The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 16, Sir Richard Francis Burton [novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

completely changed by the light of modern learning. The Children of Israel quitted their homes about Memphis (as if a large horde of half-nomadic shepherds would be suffered in the richest and most crowded home of Egypt).

They marched by the Wady M�s� that debouches upon the Gulf of Suez a short way below the port now temporarily ruined by its own folly and the ill-will of M. de Lesseps; and they made the “Sea of Sedge” (Suez Gulf) through the valley bounded by what is still called Jabal ‘At�kah, the Mountain of Deliverance, and its parallel range, Abu Durayj (of small steps). Here the waters were opened and the host passed over to the “Wells of Moses,”

erstwhile a popular picnic place on the Arabian side; but according to one local legend (for which see my Pilgrimage, i.

294-97) they crossed the sea north of T�r, the spot being still called “Birkat Far’aun”=Pharoah’s Pool. Such also is the modern legend amongst the Arabs, who learned their lesson from the Christians (not the Jews) in the days when the Copts and the Greeks (ivth century) invented “Mount Sinai.” And the reader will do well to remember that the native annalists of Ancient Egypt, which conscientiously relate all her defeats and subjugations by the Ethiopians, Persians, etc., utterly ignore the very name of Hebrew, Sons of Israel, etc.

 

I cannot conceal my astonishment at finding a specialist journal like the “Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund”

(Oct., 1887) admitting such a paper as that entitled “The Exode,”

by R. F. Hutchinson, M.D. For this writer the labours of the last half-century are non-existing. Job is still the “oldest book” in the world. The Rev. Charles Forster’s absurdity, “Israel in the wilderness,” gives valuable assistance. Goshen is Mr. Chester’s Tell Fak�s (not, however, far wrong in this) instead of the long depression by the Copts still called “Gesem”

or “Gesemeh,” the frontier-land through which the middle course of the Suez Canal runs. “Succoth,” tabernacles, is confounded with the Arab. “Sakf” = a roof. Letopolis, the “key of the Exode,” and identified with the site where Babylon (Old Cairo) was afterwards built, is placed on the right instead of the left bank of the Nile. “Bahr Kulzum” is the “Sea of the Swallowing-up,” in lieu of The Closing. El-T�h, “the wandering,”

is identified with Wady Musa to the west of the Suez Gulf. And so forth. What could the able Editor have been doing?

 

Students of this still disputed question will consult “The Shrine of Saft el-Henneh and the Land of Goschen,” by Edouard Naville, fifth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Published by order of the Committee. London, Tr�bner, 1837.

 

[FN#198] Eastern fable runs wild upon this subject, and indeed a larger volume could be written upon the birth, life and death of Moses’ and Aaron’s rods. There is a host of legends concerning the place where the former was cut and whence it descended to the Prophet whose shepherd’s staff was the glorification of his pastoral life (the rod being its symbol) and of his future career as a ruler (and flogger) of men. In Exodus (viii. 3-10), when a miracle was required of the brothers, Aaron’s rod became a “serpent” (A.V.) or, as some prefer, a “crocodile,” an animal worshipped by certain of the Egyptians; and when the King’s magicians followed suit it swallowed up all others. Its next exploit was to turn the Nile and other waters of Egypt into blood (Exod. vii. 17). The third wonder was worked by Moses’ staff, the dividing of the Red Sea (read the Sea of Sedge or papyrus, which could never have grown in the brine of the Suez Gulf) according to the command, “Lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea,” etc. (Exod. xiv. 15). The fourth adventure was when the rod, wherewith Moses smote the river, struck two blows on the rock in Horeb and caused water to come out of it (Numb. xxi. 8). Lastly the rod (this time again Aaron’s) “budded and brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds” (Numb. xvii. 7); thus becoming a testimony against the rebels: hence it was set in the Holiest of the Tabernacles (Heb. ix. 14) as a lasting memorial. I have described (Pilgrim. i. 301) the mark of Moses’ rod at the little Hammam behind the old Phoenician colony of Tur, in the miscalled “Sinaitic” Peninsula: it is large enough to act mainmast for a ship. The end of the rod or rods is unknown: it died when its work was done, and like many other things, holy and unholy, which would be priceless, e.g., the true Cross or Pilate’s sword, it remains only as a memory around which a host of grotesque superstitions have grouped themselves.

 

[FN#199] In this word “Hayy” the Arab. and Heb. have the advantage of our English: it means either serpent or living, alive.

 

[FN#200] It is nowhere said in Hebrew Holy Writ that “Pharaoh,”

whoever he may have been, was drowned in the “Red Sea.”

 

[FN#201] Arab. “Kaml.” The Koranic legend of the Ant has, I repeat, been charmingly commented upon by Edwin Arnold in “Solomon and the Ant” (p.i., Pearls of the Faith). It seems to be a Talmudic exaggeration of the implied praise in Prov. vi. 6

and xxx. 25, “The ants are a people nto strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer” which, by the by, proves that the Wise King could be caught tripping in his natural history, and that they did not know everything down in Judee.

 

[FN#202] Is�, according to the Moslems, was so far like Adam (Koran iii. 52) that he was not begotten in the normal way: in fact his was a miraculous conception. See vol. v. 238.

 

[FN#203] For Elias, Elijah, or Khizr, a marvellous legendary figure, see vols. iv. 175; v. 334. The worship of Helios (Apollo) is not extinct in mod. Greece where it survives under the name of Elias. So Dionysus has become St. Dionysius; Bacchus the Drunken, St. George; and Artemis, St. Artemides the healer of childhood.

