plur. of Tayhúj, the smaller caccabis-partridge); Tabáhíj (Persian Tabahjah, an omelet or a stew of meat, onions, eggs, etc.) Ma'áríj ("in stepped piles" like the pyramids; which Lane ii. 495, renders "on the stairs"); Makáríj (plur. of Makraj, a small pot); Damálíj (plur. of dumlúj, a bracelet, a bangle); Dayábíj (brocades) and Tafáríj (openings, enjoyments). In Night cccxxx. we find also Sikábíj (plur. of Sikbáj, marinated meat elsewhere explained); Faráríj (plur. of farrúj, a chicken, vulg. farkh) and Dakákíj (plur. of dakújah, a small jar). In the first line we have also (though not a rhyme) Gharánik Gr. Τερανὸς, a crane, preserved in Romaic. The weeping and wailing are caused by the remembrance that all these delicacies have been demolished like a Badawi camp.
Footnote 243:
This is the _vinum coctum_, the boiled wine, still a favourite in Southern Italy and Greece.
Footnote 244:
Eastern topers delight in drinking at dawn: upon this subject I shall have more to say in other Nights.
Footnote 245:
Arab. "Adab," a _crux_ to translators, meaning anything between good education and good manners. In mod. Turk. "Edibiyyet" (Adabiyat)=belles lettres and "Edebi" or "Edíb"=a littérateur.
Footnote 246:
The Caliph Al-Maamún, who was a bad player, used to say, "I have the administration of the world and am equal to it, whereas I am straitened in the ordering of a space of two spans by two spans." The "board" was then "a square field of well-dressed leather."
Footnote 247:
The Rabbis (after Matth. xix. 12) count three kinds of Eunuchs; (1) Seris chammah=of the sun, _i.e._ natural: (2) Seris Adam=manufactured _per homines_; and (3) Seris Chammayim=of God (_i.e._ religious abstainer). Seris (castrated) or Abd (slave) is the general Hebrew name.
Footnote 248:
The "Lady of Beauty."
Footnote 249:
"Káf" has been noticed as the mountain which surrounds earth as a ring does the finger: it is popularly used like our Alp and Alpine. The "circumambient Ocean" (Bahr al-muhít) is the Homeric Ocean-stream.
Footnote 250:
The pomegranate is probably chosen here because each fruit is supposed to contain one seed from Eden-garden. Hence a host of superstitions (Pilgrimage iii., 104) possibly connected with the Chaldaic-Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramanu. Hence Persephone or Ishtar tasted the "rich pomegranate's seed." Lenormant, loc. cit. pp. 166,182.
Footnote 251:
_i.e._ for the love of God—a favourite Moslem phrase.
Footnote 252:
Arab. "Báb," also meaning a chapter (of magic, of war, etc.), corresponding with the Persian "Dar" as in Sad-dar, the Hundred Doors. Here, however, it is figurative "I tried a new mode." This
## scene is in the Mabinogion.
Footnote 253:
I use this Irish term=crying for the dead; as English wants the word for the præfica or myrialogist. The practice is not encouraged in Al-Islam; and Caliph Abu Bakr said, "Verily a corpse is sprinkled with boiling water by reason of the lamentations of the living," _i.e._ punished for not having taken measures to prevent their profitless lamentations. But the practice is from Negroland whence it reached Egypt; and the people have there developed a curious system in the "weeping-song": I have noted this in "The Lake-Regions of Central Africa." In Zoroastrianism (Dabistan, chapt. xcvii.) tears shed for the dead form a river in hell, black and frigid.
Footnote 254:
These lines are hardly translateable. Arab. "Sabr" means "patience" as well as "aloes," hereby lending itself to a host of puns and double entendres more or less vile. The aloe, according to Burckhardt, is planted in grave-yards as a lesson of patience: it is also slung, like the dried crocodile, over house-doors to prevent evil spirits entering; "thus hung without earth and water," says Lane (M. E., chapt. xi.), "it will live for several years and even blossom. Hence (?) it is called _Sabr_, which signifies patience." But Sibr as well as Sabr (a root) means "long-sufferance." I hold the practise to be one of the many Inner African superstitions. The wild Gallas to the present day plant aloes on graves, and suppose that when the plant sprouts the deceased has been admitted to the gardens of Wák, the Creator. (Pilgrimage iii. 350).
Footnote 255:
Every city in the East has its specific title: this was given to Baghdad either on account of its superior police or simply because it was the Capital of the Caliphate. The Tigris was also called the "River of Peace (or Security)."
Footnote 256:
This is very characteristic: the passengers finding themselves in difficulties at once take command. See in my Pilgrimage (I. chapt. xi.) how we beat and otherwise maltreated the Captain of the "Golden Wire."
