The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 10, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook audio reader TXT] 📗

al-Kh�li or Great Arabian Desert: for which see Night dclxxvi. In rhetoric it is opposed to the “Rub’a Mask�n,” or populated fourth of the world, the rest being held to be ocean.

 

[FN#92] This is the noble resignation of the Moslem. What a dialogue there would have been in a European book between man and devil!

 

[FN#93] Arab. “Al-‘iddah” the period of four months and ten days which must elapse before she could legally marry again. But this was a palpable wile: she was not sure of her husband’s death and he had not divorced her; so that although a “grass widow,” a “Strohwitwe” as the Germans say, she could not wed again either with or without interval.

 

[FN#94] Here the silence is of cowardice and the passage is a fling at the “timeserving” of the Olema, a favourite theme, like “banging the bishops” amongst certain Westerns.

 

[FN#95] Arab. “Umm al-raas,” the poll, crown of the head, here the place where a calamity coming down from heaven would first alight.

 

[FN#96] From Al-Hariri (Lane): the lines are excellent.

 

[FN#97] When the charming Princess is so ready at the voie de faits, the reader will understand how common is such energetic action among women of lower degree. The “fair sex” in Egypt has a horrible way of murdering men, especially husbands, by tying them down and tearing out the testicles. See Lane M. E. chapt. xiii.

 

[FN#98] Arab. “Sijn al-Ghazab,” the dungeons appropriated to the worst of criminals where they suffer penalties far worse than hanging or guillotining.

 

[FN#99] According to some modern Moslems Munkar and Nakir visit the graves of Infidels (non-Moslems) and Bashshir and Mubashshir (“Givers of glad tidings”) those of Mohammedans. Petis de la Croix (Les Mille et un Jours vol. iii. 258) speaks of the “Zoubanya,” black angels who torture the damned under their chief Dabilah.

 

[FN#100] Very simple and pathetic is this short sketch of the noble-minded Princess’s death.

 

[FN#101] In sign of dismissal (vol. iv. 62) I have noted that “throwing the kerchief” is not an Eastern practice: the idea probably arose from the Oriental practice of sending presents in richly embroidered napkins and kerchiefs.

 

[FN#102] Curious to say both Lane and Payne omit this passage which appears in both texts (Mac. and Bul.). The object is evidently to prepare the reader for the ending by reverting to the beginning of the tale; and its prolixity has its effect as in the old Romances of Chivalry from Amadis of Ghaul to the Seven Champions of Christendom. If it provoke impatience, it also heightens expectation; “it is like the long elm-avenues of our forefathers; we wish ourselves at the end; but we know that at the end there is something great.”

 

[FN#103] Arab. “al� mal�kay bayti ‘l-r�hah;” on the two slabs at whose union are the round hole and longitudinal slit. See vol. i.

221.

 

[FN#104] Here the exclamation wards off the Evil Eye from the Sword and the wearer: Mr. Payne notes, “The old English exclamation �Cock’s ‘ill!’ (i.e., God’s will, thus corrupted for the purpose of evading the statute of 3 Jac. i. against profane swearing) exactly corresponds to the Arabic”—with a difference, I add.

 

[FN#105] Arab. “Mustahakk”=deserving (Lane) or worth (Payne) the cutting.

 

[FN#106] Arab. “Mashhad” the same as “Sh�hid”=the upright stones at the head and foot of the grave. Lane mistranslates, “Made for her a funeral procession.”

 

[FN#107] These lines have occurred before. I quote Lane.

 

[FN#108] There is nothing strange in such sudden elevations amongst Moslems and even in Europe we still see them occasionally. The family in the East, however humble, is a model and miniature of the state, and learning is not always necessary to wisdom.

 

[FN#109] Arab. “F�rid” which may also mean “union-pearl.”

 

[FN#110] Tr�butien (iii. 497) cannot deny himself the pleasure of a French touch making the King reply, “C’est assez; qu’on lui coupe la t�te, car ces derni�res histoires surtout m’ont caus� un ennui mortel.” This reading is found in some of the MSS.

 

[FN#111] After this I borrow from the Bresl. Edit. inserting passages from the Mac. Edit.

 

[FN#112] i.e. whom he intended to marry with regal ceremony.

 

[FN#113] The use of coloured powders in sign of holiday-making is not obsolete in India. See Herklots for the use of “Huldee”

(Hald�) or turmeric-powder, pp. 64-65.

