Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, Sir Richard Francis Burton [best short books to read .TXT] 📗

the Impatient.” The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Z�d (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar = better) and superlative (bih-tarin=best).

 

[FN#177] i.e. the moiety kept by the bridegroom, a contingent settlement paid at divorce or on the death of the husband.

 

[FN#178] Arab. “Rumh”=the horseman’s lance not the footman’s spear.

 

[FN#179] i.e. became a highwayman (a time-honoured and honourable career) in order to collect money for completing the dowry.

 

[FN#180] i.e. to the bride, the wedding-day; not to be confounded with “going in unto” etc.

 

[FN#181] Probably meaning that she saw the eyes espying through the crevice without knowing whose they were.

 

[FN#182] A fancy name intended to be Persian [FN#183] i.e. thy Harem, thy women.

 

[FN#184] i.e. thy life hath been unduly prolonged.

 

[FN#185] See Chavis and Cazotte, “Story of Ravia (Arw�!) the Resigned.” D�db�n (Persian)=one who looks to justice, a name hardly deserved in this case.

 

[FN#186] For this important province and city of Persia, see Al-Mas’ud�, ii. 2; iv. 86, etc. It gave one of the many names to the Caspian Sea. The adjective is Tabari, whereas Tabar�ni=native of Tiberias (Tabariyah).

 

[FN#187] Zor-kh�n=Lord Violence, and K�r-d�n=Business-knower; both Persian.

 

[FN#188] “Arw�” written with a terminal of y� is a woman’s P.N.

in Arabic.

 

[FN#189] i.e. Not look down upon me with eyes of contempt. This “marrying below one” is still an Eastern idea, very little known to women in the West.

 

[FN#190] Chavis and Cazotte call the Dabb�s a “dabour” and explain it as a “sort of scepter used by Eastern Princes, which serves also as a weapon.” For the Dabb�s, or mace, see vol. vi.

249.

 

[FN#191] i.e. Let thy purposes be righteous as thine outward profession.

 

[FN#192] See vol. vi. 130. This is another lieu commun amongst Moslems; and its unfact requires only statement.

 

[FN#193] Afterwards called his “chamberlain,” i.e. guardian of the Harem-door.

 

[FN#194] i.e. Chosro�s, whom Chavis and Cazotte make “Cyrus.”

 

[FN#195] Arab. “T�kiyah,” used for the Persian Takhtraw�n, common in The Nights.

 

[FN#196] Arab. “Kubbah,” a dome-shaped tent, as elsewhere.

 

[FN#197] This can refer only to Abu al-Khayr’s having been put to death on Kardan’s charge, although the taleteller, with characteristic inconsequence, neglected to mention the event.

 

[FN#198] Not referring to skull sutures, but to the forehead, which is poetically compared with a page of paper upon which Destiny writes her irrevocable decrees.

 

[FN#199] Said in the grimmest earnest, not jestingly, as in vol.

iv. 264.

 

[FN#200] i.e. the lex talionis, which is the essence of Moslem, and indeed, of all criminal jurisprudence. We cannot wonder at the judgment of Queen Arwa: even Confucius, the mildest and most humane of lawgivers, would not pardon the man who allowed his father’s murderer to live. The Moslem lex talionis (Koran ii.

173) is identical with that of the Jews (Exod. xxi. 24), and the latter probably derives from immemorial usage. But many modern Rabbins explain away the Mosaical command as rather a demand for a pecuniary mulct than literal retaliation. The well-known Isaac Aburbanel cites many arguments in proof of this position: he asks, for instance, supposing the accused have but one eye, should he lose it for having struck out one of another man’s two?

Moreover, he dwells upon the impossibility of inflicting a punishment the exact equivalent of the injury; like Shylock’s pound of flesh without drawing blood. Moslems, however, know nothing of these frivolities, and if retaliation be demanded the judge must grant it. There is a legend in Marocco of an English merchant who was compelled to forfeit tooth for tooth at the instance of an old woman, but a profitable concession gilded the pill.

 

[FN#201] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Bhazmant (!); or the Confident Man.” “Bakht (-i-) Zam�n” in Pers. would=Luck of the Time.

