Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights by Sir Richard Francis Burton (online e book reader .TXT) 📖

to vulgar drugs or simples, as in the Tale of the Sage Duban, i. 46.

 

[FN#433] Arab. “Si’at rizki-h” i.e., the ease with which he earned his copious livelihood.

 

[FN#434] i.e. the ten thousand dirhams of the bond, beside the unpaid and contingent portion of her “Mahr” or marriagesettlement.

 

[FN#435] Arab. “Al-H�z�r” from Hazr=loquacity, frivolous garrulity. Every craft in the East has a jargon of its own and the goldsmith (Zargar) is famed for speaking a language made unintelligible by the constant insertion of a letter or letters not belonging to the word. It is as if we rapidly pronounced How d’ye do=Howth doth yeth doth?

 

[FN#436] Arab. “Asm� al-Adwiyah,” such as are contained in volumes like the “Alf�z al-Adwi-yah” (Nomenclature of Drugs).

 

[FN#437] I am compelled to insert a line in order to make sense.

 

[FN#438] “Galen,” who is considered by Moslems as a kind of pre-Islamitic Saint; and whom Rabelais (iii. c. 7) calls Le gentil Falot Galen, is explained by Eustathius as the Serene {Greek} from {Greek}=rideo.

 

[FN#439] Arab. “S�hah” the clear space before the house as opposed to the “Bathah” (Span. Patio) the inner court.

 

[FN#440] A na�ve description of the na�ve style of r�clame adopted by the Eastern Bob Sawyer.

 

[FN#441] Which they habitually do, by the by, with an immense amount of unpleasant detail. See Pilgrimage i. 18.

 

[FN#442] The old French name for the phial or bottle in which the patient’s water is sent.

 

[FN#443] A descendant from Mohammed, strictly through his grandson Husayn. See vol. iv. 170.

 

[FN#444] Arab. “Al-Fut�h” lit. the victories; a euphemistic term for what is submitted to the “musculus guineaorum.”

 

[FN#445] Arab. “Fir�sah” lit. judging the points of a mare (faras). Of physiognomy, or rather judging by externals, curious tales are told by the Arabs. In Al-Mas’udi’s (chapt. lvi.) is the original of the camel blind of one eye, etc., which the genius of Voltaire has made famous throughout Europe.

 

[FN#446] I here quote Mr. Payne’s note. “Sic in the text; but the passage is apparently corrupt. It is not plain why a rosy complexion, blue eyes and tallness should be peculiar to women in love. Arab women being commonly short, swarthy and blackeyed, the attributes mentioned appear rather to denote the foreign origin of the woman; and it is probable, therefore, that this passage has by a copyist’s error, been mixed up with that which relates to the signs by which the mock physician recognised her strangerhood, the clause specifying the symptoms of her love-lorn condition having been crowded out in the process, an accident of no infrequent occurrence in the transcription of Oriental works.”

 

[FN#447] Most men would have suspected that it was her lover.

 

[FN#448] The sumptuary laws, compelling for instance the Jews to wear yellow turbans, and the Christians to carry girdles date from the Capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 636 by Caliph Omar. See vol. i. 77; and Terminal Essay � 11.

 

[FN#449] i.e. Our Sunday: the Jewish week ending with the Sabbath (Saturday). I have already noted this term for Saturn’s day, established as a God’s rest by Commandment No. iv. How it lost its honours amongst Christians none can say: the text in Col. ii. 16, 17, is insufficient to abolish an order given with such pomp and circumstance to, and obeyed, so strictly and universally by, the Hebrews, including the Founder of Christianity. The general idea is that the Jewish Sabbath was done away with by the Christian dispensation (although Jesus kept it with the usual scrupulous care), and that sundry of the Councils at Coloss� and Laodicea anathematised those who observed the Saturday after Israelitish fashion. With the day its object changed; instead of “keeping it holy,” as all pious Jews still do, the early Fathers converted it into the “Feast of the Resurrection,” which could not be kept too joyously. The “Sabbatismus” of the Sabbatarian Protestant who keeps holy the wrong day is a marvellous perversion and the Sunday feast of France, Italy, and Catholic countries generally is far more logical than the mortification day of England and the so-called Reformed countries.

