The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook offline txt] 📗

my skin and will grumble because he cannot gain more.

 

[FN#122] Arab. “H�lah mutawassitah,” a phrase which has a European Touch.

 

[FN#123] In the text “Jauharj�yyah,” common enough in Egypt and Syria, an Arab. plur. of an Arabised Turkish sing.—ji for—ch� =

(crafts-) man.

 

[FN#124] We may suppose some years may have passed in this process and that Alaeddin from a lad of fifteen had reached the age of manhood. The H. V. declares that for many a twelve month the mother and son lived by cotton spinning and the sale of the plate

 

[FN#125] i.e. Full moon of full moons: See vol. iii. 228. It is pronounced “Badroo’l-Budoor,” hence Galland’s ” Badr-oul-boudour. “

 

[FN#126] In the H. V. Alaeddin “bethought him of a room adjacent to the Baths where he might sit and see the Princess through the door-chinks, when she raised her veil before the handmaids and eunuchs.”

 

[FN#127] This is the common conceit of the brow being white as day and the hair black as night.

 

[FN#128] Such a statement may read absurdly to the West but it is true in the East. “Selim” had seen no woman’s face unveiled, save that of his sable mother Rosebud in Morier’s Tale of Yeldoz, the wicked woman (“The Mirza,” vol. iii. 135). The H. V. adds that Alaeddin’s mother was old and verily had little beauty even in her youth. So at the sight of the Princess he learnt that Allah had created women exquisite in loveliness and heart-ensnaring; and at first glance the shaft of love pierced his heart and he fell to the ground afaint He loved her with a thousand lives and, when his mother questioned him, “his lips formed no friendship with his speech.”

 

[FN#129] “There is not a present (Teshurah) to bring to the Man of God” (1 Sam. ix. 7), and Menachem explains Teshurah as a gift offered with the object of being admitted to the presence. See also the offering of oil to the King in Isaiah lvii. 9. Even in Maundriell’s Day Travels (p. 26) it was counted uncivil to visit a dignitary without an offering in hand.

 

[FN#130] As we shall see further on, the magical effect of the Ring and the Lamp extend far and wide over the physique and morale of the owner: they turn a “raw laddie” into a finished courtier, warrior, statesman, etc.

 

[FN#131] In Eastern states the mere suspicion of having such an article would expose the suspected at least to torture. Their practical system of treating “treasure trove,” as I saw when serving with my regiment in Gujar�t (Guzerat), is at once to imprison and “molest” the finder, in order to make sure that he has not hidden any part of his find.

 

[FN#132] Here the MS. text is defective, the allusion is, I suppose, to the Slave of the Lamp.

 

[FN#133] In the H. V. the King retired into his private apartment; and, dismissing all save the Grand Wazir, “took cognisance of special matters” before withdrawing to the Harem.

 

[FN#134] The lev�e, Divan or Darb�r being also a lit de justice and a Court of Cassation: See vol. i. 29.

 

[FN#135] All this is expressed by the Arabic in one word “Tamann�.” Galland adds pour marquer qu’il etait pr�t � perdre s’il y manquait; and thus he conveys a wrong idea.

 

[FN#136] This would be still the popular address, nor is it considered rude or slighting. In John (ii. 4) “Atto,” the Heb.

Eshah, is similarly used, not complimentarily, but in popular speech.

 

[FN#137] This sounds ridiculous enough in English, but not in German, e.g. Deine K�nigliche Hoheit is the formula de rigueur when an Austrian officer, who always addresses brother-soldiers in the familiar second person, is speaking to a camarade who is also a royalty.

 

[FN#138] “Sur�yy�t (lit. = the Pleiades) and “Sham’�d�n” a would-be Arabic plur. of the Persian “Sham’ad�n”=candlestick, chandelier, for which more correctly Sham’ad�n�t is used.

 

[FN#139] i.e., betrothed to her—j’agr�e la proposition, says Galland.