 

[FN#202] Chavis and Cazotte change the name to “Abadid,” which, like “Khad�d�n,” is nonsignificant.

 

[FN#203] Arab. “F�ris,” here a Reiter, or Dugald Dolgetti, as mostly were the hordes led by the mediaeval Italian Condotti�ri.

 

[FN#204] So Napoleon the Great also believed that Providence is mostly favorable to “gros bataillons.”

 

[FN#205] Pers. and Arab.=“Good perfection.”

 

[FN#206] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Baharkan.” Bihkard (in Shiraz pronounced “Kyard”)=“Well he did.”

 

[FN#207] See “Katr�” in the Introduction to the Bakhtiy�r-n�mah.

 

[FN#208] The text has “Jaukal�n” for Saulaj�n, the Persian “Chaug�n”=the crooked bat used in Polo. See vol. 1. 46.

 

[FN#209] Amongst Moslems, I have noted, circumstantial evidence is not lawful: the witness must swear to what he has seen. A curious consideration, how many innocent men have been hanged by “circumstantial evidence.” See vol. v. 97.

 

[FN#210] In Chavis and Cazotte “Story of Abattamant (!), or the Prudent Man;” also Ayl�n Shah becomes Olensa after Italian fashion.

 

[FN#211] In Arab. idiom a long hand or arm means power, a phrase not wholly unused in European languages. Chavis and Cazotte paraphrase “He who keeps his hands crossed upon his breast, shall not see them cut off.”

 

[FN#212] Arab. “Jama’a atr�fah,” lit.=he drew in his extremities, it being contrary to “etiquette” in the presence of a superior not to cover hands and feet. In the wild Argentine Republic the savage Gaucho removes his gigantic spurs when coming into the presence of his master.

 

[FN#213] About the equivalent to the Arab. or rather Egypto-Syrian form “Jiddan,” used in the modern slang sense.

 

[FN#214] i.e. that he become my son-in-law.

 

[FN#215] For the practice of shampooing often alluded to in The Nights, see vol. iii. 17. The king “sleeping on the boys’ knees”

means that he dropped off whilst his feet were on the laps of the lads.

 

[FN#216] Meaning the honour of his Harem.

 

[FN#217] Pardon, lit.=security; the cry for quarter already introduced into English

 

“Or raise the craven cry Aman.”

 

It was Mohammed’s express command that this prayer for mercy should be respected even in the fury of fight. See vol. i. 342.

 

[FN#218] A saying found in every Eastern language beginning with Hebrew; Proverbs xxvi. 27, “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.”

 

[FN#219] i.e. a domed tomb where prayers and perlections of the Koran could be made. “Kubbah” in Marocco is still the term for a small square building with a low medianaranja cupola under which a Santon lies interred. It is the “little Waly” of our “blind travellers” in the unholy “Holy Land.”

 

[FN#220] i.e. to secure her assistance in arousing the king’s wrath.

 

[FN#221] i.e. so slow to avenge itself.

 

[FN#222] Story of Sultan Hebriam (!), and his Son” (Chavis and Cazotte). Unless they greatly enlarged upon the text, they had a much fuller copy than that found in the Bresl. Edit.

 

[FN#223] A right kingly king, in the Eastern sense of the word, would strike off their heads for daring to see omens threatening his son and heir: this would be constructive treason of the highest because it might be expected to cause its own fulfilment.

 

[FN#224] Mohammed’s Had�s “Kazzib� ‘l-Munajjim�na bi Rabbi ‘I-Ka’abah”=the Astrologers lied, by the Ka’abah’s Lord!

 

[FN#225] Arab. “Khaw�t�n,” plur. of Kh�t�n, a matron, a lady, vol. iv. 66.

 

[FN#226] See Al-Mas’udi, chapt. xvii. (Fr. Transl. ii. 48-49) of the circular cavity two miles deep and sixty in circuit inhabited by men and animals on the Caucasus near Derbend.

 

[FN#227] Arab. “Nafas” lit.=breath. Arabs living in a land of caverns know by experience the danger of asphyxiation in such places.

 

[FN#228] This simple tale is told with much pathos not of words but of sense.

 

[FN#229] Arab. “Ajal”=the appointed day of death, also used for sudden death. See vol. i. 74.