 

[FN#450] Har�is, plur. of Har�sah: see vol. i. 131.

 

[FN#451] It would have been cooked on our Thursday night, or the Jewish Friday night and would be stale and indigestible on the next day.

 

[FN#452] Marw (Margiana), which the Turkomans pronounce “Mawr,”

is derived by Bournouf from the Sansk. Maru or Marw; and by Sir H. Rawlinson from Marz or Marj, the Lat. Margo; Germ. Mark; English March; Old French Marche and Neo-Lat. Marca. So Marzb�n, a Warden of the Marches: vol. iii. 256. The adj. is not Mar�z�, as stated in vol. iii. 222; but Marwazi, for which see Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 7, etc.: yet there are good writers who use “Mar�z�” as R�z� for a native of Rayy.

 

[FN#453] i.e. native of Rayy city. See vol. iv. 104.

 

[FN#454] Normally used for fuel and at times by funny men to be put into sweetmeats by way of practical joke: these are called “Nukl-i-Pishkil”=goat-dung bonbons. The tale will remind old Anglo-Indians of the two Bengal officers who were great at such “sells” and who “swopped” a spavined horse for a broken-down “buggy.”

 

[FN#455] In the text “khan�dik,” ditches, trenches; probably (as Mr. Payne suggests) a clerical or typographical error for “Fan�dik,” inns or caravanserais; the plural of “Funduk” (Span.

Fonda), for which see vol. viii. 184.

 

[FN#456] This sentence is supplied by Mr. Payne to remedy the incoherence of the text. Moslems are bound to see True Believers decently buried and the poor often beg alms for the funeral. Here the tale resembles the opening of Hajji Baba by Mr. Morier, that admirable picture of Persian manners and morals.

 

[FN#457] Arab. “Al-ajr” which has often occurred.

 

[FN#458] Arab. “Han�t,” i.e., leaves of the lotus-tree to be infused as a wash for the corpse; camphor used with cotton to close the mouth and other orifices; and, in the case of a wealthy man, rose-water, musk, ambergris, sandal-wood, and lignaloes for fumigation.

 

[FN#459] Which always begin with four “Takb�rs” and differ in many points from the usual orisons. See Lane (M. E. chapt.

xxviii.) who is, however, very superficial upon an intricate and interesting subject. He even neglects to mention the number of Ruk’�t (bows) usual at Cairo and the absence of prostration (suj�d) for which see vol. ii. 10.

 

[FN#460] Thus requiring all the ablutional offices to be repeated. The Shaykh, by handling the corpse, became ceremonially impure and required “Wuzu” before he could pray either at home or in the Mosque.

 

[FN#461] The Shaykh had left it when he went out to perform Wuzu.

 

[FN#462] Arab. “Satl”=the Lat. and Etruscan “Situla” and “Situlus,” a water-pot.

 

[FN#463] Arab. “Lahd, Luhd,” the niche or cell hollowed out in the side of the oblong trench: here the corpse is deposited and covered with palmfronds etc. to prevent the earth touching it.

See my Pilgrimage ii. 304.

 

[FN#464] For the incredible amount of torture which Eastern obstinacy will sometimes endure, see Al-Mas’udi’s tale of the miserable little old man who stole the ten purses, vol. viii. 153

et seq.

 

[FN#465] Arab. “Jar�dah” (whence the Jar�d-game) a palmfrond stripped of its leaves and used for a host of purposes besides flogging, chairs, sofas, bedsteads, cages, etc. etc. Tales of heroism in “eating stick” are always highly relished by the lower orders of Egyptians who pride themselves upon preferring the severest bastinado to paying the smallest amount of “rint.”

 

[FN#466] Arab. “N�w�s,” the hollow tower of masonry with a grating over the central well upon which the Magian corpse is placed to be torn by birds of prey: it is kept up by the Parsi population of Bombay and is known to Europeans as the “Tower of Silence.” N��s and N�w�s also mean a Pyrethrum, a fire-temple and have a whimsical resemblance to the Greek .