Footnote 257:
The fable is probably based on the currents which, as in Eastern Africa, will carry a ship fifty miles a day out of her course. We first find it in Ptolemy (vii. 2) whose Maniólai Islands, of India extra Gangem, cause iron nails to fly out of ships, the effect of the Lapis Herculeus (Loadstone). Rabelais (v. c. 37) alludes to it and to the vulgar idea of magnetism being counteracted by Skordon (_Scordon_ or garlic). Hence too the Adamant (Loadstone) Mountains of Mandeville (chapt. xxvii.) and the "Magnetic Rock" in Mr. Puttock's clever "Peter Wilkins." I presume that the myth also arose from seeing craft built, as on the East African Coast, without iron nails. We shall meet with the legend again. The word Jabal ("Jebel" in Egypt) often occurs in these pages. The Arabs apply it to any rising ground or heap of rocks; so it is not always=our mountain. It has found its way to Europe _e.g._ Gibraltar and Monte Gibello (or Mongibel in poetry)="Mt. Ethne that men clepen Mounte Gybelle." Other special senses of Jabal will occur.
Footnote 258:
As we learn from the Nubian Geographer the Arabs in early ages explored the Fortunate Islands, Jazírát al-Khálidát (=Eternal Isles), or Canaries, on one of which were reported a horse and horseman in bronze with his spear pointing west. Ibn al-Wardi notes "two images of hard stone, each an hundred cubits high, and upon the top of each a figure of copper pointing with its hand backwards, as though it would say:—Return for there is nothing behind me!" But this legend attaches to older doings. The 23rd Tobba (who succeeded Bilkis), Malik bin Sharhabíl, (or Sharabíl or Sharahíl) surnamed Náshir al-Ni'ám=scatterer of blessings, lost an army in attempting the Western sands and set up a statue of copper upon whose breast was inscribed in antique characters:—
There is no access behind me, Nothing beyond, (Saith) The Son of Sharabíl.
Footnote 259:
_i.e._ I exclaimed "Bismillah!"
Footnote 260:
The lesser ablution of hands, face and feet; a kind of "washing the points." More in Night ccccxl.
Footnote 261:
Arab. "Ruka'tayn"; the number of these bows which are followed by the prostrations distinguishes the five daily prayers.
Footnote 262:
The "Beth Kol" of the Hebrews; also called by the Moslems "Hátif"; for which ask the Spiritualists. It is the Hindu "voice divine" or "voice from heaven."
Footnote 263:
These formulæ are technically called Tasmiyah, Tahlíl (before noted) and Takbír: the "testifying" is Tashhíd.
Footnote 264:
Arab. "Samn," (Pers. "Raughan" Hind. "Ghi") the "single sauce" of the East; fresh butter set upon the fire, skimmed and kept (for a century if required) in leather bottles and demijohns. Then it becomes a hard black mass, considered a panacea for wounds and diseases. It is very "filling": you say jocosely to an Eastern threatened with a sudden inroad of guests, "Go, swamp thy rice with Raughan." I once tried training, like a Hindu Pahlawan or athlete, on Gur (raw sugar), milk and Ghi; and the result was being blinded by bile before the week ended.
Footnote 265:
These handsome youths are always described in the terms we should apply to women.
Footnote 266:
The Bul. Edit. (i. 43) reads otherwise:—I found a garden and a second and a third and so on till they numbered thirty and nine; and, in each garden, I saw what praise will not express, of trees and rills and fruits and treasures. At the end of the last I sighted a door and said to myself, "What may be in this place?; needs must I open it and look in!" I did so accordingly and saw a courser ready saddled and bridled and picketed; so I loosed and mounted him; and he flew with me like a bird till he set me down on a terrace-roof; and, having landed me, he struck me a whisk with his tail and put out mine eye and fled from me. Thereupon I descended from the roof and found ten youths all blind of one eye who, when they saw me exclaimed, "No welcome to thee, and no good cheer!" I asked them, "Do ye admit me to your home and society?" and they answered, "No, by Allah, thou shalt not live amongst us." So I went forth with weeping eyes and grieving heart, but Allah had written my safety on the Guarded Tablet so I reached Baghdad in safety, etc. This is a fair specimen of how the work has been curtailed in that issue.
Footnote 267:
Arabs date pregnancy from the stopping of the menses, upon which the fœtus is supposed to feed. Kalilah wa Dimnah says, "The child's navel adheres to that of his mother and thereby he sucks" (i. 263).
Footnote 268:
This is contrary to the commands of Al-Islam; Mohammed expressly said "The Astrologers are liars, by the Lord of the Ka'abah!"; and his saying is known to almost all Moslems, lettered or unlettered. Yet, the further we go East (Indiawards) the more we find these practises held in honour. Turning westwards we have:
Iuridicis, Erebo, Fisco, fas vivere rapto; Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est; Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.
