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

antico (mostly a porphyry) worked by the old Nilotes, are now unknown to us.

 

[FN#170] i.e. velvets with gold embroidery: see vol. viii. 201.

 

[FN#171] The Arabic says, “There was a kiosque with four-and-twenty alcoves (L�w�n, for which see vols. iv. 71, vi. 347) all builded of emerald, etc., and one remained with the kiosque (kushk) unfinished.” I adopt Galland’s reading salon � vingt-quatre crois�es which are mentioned in the Arab. text towards the end of the tale, and thus avoid the confusion between kiosque and window. In the H. V. there is a domed belvedere (b�rah-dari-i-gumbaz-d�r), four-sided, with six doors on each front (i. e.

twenty-four), and all studded with diamonds, etc.

 

[FN#172] In Persia this is called “P�-and�z,” and must be prepared for the Shah when he deigns to visit a subject. It is always of costly stuffs, and becomes the perquisite of the royal attendants.

 

[FN#173] Here the European hand again appears to me: the Sultan as a good Moslem should have made the Wuz�-ablution and prayed the dawn-prayers before doing anything worldly.

 

[FN#174] Arab. F� ghuz�ni z�lika,” a peculiar phrase, Ghazn=a crease, a wrinkle.

 

[FN#175] In the H. V. the King “marvelled to see Alaeddin’s mother without her veil and magnificently adorned with costly jewels and said in his mind, �Methought she was a grey-haired crone, but I find her still in the prime of life and comely to look upon, somewhat after the fashion of Badr al-Bud�r.’ ” This also was one of the miracles of the Lamp.

 

[FN#176] For this word see vols. i. 46, vii. 326. A Joe Miller is told in Western India of an old General Officer boasting his knowledge of Hindostani. “How do you say, Tell a plain story, General?” asked one of the hearers, and the answer was, “Mayd�n k� b�t bolo!” = “speak a word about the plain” (or level space).

 

[FN#177] The prehistoric Arabs: see supra p. 98.

 

[FN#178] Popularly, Jer�d, the palm-frond used as javelin: see vol. vi. 263.

 

[FN#179] In order to keep off the evil eye, one of the functions of iron and steel: see vol. ii. 316.

 

[FN#180] The H. V. adds, “Little did the Princess know that the singers were fairies whom the Slave of the Lamp had brought together.”

 

[FN#181] Alexander the Great: see v. 252, x. 57. The H. V. adds, “Then only one man and one woman danced together, one with other, till midnight, when Alaeddin and the Princess stood up, for it was the wont of China in those days that bride and bridegroom perform together in presence of the wedding company.”

 

[FN#182] The exceptional reserve of this and other descriptions makes M. H. Zotenberg suspect that the tale was written for one of the Mameluke Princesses: I own to its modesty but I doubt that such virtue would have recommended it to the dames in question.

The H. V. adds a few details:—“Then, when the bride and bridegroom had glanced and gazed each at other’s face, the Princess rejoiced with excessive joy to behold his comeliness, and he exclaimed, in the courtesy of his gladness, �O happy me, whom thou deignest, O Queen of the Fair, to honour despite mine unworth, seeing that in thee all charms and graces are perfected.’ “

 

[FN#183] The term has not escaped ridicule amongst Moslems. A common fellow having stood in his way the famous wit Ab� al-‘Ayn�

asked “What is that?” “A man of the Sons of Adam” was the reply.

“Welcome, welcome,” cried the other, “Allah grant thee length of days. I deemed that all his sons were dead.” See Ibn Khallikan iii. 57.

 

[FN#184] This address to an inanimate object (here a window) is highly idiomatic and must be cultivated by the practical Arabist.

In the H. V. the unfinished part is the four-and-twentieth door of the fictitious (ja’al�) palace.

 

[FN#185] This is true Orientalism, a personification or incarnation which Galland did not think proper to translate.

 

[FN#186] Arab. “La’ab al-And�b;” the latter word is from “Nadb”

= brandishing or throwing the javelin.

 

[FN#187] The “mothers” are the prime figures, the daughters being the secondary. For the ” ‘Ilm al-Ram!” = (Science of the sand) our geomancy, see vol. iii. 269, and D’Herbelot’s sub. v.

Raml or Reml.

 

[FN#188] This is from Galland, whose certaine boisson chaude evidently means tea. It is preserved in the H.V.

 

[FN#189] i.e. his astrolabe, his “Z�j” or table of the stars, his almanack, etc. For a highly fanciful derivation of the “Arstable” see Ibn Khallikan (iii. 580). He makes it signify “balance or lines (Pers. �Astur’) of the sun,” which is called “L�b” as in the case of wicked Queen L�b (The Nights, vol. vii.

296). According to him the Astrolabe was suggested to Ptolemy by an armillary sphere which had accidentally been flattened by the hoof of his beast: this is beginning late in the day, the instrument was known to the ancient Assyrians. Chardin (Voyages ii. 149) carefully describes the Persian variety of—

 

“The cunning man highs Sidrophil (as Will. Lilly was called). Amongst other things he wore at his girdle an astrolabe not bigger than the hollow of a man’s hand, often two to three inches in diameter and looking at a distance like a medal.” These men practiced both natural astrology =

astronomy, as well as judicial astrology which foretells events and of which Kepler said that “she, albeit a fool, was the daughter of a wise mother, to whose support and life the silly maid was indispensable.” Isidore of Seville (A. D. 600-636) was the first to distinguish between the two branches, and they flourished side by side till Newton’s day. Hence the many astrological terms in our tongue, e.g. consider, contemplate, disaster, jovial, mercurial, saturnine, etc.