 

[FN#114] Many Moslem families insist upon this before giving their girls in marriage, and the practice is still popular amongst many Mediterranean peoples.

 

[FN#115] i.e. Sumatran.

 

[FN#116] i.e. Alexander, according to the Arabs; see vol. v. 252.

 

[FN#117] These lines are in vol. i. 217.

 

[FN#118] I repeat the lines from vol. i. 218.

 

[FN#119] All these coquetries require as much inventiveness as a cotillon; the text alludes to fastening the bride’s tresses across her mouth giving her the semblance of beard and mustachios.

 

[FN#120] Repeated from vol. i. 218.

 

[FN#121] Repeated from vol. i. 218.

 

[FN#122] See vol. i. 219.

 

[FN#123] Arab. Saw�d=the blackness of the hair.

 

[FN#124] Because Easterns build, but never repair.

 

[FN#125]i.e. God only knows if it be true or not.

 

[FN#126] Ouseley’s Orient. Collect. I, vii.

 

[FN#127] This threefold distribution occurred to me many years ago and when far beyond reach of literary authorities, I was, therefore, much pleased to find the subjoined threefold classification with minor details made by Baron von Hammer-Purgstall (Preface to Contes In�dits etc. of G. S. Tr�butien, Paris, mdcccxxviii.) (1) The older stories which serve as a base to the collection, such as the Ten Wazirs (“Malice of Women”) and Voyages of Sindbad (?) which may date from the days of Mahommed.

These are distributed into two sub-classes; (a) the marvellous and purely imaginative (e.g. Jamasp and the Serpent Queen) and (b) the realistic mixed with instructive fables and moral instances. (2) The stories and anecdotes peculiarly Arab, relating to the Caliphs and especially to Al-Rash�d; and (3) The tales of Egyptian provenance, which mostly date from the times of the puissant “Aaron the Orthodox.” Mr. John Payne (Villon Translation vol. ix. pp. 367-73) distributes the stories roughly under five chief heads as follows: (1) Histories or long Romances, as King Omar bin Al-Nu’man (2) Anecdotes or short stories dealing with historical personages and with incidents and adventures belonging to the every-day life of the period to which they refer: e.g. those concerning Al-Rash�d and H�tim of Tayy.

(3) Romances and romantic fictions comprising three different kinds of tales; (a) purely romantic and supernatural; (b) fictions and nouvelles with or without a basis and background of historical fact and (c) Contes fantastiques. (4) Fables and Apologues; and (5) Tales proper, as that of Tawaddud.

 

[FN#128] Journal Asiatique (Paris, Dondoy-Dupr�, 1826) “Sur l’origine des Mille et une Nuits.”

 

[FN#129] Baron von Hammer-Purgstall’s ch�teau is near Styrian Graz, and, when I last saw his library, it had been left as it was at his death.

 

[FN#130] At least, in Tr�butien’s Preface, pp. xxx.-xxxi., reprinted from the Journ. Asiat. August, 1839: for corrections see De Sacy’s “M�moire.” p. 39.

 

[FN#131] Vol. iv. pp. 89-90, Paris mdccclxv. Tr�butien quotes, chapt. lii. (for lxviii.), one of Von Hammer’s manifold inaccuracies.

 

[FN#132] Alluding to Iram the Many-columned, etc.

 

[FN#133] In Tr�butien “S�h�,” for which the Editor of the Journ.

Asiat. and De Sacy rightly read “Sab�l-h�.”

 

[FN#134] For this some MSS. have “Fahlawiyah” = Pehlevi [FN#135] i.e. Lower Roman, Grecian, of Asia Minor, etc., the word is still applied throughout Marocco, Algiers and Northern Africa to Europeans in general.

 

[FN#136] De Sacy (Dissertation prefixed to the Bourdin Edition) notices the “thousand and one,” and in his M�moire “a thousand:”

Von Hammer’s MS. reads a thousand, and the French translation a thousand and one. Evidently no stress can be laid upon the numerals.

 

[FN#137] These names are noticed in my vol. i. 14, and vol. ii.