 

[FN#230] i.e. the Autumnal Equinox, one of the two great festival days (the other being the New Year) of the Persians, and surviving in our Michaelmas. According to Al-Mas’ud� (chap.

xxi.), it was established to commemorate the capture of Zahh�k (Azhi-Dah�ka), the biting snake (the Hindu Ahi) of night and darkness, the Greek Astyages, by Furaydun or Feridun. Prof. Sayce (Principles of Comparative Philology, p. 11) connects the latter with the Vedic deity Trita, who harnessed the Sun-horse (Rig. v.

i. 163, 2, 3), the of Homer, a title of Athene, the Dawn-goddess, and Burnouf proved the same Trita to be Thra�taona, son of Athwya, of the Avesta, who finally became Furayd�n, the Greek Kyrus. See vol. v. 1.

 

[FN#231] In Chavis and Cazotte, “Story of Selimansha and his Family.”

 

[FN#232] Arab. for Pers. Pahluw�n (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him “Balavan”; and the Bresl. text in more than one place (p.

312) calls him “Bahw�n.”

 

[FN#233] i.e. King (Arab.) King (Persian): we find also Sultan Malik Shah=King King King.

 

[FN#234] Arab. “Aul�d-�,” a vulgarism, plural for dual.

 

[FN#235] Mr. Payne translates, “so he might take his father’s leavings” i.e. heritage, reading “�s�r” which I hold to be a clerical error for S�r=Vendetta, blood revenge (Bresl. Edit. vi.

310).

 

[FN#236] Arab. “Al-‘�s�” the pop. term for one who refuses to obey a constituted authority and syn. with Pers. “Y�gh�.” “Ant ‘�s�?” Wilt thou not yield thyself? says a policeman to a refractory Fellah.

 

[FN#237] i.e. of the Greeks: so in Kor. xxx. 1. “Alif Lam Mim, the Greeks (Al-Roum) have been defeated.” Mr. Rodwell curiously remarks that “the vowel-points for �defeated’ not being originally written, would make the prophecy true in either event, according as the verb received an active or passive sense in pronunciation.” But in discovering this mare’s nest, a rank piece of humbug like Aio te Aeacida, etc., he forgets that all the Prophet’s “Companions,” numbering some 5000, would pronounce it only in one way and that no man could mistake “ghalabat” (active) for “ghulibat” (passive).

 

[FN#238] The text persistently uses “J�riyah”=damsel, slavegirl, for the politer “Sabiyah”=young lady, being written in a rude and uncourtly style.

 

[FN#239] So our familiar phrase “Some one to back us.”

 

[FN#240] Arab. “‘Akkada lahu r�y,” plur. of r�yat, a banner. See vol. iii. 307.

 

[FN#241] i.e. “What concern hast thou with the king’s health?”

The question is offensively put.

 

[FN#242] Arab. “Masalah,” a question; here an enigma.

 

[FN#243] Arab. “Liall�” (i.e. li, an, l�) lest; but printed here and elsewhere with the y� as if it were “laylan,”=for a single night.

 

[FN#244] i.e. if my death be fated to befal to-day, none may postpone it to a later date.

 

[FN#245] Arab. “Dust�”: so the ceremony vulgarly called “Doseh”

and by the ItaloEgyptians “Dosso,” the riding over disciples’

backs by the Shaykh of the Sa’diyah Darwayshes (Lane M.E. chapt.

xxv.) which took place for the last time at Cairo in 1881.

 

[FN#246] In Chavis and Cazotte she conjures him “by the great Maichonarblatha Sarsourat” (M�at wa arba’at ashar S�rat)=the 114

chapters of the Alcoran.

 

[FN#247] I have noted that Moslem law is not fully satisfied without such confession which, however, may be obtained by the bastinado. It is curious to compare English procedure with what Moslem would be in such a case as that of the famous Tichborne Claimant. What we did need hardly be noticed. An Arab judge would in a case so suspicious at once have applied the stick and in a quarter of an hour would have settled the whole business; but then what about the “Devil’s own,” the lawyers and lawyers’ fees?

And he would have remarked that the truth is not less true because obtained by such compulsory