Footnote 269:
He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects his dawn prayers.
Footnote 270:
For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games. Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding "Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants).
Footnote 271:
Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.
Footnote 272:
We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."
Footnote 273:
The bath first taken after sickness.
Footnote 274:
Arab. "Dikák" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="_Revalenta Arabica_," which costs a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England.
Footnote 275:
Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency.
Footnote 276:
This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagké," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama.
Footnote 277:
Having lately been moved by Ajib.
Footnote 278:
Mr. Payne (i. 131.) omits these lines which appear out of place; but this mode of inappropriate quotation is a characteristic of Eastern tales.
Footnote 279:
Anglicè "him."
Footnote 280:
This march of the tribe is a _lieu commun_ of Arab verse _e.g._ the poet Labid's noble elegy on the "Deserted Camp." We shall find scores of instances in The Nights.
Footnote 281:
I have heard of such sands in the Desert east of Damascus which can be crossed only on boards or camel furniture; and the same is reported of the infamous Region "Al-Ahkáf" ("Unexplored Syria").
Footnote 282:
Hence the Arab. saying "The bark of a dog and not the gleam of a fire;" the tired traveller knows from the former that the camp is near, whereas the latter shows from great distances.
Footnote 283:
Dark blue is the colour of mourning in Egypt as it was of the Roman Republic. The Persians hold that this tint was introduced by Kay Kawús (B.C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyáwush. It was continued till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month, then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black. As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called "Hidád"), looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile women dye their hands with indigo and stain their faces black or blacker.
Footnote 284:
The older Roc, of which more in the Tale of Sindbad. Meanwhile the reader curious about the Persian Símurgh (thirty bird) will consult the Dabistan, i., 55, 191 and iii., 237, and Richardson's Diss. p. xlviii. For the Anka (Enka or Unka=long-necked bird) see Dab. iii., 249 and for the Humá (bird of Paradise) Richardson lxix. We still lack details concerning the Ben or Bennu (nycticorax) of Egypt which with the Article pi gave rise to the Greek "phœnix."
Footnote 285:
Probably the _Haledj_ of Forskal (p. xcvi. Flor. Ægypt. Arab.), "lignum tenax, durum, obscuri generis." The Bres. Edit, has "ákúl"=teak wood, vulg. "Sáj."
Footnote 286:
The knocker ring is an invention well known to the Romans.
Footnote 287:
Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut" (Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.
Footnote 288:
Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhabá," the words still popularly addressed to a guest.
Footnote 289:
This may mean "liquid black eyes"; but also, as I have noticed, that the lashes were long and thick enough to make the eyelids appear as if Kohl-powder had been applied to the inner rims.
Footnote 290:
A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is considered a beauty by Arabs; why it is hard to say except for the racial love of variety. "Sughr" (Thugr) in the text means, primarily, the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.
Footnote 291:
_i.e._ makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the gall-bladder" (Marárah) being our "breaking the heart."
Footnote 292:
Almost needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a _lieu commun_ in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard."
Footnote 293:
Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix., 30).
Footnote 294:
Arab. "Al-Barkúk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is "Burkúk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishmish," and it also denotes a small plum or damson. In Syria the "side next the sun" shows a glowing red flush.
Footnote 295:
Arab. "Hazáṙ" (in Persian, a thousand)=a kind of mocking bird.
Footnote 296:
Some Edit. make the doors number a hundred, but the Princesses were forty and these coincidences, which seem to have significance and have none save for Arab symmetromania, are common in Arab stories.
Footnote 297:
Arab. "Májúr": hence possibly our "mazer," which is popularly derived from Masarn, a maple.
Footnote 298:
A compound scent of ambergris, musk and aloes.
Footnote 299:
The ends of the bridle-reins forming the whip
Footnote 300:
The flying horse is Pegasus which is a Greek travesty of an Egyptian myth developed in India.
Footnote 301:
The Bres. Edit. wrongly says "the seventh."
Footnote 302:
Arab. "Sharmutah" (plur. Sharámít) from the root Sharmat, to shred, a favourite Egyptian word also applied in vulgar speech to a strumpet, a punk, a piece. It is also the popular term for strips of jerked or boucaned meat hung up in the sun to dry, and classically called "Kadíd."
Footnote 303:
Arab. "Izár," the man's waist-cloth opposed to the Ridá or shoulder-cloth, is also the sheet of white calico worn by the poorer Egyptian women out of doors and covering head and hands. See Lane (M. E., chapt. i). The rich prefer a "Habárah" of black silk, and the poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.
Footnote 304:
_i.e._ "My dears."
Footnote 305:
Arab. "Lá tawákhizná:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;" the pop. expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."