 

[FN#190] In the H. V. “New brass lamps for old ones! who will exchange ?” So in the story of the Fisherman’s son, a Jew who had been tricked of a cock, offers to give new rings for old rings.

See Jonathan Scott’s excerpts from the Wortley-Montague MSS. vol.

vi. pp. 210 12 This is one of the tales which I have translated for vol. iv.

 

[FN#191] The H. V. adds that Alaeddin loved to ride out ahunting and had left the city for eight days whereof three had passed by.

 

[FN#192] Galland makes her say, H� bien folle, veux-tu me dire pourqoui tu ris? The H. V. renders “Cease, giddy head, why laughest thou?” and the vulgate “Well, giggler,” said the Princess, etc.

 

[FN#193] Nothing can be more improbable than this detail, but upon such abnormal situations almost all stones, even in our most modern “Society-novels,” depend and the cause is clear—without them there would be no story. And the modern will, perhaps, suggest that “the truth was withheld for a higher purpose, for the working out of certain ends.” In the H. V Alaeddin, when about to go ahunting, always placed the Lamp high up on the cornice with all care lest any touch it.

 

[FN#194] The H. V. adds, “The Magician, when he saw the Lamp, at once knew that it must be the one he sought; for he knew that all things, great and small, appertaining to the palace [FN#195] In truly Oriental countries the Wazir is expected to know everything, and if he fail in this easy duty he may find himself in sore trouble.

 

[FN#196] i.e. must he obeyed.

 

[FN#197] We see that “China” was in those days the normal Oriental “despotism tempered by assassination.”

 

[FN#198] In the H. V. Alaeddin promises, “if I fail to find and fetch the Princess, I will myself cut off my head and cast it before the throne.” Hindus are adepts in suicide and this self-decapitation, which sounds absurd further West, is quite possible to them.

 

[FN#199] In Galland Alaeddin unconsciously rubbed the ring against un petit roc, to which he clung in order to prevent falling into the stream. In the H. V. “The bank was high and difficult of descent and the youth would have rolled down headlong had he not struck upon a rock two paces from the bottom and remained hanging over the water. This mishap was of the happiest for during his fall he struck the stone and rubbed his ring against it,” etc.

 

[FN#200] In the H. V. he said, “First save me that I fall not into the stream and then tell me where is the pavilion thou builtest for her and who hath removed it.”

 

[FN#201] Alluding to the preparatory washing, a mere matter of cleanliness which precedes the formal Wuz�-ablution.

 

[FN#202] In the H. V. the Princess ends with, “I had made this resolve that should he approach me with the design to win his wish perforce, I would destroy my life. By day and by night I abode in fear of him; but now at the sight of thee my heart is heartened.”

 

[FN#203] The Fellah had a natural fear of being seen in fine gear, which all would have supposed to be stolen goods; and Alaeddin was justified in taking it perforce, because necessitas non habet legem. See a similar exchange of dress in Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes,” p. 91. In Galland the peasant when pressed consents; and in the H. V. Alaeddin persuades him by a gift of money.

 

[FN#204] i.e. which would take effect in the shortest time.

 

[FN#205] Her modesty was startled by the idea of sitting: at meat with a strange man and allowing him to make love to her.

 

[FN#206] In the text Kid�, pop. for Ka-z�lika. In the H. V. the Magician replies to the honeyed speech of the Princess, “O my lady, we in Africa have not so gracious customs as the men of China. This day I have learned of thee a new courtesy which I shall ever keep in mind.”

 

[FN#207] Galland makes the Princess poison the Maghrabi, which is not gallant. The H. V. follows suit and describes the powder as a mortal poison.

 

[FN#208] Contrast this modesty with the usual scene of reunion after severance, as in the case of Kamar al-Zam�n and immodest Queen Bud�r, vol. iii. pp. 302-304.

 

[FN#209] His dignity forbade him to walk even the length of a carpet: see vol. vii. for this habit of the Mameluke Beys. When Harun al-Rashid made his famous pilgrimage afoot from Baghdad to Meccah (and he was the last of the Caliphs who performed this rite), the whole way was spread with a “P�-and�z” of carpets and costly cloths.

 

[FN#210] The proverb suggests our “par nobile fratrum,” a pair resembling each other as two halves of a split bean.

 

[FN#211] In the H. V. “If the elder Magician was in the East, the other was in the West; but once a year, by their skill in geomancy, they had tidings of each other.”

 

[FN#212] The act was religiously laudable, but to the Eastern, as to the South European mind, fair play is not a jewel; moreover the story-teller may insinuate that vengeance would be taken only by foul and unlawful means—the Black Art, perjury, murder and so forth

 

[FN#213] For this game, a prime favourite in Egypt, see vol. vi.

145, De Sacy (Chrestomathie i. 477) and his authorities Hyde, Syntagma Dissert. ii. 374, P. Labat, “Memoires du Chev d’Arvieux,” iii. 321; Thevenot, “Voyage du Levant,” p. 107, and Niebuhr, “Voyages,” i. 139, Plate 25, fig. H.

 

[FN#214] Evidently=”(jeu de) dames” (supposed to have been invented in Paris during the days of the Regency: see Littr�); and, although in certain Eastern places now popular, a term of European origin. It is not in Galland. According to Ibn Khallikan (iii. 69)