3. According to De Sacy some MSS. read “History of the Wazir and his Daughters.”

 

[FN#138] Lane (iii. 735) has Wizreh or Wardeh which guide us to Wird Khan, the hero of the tale. Von Hammer’s MS. prefers Djilkand (Jilkand), whence probably the Isegil or Isegild of Langl�s (1814), and the Ts�qyl of De Sacy (1833). The mention of “Sim�s” (Lane’s Shemmas) identifies it with “King Jal�’�d of Hind,” etc. (Night dcccxcix.) Writing in A.D. 961 Hamzah Isfah�ni couples with the libri Sindbad and Schimas, the libri Baruc and Barsinas, four nouvelles out of nearly seventy. See also Al-Makri’zi’s Khitat or Topography (ii. 485) for a notice of the Thousand or Thousand and one Nights.

 

[FN#139] alluding to the “Seven Wazirs” alias “The Malice of Women” (Night dlxxviii.), which Von Hammer and many others have carelessly confounded with Sindbad the Seaman We find that two tales once separate have now been incorporated with The Nights, and this suggests the manner of its composition by accretion.

 

[FN#140] Arabised by a most “elegant” stylist, Abdullah ibn al-Mukaff� (the shrivelled), a Persian Guebre named Roz-bih (Day good), who islamised and was barbarously put to death in A.H. 158

(= 775) by command of the Caliph al-Mansur (Al-Siyuti p. 277).

“He also translated from Pehlevi the book entitled Sekiser�n, containing the annals of Isfandiyar, the death of Rustam, and other episodes of old Persic history,” says Al-Mas’udi chapt.

xxi. See also Ibn Khallikan (1, 43) who dates the murder in A.H.

142 (= 759-60).

 

[FN#141] “Notice sur Le Schah-namah de Firdoussi,” a posthumous publication of M. de Wallenbourg, Vienna, 1810, by M. A. de Bianchi. In sect. iii. I shall quote another passage of AlMas’udi (viii. 175) in which I find a distinct allusion to the “Gaboriaudetective tales” of The Nights.

 

[FN#142] Here Von Hammer shows his customary inexactitude. As we learn from Ibn Khallikan (Fr. Tr. I. 630), the author’s name was Abu al-Faraj Mohammed ibn Is’hak pop. known as Ibn Ali Ya’k�b al-Warr�k, the bibliographe, librarian, copyist. It was published (vol. i Leipzig, 1871) under the editorship of G. Fluegel, J.

Roediger, and A. M�ller.

 

[FN#143] See also the Journ. Asiat., August, 1839, and Lane iii.

736-37

 

[FN#144] Called “Afs�nah” by Al-Mas’udi, both words having the same sense = tale story, parable, “faceti�.” Moslem fanaticism renders it by the Arab “Khur�fah” = silly fables, and in Hindostan it = a jest: “B�t-k� b�t, khuraf�t-ki khuraf�t” (a word for a word, a joke for a joke).

 

[FN#145] Al-Mas’�di (chapt. xxi.) makes this a name of the Mother of Queen Hum�i or Hum�yah, for whom see below.

 

[FN#146] The preface of a copy of the Shah-nameh (by Firdausi, ob. A.D. 1021), collated in A.H. 829 by command of Bayisunghur Bahadur Kh�n (Atkinson p. x.), informs us that the Hazar Afsanah was composed for or by Queen Hum�i whose name is Arabised to Hum�yah This Persian Marguerite de Navarre was daughter and wife to (Ardashir) Bahman, sixth Kayanian and surnamed Diraz-dast (Artaxerxes Longimanus), Abu S�s�n from his son, the Eponymus of the Sassanides who followed the Kayanians when these were extinguished by Alexander of Macedon. Hum�i succeeded her husband as seventh Queen, reigned thirty-two years and left the crown to her son D�r� or D�r�b 1st = Darius Codomanus. She is better known to Europe (through Herodotus) as Parysatis = Peri-z�deh or the Fairy-born.

 

[FN#147] i.e. If Allah allow me to say sooth.

 

[FN#148] i.e. of silly anecdotes: here speaks the good Moslem!

 

[FN#149] No. 622 Sept. 29, �39, a review of Torrens which appeared shortly after Lane’s vol. i. The author quotes from a MS. in the British Museum, No. 7334 fol. 136.

 

[FN#150] There are many Spaniards of this name: Mr. Payne (ix.

302) proposes Abu Ja’afar ibn Abd al-Hakk al-Khazraji, author of a History of