 

[FN#140] Here meaning Eunuch-officers and officials. In the cdlxxvith Night of this volume the word is incorrectly written gh�t in the singular.

 

[FN#141] In the H. V. Alaeddin on hearing this became as if a thunderbolt had stricken him, and losing consciousness, swooned away.

 

[FN#142] These calls for food at critical times, and oft-recurring allusions to eating are not yet wholly obsolete amongst the civilised of the xixth century. The ingenious M. Jules Verne often enlivens a tedious scene by Dejeunons! And French travellers, like English, are not unready to talk of food and drink, knowing that the subject is never displeasing to their readers.

 

[FN#143] The H. V. gives a sketch of the wedding. “And when the ceremonies ended at the palace with pomp and parade and pageant, and the night was far spent, the eunuchs led the Wazir’s son into the bridal chamber. He was the first to seek his couch; then the Queen his mother-in-law, came into him leading the bride, and followed by her suite. She did with her virgin daughter as parents are wont to do, removed her wedding-raiment, and donning a night-dress, placed her in her bridegroom’s arms. Then, wishing her all joy, she with her ladies went away and shut the door. At that instant came the Jinni,” etc.

 

[FN#144] The happy idea of the wedding night in the water-closet is repeated from the tale of Nur-al-D�n Ali Hasan (vol. i. 221), and the mishap of the Hunchback bridegroom.

 

[FN#145] For the old knightly practice of sleeping with a drawn sword separating man and maid see vol. vii. 353 and Mr.

Clouston’s “Popular Tales and Fictions,” vol. i. 316. In Poland the intermediary who married by procuration slept alongside the bride in all his armour. The H. V. explains, “He (Alaeddin) also lay a naked sword between him and the Princess so she might perceive that he was ready to die by that blade should he attempt to do aught of villainy by the bride.”

 

[FN#146] Galland says: Ils ne s’aper�urent que de l’�branlement du lit et que de leur transport d’un lieu � l’autre: c’�tait bien assez pour leur donner une frayeur qu’il est ais� d’imaginer.

 

[FN#147] Galland very unnecessarily makes the Wazir’s son pass into the wardrobe (garderobe) to dress himself.

 

[FN#148] Professional singing and dancing girls: Properly the word is the fem. Of ‘ lim = a learned man; but it has been anglicised by Byron’s

 

“The long chibouque’s dissolving cloud supply Where dance the Almahs to wild minstrelsy.”

—(The Corsair, ii. 2.)

 

They go about the streets with unveiled faces and are seldom admitted into respectable Harems, although on festal occasions they perform in the court or in front of the house, but even this is objected to by the Mrs. Grundy of Egypt. Lane (M.E. chap.

xviii.) derives with Saint Jerome the word from the Heb. or Phoenician Almah = a virgin, a girl, a singing-girl; and thus explains “Al�moth” in Psalms xlvi. and I Chron. xv. 20. Parkhurst (s.v. ‘Alamah = an undeflowered virgin) renders Job xxxix. 30, “the way of a man with a maid” (bi-�lmah). The way of a man in his virgin state, shunning youthful lust and keeping himself “pure and unspotted.”

 

[FN#149] The text reads “Rafa’ ” (he raised) “al-Bashkh�nah”

which in Suppl. Nights (ii. 119) is a hanging, a curtain.

Apparently it is a corruption of the Pers. “Paskhkh�nah,” a mosquito-curtain.

 

[FN#150] The father suspected that she had not gone to bed a clean maid.

 

[FN#151] Arab. Aysh = Ayyu Shayyin and Laysh = li ayyi Shayyin.

This vulgarism, or rather popular corruption, is of olden date and was used by such a purist as Al-Mutanabbi in such a phrase as “Aysh Khabara-k?” = how art thou? See Ibn Khallikan, iii. 79.