 

[FN#204] Gesenius interprets it “Soldier of God”; the bye-name given to Jacob presently became the national name of the Twelve Tribes collectively; then it narrowed to the tribe of Judah; afterwards it became = laymen as opposed to Levites, etc., and in these days it is a polite synonym for Jew. When you want anything from any of the (self-) Chosen People you speak of him as an Israelite; when he wants anything of you, you call him a Jew, or a damned Jew, as the case may be.

 

[FN#205] I am not aware that there is any general history of the bell, beginning with the rattle, the gong and other primitive forms of the article; but the subject seems worthy of a monograph. In Hebrew Writ the bell first appears in Exod.

xxviii. 33 as a fringe to the Ephod of the High Priest that its tinkling might save him from intruding unwarned into the bodily presence of the tribal God, Jehovah.

 

[FN#206] Gennesaret (Chinnereth, Cinneroth), where, according to some Moslems, the Solomon was buried.

 

[FN#207] I cannot explain this legend.

 

[FN#208] So the old English rhyme, produced for quite another purpose by Sir John Bull in “Wat Tyler’s Rebellion” (Hume, Hist.

of Eng., vol. i. chapt. 17):—

 

“When Adam dolve and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?”

 

A variant occurs in a MS. of the xvth century, Brit. Museum:—

 

“Now bethink the gentleman,

How Adam dalf and Eve span.”

 

And the German form is:—

 

“So Adam reutte (reute) and Eva span Wwer was da ein Eddelman (Edelman)?”

 

[FN#209] Plur. of “‘Usf�r” = a bird, a sparrow. The etymology is characteristically Oriental and Mediaeval, reminding us of Dan Chaucer’s meaning of Cecilia “Heaven’s lily” (S�san) or “Way for the blind” (C�cus) or “Thoughts of Holiness” and lia=lasting industry; or, “Heaven and Leos” (people), so that she might be named the people’s heaven (The SEcond Nonne’s Tale).

 

[FN#210] i.e. “F�r is rebellious.”

 

[FN#211] Both of which, I may note, are not things but states, modes or conditions of things. See. vol. ix. 78.

 

[FN#212] “Sal�t” = the formal ceremonious prayer. I have noticed (vol. iv. 60) the sundry technical meanings of the term Sal�t, from Allah=Mercy; from Angel-kind=intercession and pardon, and from mankind=a blessing.

 

[FN#213] Possibly “A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” the title of the highly apocryphal Psalm xc.

 

[FN#214] Arab. “Lib�s” = clothes in general.

 

[FN#215] In text “Zafar” = victory. It may also be “Zifr”=alluding to the horny matter which, according to Moslem tradition, covered the bodies of “our first parents” and of which after the “original sin” nothing remained but the nails of their fingers and toes. It was only when this disappeared that they became conscious of their nudity. So says M. Houdas; but I prefer to consider the word as Zafar=plaited hair.

 

[FN#216] According to Al-Mas’udi (i. 86, quoting Koran xxi. 52), Abraham had already received of Allah spiritual direction or divine grace (“Rushdu ‘llah” or “Al-Hud�”) which made him sinless. In this opinoin of the Imamship, says my friend Prof.

A. Sprenger, the historian is more fatalistic than most Sunnis.

 

[FN#217] Modern Moslems are all agreed in making Ishmael and not Issac the hero of this history: see my Pilgrimage (vol. iii.

306). But it was not always so. Al-Mas’udi (vol. ii. 146) quotes the lines of a Persian poet in A.H. 290 (=A.D. 902) which expressly say “Is’h�ku k�na’l-Zab�h” = Isaac was the victim, and the historian refers to this in sundry places. Yet the general idea is that Ishmael succeeded his father (as eldest son) and was succeeded by Isaac; and hence the bitter family feud between the Eastern Jews and the ARab Gentiles.

 

[FN#218] In text “Tajui”=lit. thou pluckest (the fruit of good deeds). M. Houdas translates Tu recueilles, mot � mot tu citeilles.

 

[FN#219] See note at the end of this tale.

 

[FN#220] Amongst the Jews the Temple of Jerusalem was a facsimile of the original built by Jehovah in the lowest heaven or that of the Moon. For the same idea (doubtless a derivation from the Talmud) amongst the Moslems concerning the heavenly Ka’abah called Bayt al-Ma’mur (the Populated House) see my Pilgrimage iii. 186, et seq.

 

[FN#221] i.e. there is an end of the matter.

 

[FN#222] In text “Massa-hu’l Fakr”=poverty touched him.

 

[FN#223] He had sold his father for a horse, etc., and his mother for a fine dress.

 

[FN#224] This enigma is in the style of Samson’s (Judges xiv.

12) of which we complain that the unfortuante Philistines did not possess the sole clue which could lead to the solution; and here anyone with a modicum of common sense would have answered, “Thou art the man!” The riddles with which the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon must have been simply hard questions somewhat like those in the text; and the relator wisely refuses to record them.

 

[FN#225] We should say “To eclipse the sun.”

 

[FN#226] A very intelligible offer.

 

[FN#227] Arab. “Bi Asri-hi,” lit. “rope and all;”

metaphorically used=altogether, entirely: the idea is borrowed from the giving or selling of a beast with its thong, halter, chain, etc.

 

[FN#228] In the text, “K�hin,” a Cohen, a Jewish Priest, a soothsayer: see Al-Kah�nah, vol. i. 28. In Heb. Kahana=he ministered (priests’ offices or other business) and Cohen=a priest either of the true God or of false gods.

 

[FN#229] This ending with its r�sum� of contents is somewhat hors ligne, yet despite its vain repetition I think it advisable to translate it.

 

[FN#230] “And she called his name Moses, and she said because from the