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

The Arab. “Moon of the Time” becomes in the olden versions “Camaulzaman,” which means, if anything, “Complete Time,” and she is the daughter of a Jinn-King “Illabousatrous (Al-‘Atr�s?).” He married her to a potent monarch named “Shah-Goase” (Shah Ghaww�s=King Diver), in this version “S�b�r”

(Shahpur), and by him Kamar AlZaman became the mother of Durrat al-Ghawwas.

 

[FN#396] In text “S�d�t wa Ashr�f:” for the technical meaning of “Sayyid” and “Sharif” see vols. iv. 170; v. 259.

 

[FN#397] Gauttier, vii. 71. Les Isles Bellour. see vol. iii. 194.

 

[FN#398] Heron’s “Illabousatrous”(?).

 

[FN#399] In text “Zayjah,” from Pers. “Z�ycheh” = lit. a horoscope, a table for calculating nativities and so forth. In page 682 of the MS. the word is used = marriage-lines.

 

[FN#400] In text “Sns�l,” for “Sals�l ” = lit. chain.

 

[FN#401] In Sindbad the Seaman I have shown that riding men as asses is a facetious exaggeration of an African practice, the Minister being generally the beast of burden for the King. It was the same in the Maldive Islands. “As soon as the lord desires to land, one of the rhief Catibes (Arab. Khat�b = a preacher, not K�tib = a writer) comes forward to offer his shoulder (a function much esteemed) and the other gets upon his shoulders; and so, with a leg on each side, he rides him horse fashion to land, and is there set down.” See p. 71, “The Voyage of Fran�ois Pyrard,”

etc. The volume is unusually well edited by Mr. Albert Gray, formerly of the Ceylon Civil Service, for the Hakluyt Society, MDCCCLXXXVII: it is, however, regretable that he and Mr. Bell, his collaborateur, did not trace out the Maldive words to their “Aryan” origin showing their relationship to vulgar Hindostani as Mas to Machh� (fish) from the Sanskrit Matsya.

 

[FN#402] In text “Ghayth al-H�t�l = incessant rain of small drops and widely dispread. In Arab. the names for clouds, rain and all such matters important to a pastoral race are well nigh innumerable. Poetry has seized upon the material terms and has converted them into a host of metaphors; for “the genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects (e.g.

‘Azud, lit. the upper arm; met. a helper).” Chenery, p. 380.

 

[FN#403] In the text “To the palace:” the scribe, apparently forgetting that he is describing Badawi life, lapses at times into “decorating the capital” and “adorning the mansion,” as if treating of the normal city-life. I have not followed his example.

 

[FN#404] Heron translates “A massy cuirass of Haoudi.”

 

[FN#405] In text, “Inbasata ‘l-Layl al-As�,” which M. Houdas renders et s’�tendit la nuit (m�re) de la tristesse.

 

[FN#406] “Rauzah” in Algiers is a royal park; also a prairie, as “Rauz al-San�jirah,” plain of the Sinjars: Ibn Khaldun, ii. 448.

 

[FN#407] The “Misk�l” (for which see vols. i. 126; ix. 262) is the weight of a dinar = 1� dirham = 71-72 grains avoir. A dose of 142 grains would kill a camel. In 1848, when we were marching up the Indus Valley under Sir Charles Napier to attack N�o Mall of Multan, the Sind Camel Corps was expected to march at the rate of some 50 miles a day, and this was done by making the animals more than half drunk with Bhang or Indian hemp.

 

[FN#408] In text, “Yakhat,” probably clerical error for “Yakhbut,” lit. = he was panting in a state of unconsciousness: see Dozy, Suppl. s. v.

 

[FN#409] In text “Al-D�n, which is I presume a clerical error for “Al-Uzn” = ear. [“D�n,” with the dual “D�nayn,” and “Wudn,” with the plural “Aud�n,” are popular forms for the literary “Uzn.”-

-ST.]

 

[FN#410] This name has occurred in MS. p. 655, but it is a mere nonentity until p. 657—the normal incuriousness. Heron dubs him “Rabir.”

 

[FN#411] In the text “Zimmat” = obligation, protection, clientship.

 

[FN#412] “Sahha ‘alakah” (=a something) “f� haz� ‘l-Amri.” The first word appears de trop being enclosed in brackets in the MS.