 

[FN#152] In the H. V. the Minister sends the Chob-d�r= = rod-bearer, mace-bearer, usher, etc.

 

[FN#153] In the text S�hal for Sahal, again the broad “Doric” of Syria.

 

[FN#154] Arab. Dahab ramli = gold dust washed out of the sand, placer-gold. I must excuse myself for using this Americanism, properly a diluvium or deposit of sand, and improperly (Bartlett) a find of drift gold. The word, like many mining terms in the Far West, is borrowed from the Spaniards; it is not therefore one of the many American vulgarisms which threaten hopelessly to defile the pure well of English speech.

 

[FN#155] Abra. “Ratl,” by Europeans usually pronounced “Rotl”

(Rotolo).

 

[FN#156] In the H. V. she returns from the bazar; and, “seeing the house filled with so many persons in goodliest attire, marvelled greatly. Then setting down the meat lately bought she would have taken off her veil, but Alaeddin prevented her and said,” etc.

 

[FN#157] The word is popularly derived from Serai in Persian = a palace; but it comes from the Span. and Port. Cerrar = to shut up, and should be written with the reduplicated liquid.

 

[FN#158] In the H. V. the dresses and ornaments of the slaves were priced at ten millions (Kar�r a crore) of gold coins. I have noticed that Messer Marco “Milione” did not learn his high numerals in Arabia, but that India might easily have taught them to him.

 

[FN#159] Arab. “R�ih yas�r,” peasant’s language.

 

[FN#160] Arab. K�‘ah, the apodyterium or undressing room upon which the vestibule of the Hammam opens. See the plan in Lane’s M. E. chaps. xvi. The K�r’ah is now usually called “Maslakh” =

stripping-room.

 

[FN#161] Arab. “Hammam-hu” = went through all the operations of the Hammam, scraping, kneading, soaping, wiping and so forth.

 

[FN#162] For this aphrodisiac see vol. vi. 60. The subject of aphrodisiacs in the East would fill a small library: almost every medical treatise ends in a long disquisition upon fortifiers, provocatives’ etc. We may briefly divide them into three great classes. The first is the medicinal, which may be either external or internal. The second is the mechanical, such as scarification’

flagellation, and the application of insects as practiced by certain savage races. There is a venerable Joe Miller of an old Brahmin whose young wife always insisted, each time before he possessed her, upon his being stung by a bee in certain parts.

The third is magical superstitious and so forth [FN#163] This may sound exaggerated to English ears, but a petty Indian Prince, such as the G�ikw�r, or Rajah of Baroda, would be preceded in state processions by several led horses all whose housings and saddles were gold studded with diamonds. The sight made one’s mouth water.

 

[FN#164] i.e. the �Arab al-‘Arb�; for which see vols. i. 112; v.

101.

 

[FN#165] Arab. “Al-Kand�l al-‘aj�b:” here its magical virtues are specified and remove many apparent improbabilities from the tale.

 

[FN#166] This was the highest of honours. At Abyssinian Harar even the Grandees were compelled to dismount at the door of the royal “compound.” See my “First Footsteps in East Africa,” p.

296.

 

[FN#167] “The right hand” seems to me a European touch in Galland’s translation, leur chef mit Aladdin a sa droite. Amongst Moslems the great man sits in the sinistral corner of the Divan as seen from the door, so the place of honour is to his left.

 

[FN#168] Arab. “M�sik�,” classically “Musik�” ={Greek}: the Pers. form is M�sik�r; and the Arab. equivalent is Al-Lahn. In the H. V. the King made a signal and straightway drums (dhol) and trumpets (traf�r) and all manner wedding instruments struck up on every side.

 

[FN#169] Arab. Marmar Sum�ki=porphyry of which ancient Egypt supplied the finest specimens. I found a vein of it in the Anti-Libanus. Strange to say, the quarries which produced the far-famed giallo antico, verd’ antico (serpentine limestone) and rosso