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

water I drew him” (Exod. ii. 10).

 

[FN#231] The Pharoah of the Exodus is popularly supposed by Moslems to have treated his leprosy with baths of babes’ blood, the babes being of the Ban� Isr��l. The word “Pharoah” is not without its etymological difficulties.

 

[FN#232] Graetz (Geschichte i. note 7) proves that “Aram,” in the Hebrew text (Judges iii. 8), should be “Edom.”

 

[FN#233] I give a quadruple increase, at least 25 per centum more than the genealogies warrant.

 

[FN#234] MS. pp. 505-537. This story is found in the “Turkish Tales” by Petis de la Croix who translated one fourth of the “Forty Wazirs” by an author self-termed “Shaykh Z�deh.” It is called the “History of Chec Chahabeddin” (Shaykh Shih�b al-D�n), and it has a religious significance proving that the Apostle did really and personally make the “Mi’raj” (ascent to Heaven) and returned whilst his couch was still warm and his upset gugglet had not run dry. The tale is probably borrowed from Saint Paul, who (2 Cor. xii. 4) was “caught up into Paradise,” which in those days was a kind of region that roofed the earth. The Shaykh in question began by showing the Voltairean Sultan of Egypt certain specious miracles, such as a phantom army (in our tale two lions), Cairo reduced to ashes, the Nile in flood and a Garden of Irem, where before lay a desert. He then called for a tub, stripped the King to a zone girding his loins and made him dip his head into the water. Then came the adventures as in the following tale. When after a moment’s space these ended, the infuriated Sultan gave orders to behead the Shaykh, who also plunged his head into the tub; but the Wizard divined the ill-intent by “Muk�shafah” (thought-reading); and by “Al-Ghayb ‘an al-Abs�r” (invisibility) levanted to Damascus. The reader will do well to compare the older account with the “First Vizir’s Story” (p. 17) in Mr. Gibb’s “History of the Forty Vizirs,” etc.

As this scholar remarks, the Mi’r�j, with all its wealth of wild fable, is simply alluded to in a detached verses of the Koran (xvii. 1) which runs: [I declare] “The glory of Him who transported His servant by night from the Sacred Temple (of Meccah) to the Remote Temple (of Jerusalem), whose precincts we have blessed, that we might show him of our signs.” After this comes an allusion to Moses (v. 2); Mr. Gibb observes (p. 22) that this lengthening out of the seconds was a favourite with “Dervishes,” as he has shown in “The Story of Jew�d ,” and suggests that the effect might have been produced by some drug like Hashish. I object to Mr. Gibb’s use of the word “Hour)”

(ibid. p. 24) without warning the reader that it is an irregular formation, masculine withal for “Hur�yah,” and that the Pers.

“H�ri,” from which the Turks borrowed their blunder, properly means “One H�r.”

 

[FN#235] For the Dajlah (Tigris) and Fur�t (Euphrates) see vols.

viii. 150-ix. 17. The topothesia is worse than Shakespearean. In Weber’s Edit. of the “New Arabian Nights” (Adventures of Simoustapha, etc.), the rivers are called “Ilfara” and “Aggiala.”

 

[FN#236] In text “Alw�n,” for which see vol. vii. 135.

 

[FN#237] [The word which is here translated with: “and one had said that he had laboured hard thereat (walaw�‘yh?) seems scarcely to bear out this meaning. I would read it “wa’l-Aw’iyah”

(plur. of wi’�), rendering accordingly: “and the vessels (in which the aforesaid meats were set out) shimmered like unto silver for their cleanliness.”—ST.]

 

[FN#238] In text “Al-Wahwah.”

 

[FN#239] In text, “Mutasa’lik” for “Moutasa’lik” = like a “sa’l�k.”

 

[FN#240] For this “high-spirited Prince and noble-minded lord”

see vol. ix. 229.

 

[FN#241] In text “Bis�ta-hum” = their carpets.

 

[FN#242] In text “Haw�n�t,” plur. of “Han�t” = the shop or vault of a vintner, pop. derived from the Persian Kh�neh. In Jer.

xxvii. 16, where the A. V. has “When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon and into the cabins,” read “underground vaults,”

cells or cellars where wine was sold. “Han�t” also means either the vintner or the vintner’s shop. The derivation because it ruins man’s property and wounds his honour is the jeu d’esprit of a moralising grammarian. Chenery’s Al-Hariri, p. 377.

 

[FN#243] In the Arab. “Jaw�k�n,” plur. of Arab. Jauk�n for Pers.

Chaug�n, a crooked stick a club, a bat used for the Persian form of golf played on horseback—Polo.

 

[FN#244] [The text reads “Liyah,” and lower down twice with the article “Al-Liyah” (double Lam). I therefore suspect that “Liyyah,” equivalent with “Luwwah,” is intended which both mean Aloes-wood as used for fumigation (yutabakhkharu bi-hi). For the next ingredient I would read “Kit’ah humrah,” a small quantity of red brickdust, a commodity to which, I do not know with what foundation, wonderful medicinal powers are or were ascribed. This interpretation seems to me the more preferable, as it presently appears that the last-named articles had to go into the phial, the mention of which would otherwise be to no purpose and which I take to have been finally sealed up with the sealing clay. The whole description is exceedingly loose, and evidently sorely corrupted, so I think every attempt at elucidation may be acceptable.—ST.]

 

[FN#245] “Wa K�ta’h hamrah,” which M. Houdas renders un morceau de viande cuite.

 

[FN#246] This is a specimen of the Islamised Mantra called in Sanskrit Stambhana and intended to procure illicit intercourse.

Herklots has printed a variety of formul� which are popular throughout southern India: even in the Maldive Islands we find such “Fandita” (i.e. Panditya, the learned Science) and Mr. Bell (Journ., Ceylon Br. R. A. S. vii. 109) gives the following specimen, “Write the name of the beloved; pluck a bud of the screw-pine (here a palette de mouton), sharpen a new knife, on one side of the bud write the Surat al-Badr (chapter of Power, No. xxi., thus using the word of Allah for Satan’s purpose); on the other side write Vajahata; make an image out of the bud; indite particulars of the horoscope copy from beginning to end the Surat al-Rahm�n (the Compassionating, No. xlviii.);, tie the image in five places with coir left-hand-twisted (i.e.

widdershins or ‘against the sun’); cut the throat of a blood-sucker (lizard); smear its blood on the image; place it in a loft, dry it for three days, then take it and enter the sea. If you go in knee deep the woman will send you a message; if you go in to the waist she will visit you.” (The Voyage of Francois Pyrard, etc., p. 179.) I hold all these charms to be mere instruments for concentrating and intensifying the brain action called Will, which is and which presently will be recognised as the chief motor-power. See Suppl. vol. iii.

 

[FN#247] Probably the name of some Prince of the Jinns.

 

[FN#248] In text “Kam� zukira f� Dayli-h” = arrange-toi de facon � l’atteindre (Houdas).

 

[FN#249] Proverbial for its depth: K�sh�n is the name of sundry cities; here one in the Jib�l or Ir�k ‘Ajami—Persian Mesopotamia.

 

[FN#250] Doubtless meaning Christians.

 

[FN#251] The Sage had summoned her by the preceding spell which the Princess obeyed involuntarily.

 

[FN#252] i.e., last night, see vol. iii. 249.

 

[FN#253] In text “Wuld�n” = “Ghilm�n”: the boys of Paradise; for whom and their feminine counterparts the H�r (Al-Ayn) see vols.

i. 90, 211; iii. 233.

 

[FN#254] Arab. “Dukhn” = Holcus dochna, a well-known grain, a congener of the Zurrah or Durrah = Holcus Sativus, Forsk. cxxiii.

The incident is not new. In “Des blaue Licht,” a Mecklenburg tale given by Grimm, the King’s daughter who is borne through the air to the soldier’s room is told by her father to fill her pocket with peas and make a hole therein; but the sole result was that the pigeons had a rare feast. See Suppl. vol. iii. 375.

 

[FN#255] i.e., a martyr of love. See vols. iii. 211; i-iv. 205.

 

[FN#256] In the text “Ka’ka’”; hence the higher parts of Meccah, inhabited by the Jurham tribe, was called “Jabal Ka’ka’�n,” from their clashing arms (Pilgrimage iii. 191).

 

[FN#257] This was the work of the form of magic popularly known as S�miy� = fascination, for which see vol. i. 305, 332. It is supposed to pass away after a period of three days, and mesmerists will find no difficulty in recognising a common effect upon “Odylic sensitives.”

 

[FN#258] Here supply the MS. with “ill�.”

 

[FN#259] In text “tatadakhkhal’alay-h:” see “Dakh�l-ak,” vol. i.

61.

 

[FN#260] Or “he”: the verb may also refer to the Sage.

 

[FN#261] Arab. “Kazafa” = threw up, etc.

 

[FN#262] This, in the case of the Wazir, was a transformation for the worse: see vol. vii. 294, for the different kinds of metamorphosis.

 

[FN#263] i.e. my high fortune ending in the lowest.

 

[FN#264] In text “Bakar” = black cattle, whether bull, ox or cow.

For ploughing with bulls.

 

[FN#265] In text “Mukrif” = lit. born of a slave father and free mother.

 

[FN#266] In text “Antum f� kh�shin wa b�sh,” an error for “kh�sh-m�sh” = a miserable condition.

 

[FN#267] In text “yatbashsh” for “yanbashsha.” [Or it may stand for yabtashsh, with transpositions of the “t” of the eighth form, as usual in Egypt. See Spitta-Bey’s Grammar, p. 198.— ST.]

 

[FN#268] “Jan�nan,” which, says M. Houdas, is the vulgar form of “Jannatan” = the garden (of Paradise). The Wazir thus played a trick upon his hearers. [The word in the text may read “Jin�nan,”

accusative of “Jin�n,” which is the broken plural of “Jannah,”

along with the regular plural “Jann�t,” and, like the latter, used for the gardens of Paradise.—ST.]

 

[FN#269] For this name of the capital of Eastern Arabia see vols.

i. 33, vii. 24.

 

[FN#270] “To be” is the Anglo-Oriental form of “Thaub” = in Arabia a loose robe like a nightgown. See ii. 206.

 

[FN#271] The good old Mosaic theory of retribution confined to this life, and the belief that Fate is the fruit of man’s action.

 

[FN#272] Arab. “Sandar�sah” = red juniper gum (Thuja articulata of Barbary), red arsenic realgar, from the Pers. Sandar = amber.

 

[FN#273] MSS. pp. 718-724. This fable, whose moral is that the biter is often bit, seems unknown to �sop and the compilation which bore his name during the so-called Dark Ages. It first occurs in the old French metrical Roman de Renart entitled, Si comme Renart prist Chanticler le Coq (ea. Meon, tom. i. 49). It is then found in the collection of fables by Marie, a French poetess whose Lais are still extant; and she declares to have rendered it de l’Anglois en Roman; the original being an Anglo-Saxon version of �sop by a King whose name is variously written Li reis Alured (Alfred ?), or Aunert (Albert ?), or Henris, or Mires. Although Alfred left no version of �sop there is in MS. a Latin �sop containing the same story of an English version by Rex Angliae Affrus. Marie’s fable is printed in extenso in the Chaucer of Dr. Morris (i. 247); London, Bell and Sons, 1880; and sundry lines remind us of the Arabic, e.g.:—

 

Li gupil volt parler en haut,

Et li cocs de sa buche saut,

Sur un haut fust s’est muntez.

 

And it ends with the excellent moral:—

 

Ceo funt li fol tut le plusur,

Parolent quant deivent taiser,

Teisent quant il deivent parler.

 

Lastly the Gentil Cok hight Chanticlere and the Fox, Dan Russel, a more accidented tale, appears in “The Nonne Preestes Tale,” by the Grand Traducteur.

 

[FN#274] “Dur�” in MS. (p. 718) for “Zur�,” the classical term, or for “Zurrah,” pop. pronounced “Durrah”=the Holcus Sativus before noticed, an African as well as Asiatic growth, now being