 

[FN#467] For Munkar and Nakir, the Interrogating Angels, see vol. v. iii. According to Al-Mas’udi (chapt. xxxi.) these names were given by the Egyptians to the thirteenth and fourteenth cubits marked on the Nilometer which, in his day, was expected to show seventeen.

 

[FN#468] The text (xi. 227) has “Tann�r”=an oven, evidently a misprint for “Kub�r”=tombs.

 

[FN#469] Arab. “‘An Ab�”=(a propitiatory offering) for my father. So in Marocco the “Powder-players” dedicate a shot to a special purpose or person, crying “To my sweetheart!” “To my dead!” “To my horse!” etc.

 

[FN#470] For this formula see vol. i. 65. It is technically called “Haukalah” and “Haulakah,” words in the third conjugation of increased triliterals, corresponding with the quadriliteral radicals and possessing the peculiar power of Kasr=abbreviation.

Of this same class is Basmalah (vol. v. 206; ix. 1).

 

[FN#471] This scene with the watch would be relished in the coffee-house, where the tricks of robbers, like a gird at the police, are always acceptable.

 

[FN#472] Arab. “L� af’al”; more commonly M� af’al. M� and L� are synonymous negative particles, differing, however, in application. M� (Gr. ) precedes definites, or indefinites: L�

and Lam (Gr. ) only indefinites as “L� il�ha” etc.

 

[FN#473] Alluding to the proverb, “What hast thou left behind thee, O As�m?” i.e., what didst thou see?

 

[FN#474] Arab. “Sayrafi,” s.s. as “Sarr�f’: see vol. i. 210.

 

[FN#475] Arab. “Al-Ma’rafah”=the place where the mane grows.

 

[FN#476] i.e. though the ass remain on thy hands.

 

[FN#477] “Halves,” i.e. of dirhams: see vol. ii. 37.

 

[FN#478] Arab. “Taannaf�,”=the Germ. lange Nase.

 

[FN#479] About forty shillings.

 

[FN#480] About �220.

 

[FN#481] Characteristically Eastern and Moslem is this action of the neighbours and bystanders. A walk through any Oriental city will show a crowd of people screaming and gesticulating, with thundering yells and lightning glances, as if about to close in mortal fight, concerning some matter which in no way concerns them. Our European cockneys and badauds mostly content themselves with staring and mobbing.

 

[FN#482] Arab. “Muruwwah,” lit. manliness, especially in the sense of generosity. So the saying touching the “Miy�n,” or Moslem of India:—

 

F� ‘l-riuz Kuwwah:

F� ‘I Hind� muruwwah.

 

When rice have strength, you’ll haply find, In Hindi man, a manly mind.

 

[FN#483] i.e. His claim is just and reasonable.

 

[FN#484] I have noted (vol. i. 17) that good Moslems shun a formal oath, although “by Allah!” is ever on their tongues. This they seem to have borrowed from Christianity, which expressly forbade it, whilst Christians cannot insist upon it too much. The scandalous scenes lately enacted in a certain legislative assembly because an M.P. did not believe in a practice denounced by his creed, will be the wonder and ridicule of our descendants.

 

[FN#485] Most Arabs believe that the black cloud which sometimes produces, besides famine, contagious fevers and pestilence, like that which in 1799 depopulated the cities and country of Barbary, is led by a king locust, the Sultan Jar�d.

 

[FN#486] The text is hopelessly corrupt, and we have no other with which to collate. Apparently a portion of the tale has fallen out, making a nonsens of its ending, which suggests that the kite gobbled up the two locusts at her ease, and left the falcon to himself.

 

[FN#487] The lines have occurred in vol. i. 265. I quote Mr.

Payne.

 

[FN#488] The fabliau is a favourite in the East; this is the third time it has occurred with minor modifications. Of course the original was founded on fact, and the fact was and is by no means uncommon.

 

[FN#489] This would hardly be our Western way of treating a proposal of the kind; nor would the European novelist neglect so grand