Footnote 306:
Arab. "Maskhút," mostly applied to change of shape as man enchanted to monkey, and in vulgar parlance applied to a statue (of stone, etc.). The list of metamorphoses in Al-Islam is longer than that known to Ovid. Those who have seen Petra, the Greek town of the Haurán and the Roman ruins in Northern Africa will readily detect the basis upon which these stories are built. I shall return to this subject in The City of Iram (Night cclxxvi.) and The City of Brass (dlxvii.).
Footnote 307:
A picturesque phrase enough to express a deserted site, a spectacle familiar to the Nomades and always abounding in pathos to the citizens.
Footnote 308:
The olden "Harem" (or gynæceum, Pers. Zenanah, Serraglio): Harím is also used by synecdoche for the inmates; especially the wife.
Footnote 309:
The pearl is supposed in the East to lose 1% per ann. of its splendour and value.
Footnote 310:
Arab. "Fass," properly the bezel of a ring; also a gem cut _en cabochon_ and generally the _contenant_ for the _contenu_.
Footnote 311:
Arab. "Mihráb"=the arch-headed niche in the Mosque-wall facing Meccah-wards. Here, with his back to the people and fronting the Ka'abah or Square House of Meccah (hence called the "Kiblah"=direction of prayer), stations himself the Imám, antistes or fugleman, lit. "one who stands _before_ others;" and his bows and prostrations give the time to the congregation. I have derived the Mihrab from the niche in which the Egyptian God was shrined: the Jews ignored it, but the Christians preserved it for their statues and altars. Maundrell suggests that the empty niche denotes an invisible God. As the niche (symbol of Venus) and the minaret (symbol of Priapus) date only from the days of the tenth Caliph, Al-Walid (A.H. 86-96=105-115), the Hindus charge the Moslems with having borrowed the two from their favourite idols—The Linga-Yoni or Cunnus-phallus (Pilgrimage ii. 140), and plainly call the Mihrab a Bhaga=Cunnus (Dabistan ii. 152.) The Guebres further term Meccah "Mah-gah," locus Lunæ, and Al-Medinah, "Mahdinah,"=Moon of religion. See Dabistan i., 49, etc.
Footnote 312:
Arab. "Kursi," a stool of palm-fronds, etc., ❌-shaped (see Lane's illustration, Nights i., 197), before which the reader sits. Good Moslems will not hold the Holy Volume below the waist nor open it except when ceremonially pure. Englishmen in the East should remember this, for to neglect the "Adab al-Kúran" (respect due to Holy Writ) gives great scandal.
Footnote 313:
Mr. Payne (i. 148) quotes the German Zuckerpüppchen.
Footnote 314:
The Persian poets have a thousand conceits in praise of the "mole," (Khál or Shámah) for which Hafiz offered "Samarkand and Bokhara" (they not being his, as his friends remarked). Another "topic" is the flight of arrows shot by eyelashes.
Footnote 315:
Arab. "Suhá" a star in the Great Bear introduced only to balance "wushát"=spies, enviers, enemies, whose "evil eye" it will ward off.
Footnote 316:
In Arab tales beauty is always "soft-sided," and a smooth skin is valued in proportion to its rarety.
Footnote 317:
The myrtle is the young hair upon the side-face.
Footnote 318:
In other copies of these verses the fourth couplet swears "by the scorpions of his brow" _i.e._ the _accroche-cœurs_, the beau-catchers, bell-ropes or "aggravators," as the B.P. calls them. In couplet eight the poet alludes to his love's "Unsur," or element, his nature made up of the four classicals, and in the last couplet he makes the nail-paring refer to the moon not the sun.
Footnote 319:
This is regular formula when speaking of Guebres.
Footnote 320:
Arab. "Faráiz"; the orders expressly given in the Koran which the reader will remember, is Uncreate and Eternal. In India "Farz" is applied to injunctions thrice repeated; and "Wájib" to those given twice over. Elsewhere scanty difference is made between them.
Footnote 321:
Arab. "Kufr"=rejecting the True Religion, _i.e._ Al-Islam, such rejection being "Tughyán" or rebellion against the Lord. The "terrible sound" is taken from the legend of the prophet Sálih and the proto-historic tribe of Thámúd which for its impiety was struck dead by an earthquake and a noise from heaven. The latter, according to some commentators, was the voice of the Archangel Gabriel crying "Die all of you" (Koran, chapts. vii. xviii., etc.). We shall hear more of it in the "City of many-coloured Iram." According to some, Salih, a mysterious Badawi prophet, is buried in the Wady al-Shaykh of the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula.
Footnote 322:
Yet they kept the semblance of man, showing that the idea arose from the basaltic statues found in Hauranic ruins. Mohammed in his various marches to Syria must have seen remnants of Greek and Roman settlements; and as has been noticed "Sesostris" left his mark near Meccah. (Pilgrimage iii. 137).
Footnote 323: