The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 9 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (best authors to read .TXT) 📖

sensitiveness such as would in some measure justify the seemingly extravagant statements of their poetical admirers, of which the following anecdote (quoted by Ibn Khellikan from the historian Et Teberi) is a fair specimen. Ardeshir ibn Babek (Artaxerxes I.), the first Sassanian King of Persia (A.D. 226-242), having long unsuccessfully besieged El Hedr, a strong city of Mesopotamia belonging to the petty King Es Satiroun, at last obtained possession of it by the treachery of the owner’s daughter Nezireh and married the latter, this having been the price stipulated by her for the betrayal to him of the place. “It happened afterwards that, one night, as she was unable to sleep and turned from side to side in the bed, Ardeshir asked her what prevented her from sleeping. She replied, ‘I never yet slept on a rougher bed than this; I feel something irk me.’ He ordered the bed to be changed, but she was still unable to sleep. Next morning, she complained of her side, and on examination, a myrtle-leaf was found adhering to a fold of the skin, from which it had drawn blood. Astonished at this circumstance, Ardeshir asked her if it was this that had kept her awake and she replied in the affirmative. ‘How then,’

asked he, ‘did your father bring you up?’ She answered, ‘He spread me a bed of satin and clad me in silk and fed me with marrow and cream and the honey of virgin bees and gave me pure wine to drink.’ Quoth Ardeshir, ‘The same return which you made your father for his kindness would be made much more readily to me’; and bade bind her by the hair to the tail of a horse, which galloped off with her and killed her.” It will be remembered that the true princess, in the well-known German popular tale, is discovered by a similar incident to that of the myrtle-leaf. I quote this excellent note from Mr. Payne (ix. 148), only regretting that annotation did not enter into his plan of producing The Nights. Amongst Hindu story-tellers a phenomenal softness of the skin is a lieu commun: see Vikram and the Vampire (p.285, “Of the marvellous delicacy of their Queens”); and the Tale of the Sybarite might be referred to in the lines given above.

 

[FN#513]

“(55) Indeed joyous on that day are the people of Paradise in their employ;

(56) In shades, on bridal couches reclining they and their wives:

(57) Fruits have they therein and whatso they desire.

(58) ‘Peace!’ shall be a word from a compassionating Lord.”

Koran xxxvi. 55-58, the famous Chapt. “Y� S�n;” which most educated Moslems learn by heart. See vol. iii. 19. In addition to the proofs there offered that the Moslem Paradise is not wholly sensual I may quote, “No soul wotteth what coolth of the eyes is reserved (for the good) in recompense of their works” (Koran lxx.

17). The Paradise of eating, drinking, and copulating which Mr.

Palgrave (Arabia, i. 368) calls “an everlasting brothel between forty celestial concubines” was preached solely to the baser sort of humanity which can understand and appreciate only the pleasures of the flesh. To talk of spiritual joys before the Badawin would have been a nonsens, even as it would be to the roughs of our great cities.

 

[FN#514] Arab. “Lajlaj” lit.=rolling anything round the mouth when eating; hence speaking inarticulately, being tongue-tied, stuttering, etc.

 

[FN#515] The classical “Phylarchs,” who had charge of the Badawin.

 

[FN#516] “The Jab�birah” (giant-rulers of Syria) and the “Ak�sirah” (Chosro�s-Kings of Persia).

 

[FN#517] This shows (and we are presently told) that the intruder was Al-Khizr, the “Green Prophet,” for whom see vol. iv. 175.

 

[FN#518] i.e. of salvation supposed to radiate from all Prophets, esp. from Mohammed.

 

[FN#519] This formula which has occurred from the beginning (vol.i.1) is essentially Koranic: See Chapt. li. 18-19 and passim.

 

[FN#520] This trick of the priest hidden within the image may date from the days of the vocal Memnon, and was a favourite in India, especially at the shrine of Somnauth (Soma-n�th), the Moon-god, Atergatis Aphrodite, etc.

 

[FN#521] Arab. “Alm�s”=Gr. Adamas. In opposition to the learned ex-Professor Maskelyne I hold that the cutting of the diamond is of very ancient date. Mr. W. M. Flinders Patrie (The Pyramids and Temples of Gizah, London: Field and Tuer, 1884) whose studies have thoroughly demolished the freaks and unfacts, the fads and fancies of the “Pyramidists,” and who may be said to have raised measurement to the rank of a fine art, believes that the Euritic statues of old Egypt such as that of Khufu (Cheops) in the Bulak Museum were drilled by means of diamonds. AthenFus tells us (lib.

v.) that the Indians brought pearls and diamonds to the procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus; and this suggests cutting, as nothing can be less ornamental than the uncut stone.

 

[FN#522] i.e. as if they were holding a “Durbar”; the King’s idol in the Sadr or place of honour and the others ranged about it in their several ranks.

 

[FN#523] These words are probably borrowed from the taunts of Elijah to the priests of Baal (1 Kings xviii. 27). Both Jews and Moslems wilfully ignored the proper use of the image or idol which was to serve as a Keblah or direction of prayer and an object upon which to concentrate thought and looked only to the abuse of the ignoble vulgus who believe in its intrinsic powers.

Christendom has perpetuated the dispute: Romanism affects statues and pictures: Greek orthodoxy pictures and not statues and the so-called Protestantism ousts both.

 

[FN#524] Arab. “Sa’�dah”=worldly prosperity and future happiness.

 

[FN#525] Arab. “Al-Ahd wa al-M�s�k” the troth pledged between the Mur�d or apprentice-Darwaysh and the Shaykh or Master-Darwaysh binding the former to implicit obedience etc.

 

[FN#526] Arab. “Taakh�r” lit. postponement and meaning acting with deliberation as opposed to “Ajal” (haste), precipitate action condemned in the Koran lxv. 38.

 

[FN#527] i.e. I have been lucky enough to get this and we will share it amongst us.

 

[FN#528] i.e. of saving me from being ravished.

 

[FN#529] Sa’�dah=the auspicious (fem.): Mub�rakah,=the blessed; both names showing that the bearers were Moslemahs.

 

[FN#530] i.e. the base-born from whom base deeds may be expected.

 

[FN#531] Arab. “Badlat Kun�z�yah=such a dress as would be found in enchanted hoards (Kun�z): .g. Prince Esterhazy’s diamond jacket.

 

[FN#532] The lieu d’aisance in Eastern crafts is usually a wooden cage or framework fastened outside the gunwale very cleanly but in foul weather very uncomfortable and even dangerous.

 

[FN#533] Arab. “Ghull,” a collar of iron or other metal, sometimes made to resemble the Chinese Kza or Cangue, a kind of ambulant pillory, serving like the old stocks which still show in England the veteris vestigia ruris. See Davis, “The Chinese,” i.

241. According to Al-Siy�ti (p. 362) the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil ordered the Christians to wear these Ghulls round the neck, yellow head-gear and girdles, to use wooden stirrups and to place figures of devils before their houses. The writer of The Nights presently changes Ghull to “chains” and “fetters of iron.”

 

[FN#534] Arab. “Y� ful�n,” O certain person! See vol. iii. 191.

 

[FN#535] Father of Harun al-Rashid A.H. 158-169 (=775-785) third Abbaside who both in the Mac. and the Bul. Edits. is called “the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbas.” He was a good poet and a man of letters, also a fierce persecutor of the “Zindiks” (Al-Siyuti 278), a term especially applied to those who read the Zend books and adhered to Zoroastrianism, although afterwards applied to any heretic or atheist. He made many changes at Meccah and was the first who had a train of camels laden with snow for his refreshment along a measured road of 700 miles (Gibbon, chapt.

lii.). He died of an accident when hunting: others say he was poisoned after leaving his throne to his sons Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid. The name means “Heaven-directed” and must not be confounded with the title of the twelfth Shi’ah Im�m Mohammed Abu al-K�sim born at Sarramanrai A.H. 255 whom Sale (sect. iv.) calls “Mahdi or Director” and whose expected return has caused and will cause so much trouble in Al-Islam.

 

[FN#536] This speciosum miraculum must not be held a proof that the tale was written many years after the days of Al-Rashid.

Miracles grow apace in the East and a few years suffice to mature them. The invasion of Abraha the Abyssinia took place during the year of Mohammed’s birth; and yet in an early chapter of the Koran (No. cv.) written perhaps forty-five years afterwards, the small-pox is turned into a puerile and extravagant miracle. I myself became the subject of a miracle in Sind which is duly chronicled in the family-annals of a certain Pir or religious teacher. See History of Sindh (p. 23O) and Sind Revisited (i.

156).

 

[FN#537] In the texts, “Sixth.”

 

[FN#538] Arab. “Najis”=ceremonially impure especially the dog’s month like the cow’s month amongst the Hindus; and requiring after contact the Wuzu-ablution before the Moslem can pray.

 

[FN#539] Arab. “Akl al-hashamah” (hashamah=retinue; hishmah=reverence, bashfulness) which may also mean “decorously and respectfully,” according to the vowel-points.

 

[FN#540] i.e. as the Viceregent of Allah and Vicar of the Prophet.

 

[FN#541] For the superiority of mankind to the Jinn see vol.

viii. 5;44.

 

[FN#542] According to Al-Siyuti, Harun al-Rashid prayed every day a hundred bows.

 

[FN#543] As the sad end of his betrothed was still to be accounted for.

 

[FN#544] For the martyrdom of the drowned see vol. i, 171, to quote no other places.

 

[FN#545] i.e. if he have the power to revenge himself. The sentiment is Christian rather than Moslem.

 

[FN#546] i.e. the power acquired (as we afterwards learn) by the regular praying of the dawn-prayer. It is not often that The Nights condescend to point a moral or inculcate a lesson as here; and we are truly thankful for the immunity.

 

[FN#547] Arab. “Mus�fahah” which, I have said, serves for our shaking hands: and extends over wide regions. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other without squeezing the fingers and then raise the latter to the forehead. Pilgrimage ii.

332, has also been quoted.

 

[FN#548] Equivalent to our saying about an ill wind, etc.

 

[FN#549] A proof of his extreme simplicity and bonhomie.

 

[FN#550] Arab. “D�rf�l”=the Gr. {Greek} later {Greek}, suggesting that the writer had read of Arion in Herodotus i. 23.

 

[FN#551] ‘A�j; I can only suggest, with due diffidence, that this is intended for K�ch the well-known Baloch city in Persian Carmania (Kirm�n) and meant by Richardson’s “Koch � buloch.” But as the writer borrows so much from Al-Mas’udi it may possibly be A�k in S�st�n where stood the heretical city “Sh�drak,” chapt.

cxxii.

 

[FN#552] i.e. The excellent (or surpassing) Religious. Shaykhah, the fem. of Shaykh, is a she-chief, even the head of the dancing-girls will be entitled “Shaykhah.”

 

[FN#553] The curtain would screen her from the sight of men-invalids and probably hung across the single room of the “Z�wiyah” or hermit’s cell. The curtain is noticed in the tales of two other reverend women; vols. iv. 155 and v. 257.

 

[FN#554] Abdullah met his wife on Thursday, the night of which would amongst Moslems be Friday night.

 

[FN#555] i.e. with Sa’idah.

 

End of Project Gutenberg’s The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, V9