 

[FN#413] “Wa yabk� �alaykum Mab�lu-h.” [For “Mab�l” I would read “Wab�l,” in the sense of crime or punishment, and translate: “lest the guilt of it rest upon you.”—ST.) [FN#414] In the text “Suwayd�” literally “a small and blackish woman”; and “Suwayd� al-Kalb” (the black one of the heart) =

original sin, as we should say. [The diminutive of “Sayyid” would be “Suwayyid,” as “Kuwayyis” from “Kayyis,” and “Juwayyid” from “Jayyid” (comp. supra p. 3). “Suwayd” and “Suwayd�” are diminutives of “Aswad,” black, and its fem. “Saud�” respectively, meaning blackish. The former occurs in “Umm al-Suwayd” = anus.

“Suwayd� al-Kalb” = the blackish drop of clotted blood in the heart, is synonymous with “Habbat al-Kalb” = the grain in the heart, and corresponds to our core of the heart. Metaphorically both are used for “original sin.”—ST.]

 

[FN#415] “Y�kah Thiy�bish;” the former word being Turkish (M.

Houdas).

 

[FN#416] Arab. “Kaunayn” = the two entities, this world and the other world, the past and the future, etc. Here it is opposed to “‘A’lam�na,” here �Aw�lim = the (three) worlds, for which see vol. ii. 236.

 

[FN#417] In text “Changul,” again written with a three-dotted Ch�m.

 

[FN#418] In text “Al-Mazrab” which M. Houdas translates cet endroit.

 

[FN#419] In text “Yabahh” = saying “Bah, Bah!”

 

[FN#420] In text “Bahr al-Azrak” = the Blue Sea, commonly applied to the Mediterranean: the origin of the epithet is readily understood by one who has seen the Atlantic or the Black Sea.

 

[FN#421] i.e. “The Stubborn,” “The Obstinate.”

 

[FN#422] In text “Al-Jaw�dit,” where M. Houdas would read “Al-Haw�dith” which he renders by animaux fra�chement tu�s.

 

[FN#423] In the text “Kabad” = the liver, the sky-vault, the handle or grasp of a bow.

 

[FN#424] In the text “M�n�” = a port both in old Egyptian and mod. Persian: see “Mitrahinna,” vol. ii. 257.

 

[FN#425] “Al-Nak��r,” plur. of “Nak�r” = a dinghy, a dug-out.

 

[FN#426] For this “P�-and�z,” as the Persians call it, see vol.

iii. 141.

 

[FN#427] In text “Kataba Zayjata-h�,” the word has before been noticed.

 

[FN#428] Again “Hiz� bi-Zayjati-h�” = le bonheur de ses aventures.

 

[FN#429] This impalement (“Salb,” which elsewhere means crucifying, vol. iii. 25) may be a barbarous punishment but it is highly cffective, which after all is its principal object. Old Mohammed Ali of Egypt never could have subjugated and disciplined the ferocious Badawi of Al-Asir, the Ophir region South of Al-Hij�z, without the free use of the stake. The banditti dared to die but they could not endure the idea of their bodies being torn to pieces and devoured by birds and beasts. The stake commonly called “Kh�z�k”, is a stout pole pointed at one end, and the criminal being thrown upon his belly is held firm whilst the end is passed up his fundament. His legs and body are then lashed to it and it is raised by degrees and planted in a hole already dug, an agonising part of the process. If the operation be performed by an expert who avoids injuring any mortal part, the wretch may live for three days suffering the pangs of thirst; but a drink of water causes hemorrhage and instant death. This was the case with the young Moslem student who murdered the excellent Marshal Kleber in the garden attached to Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo, wherein, by the by, he suffered for his patriotic crime. Death as in crucifixion is brought on by cramps and nervous exhaustion, for which see Canon Farrar (Life of Christ, ii. 392 et seqq.).

 

[FN#430] Archaeological Review, July, 1888, pp. 331-342.

 

[FN#431] The proper names are overrun with accents and diaeretical points, of which I have here retained but few.

 

[FN#432] Particularly mentioning Syntipas, the Forty Vizirs, a Turkish romance relating to Alexander, in 120 volumes; and Mohammed al-‘Aufi.

 

[FN#433] Probably similar to those described in the story of the Warlock and the Cook (ante�, pp. 106-112)

 

[FN#434] The last clause is very short and obscure in the French “qu’il n’a pas son satire,” but what follows shows the real meaning to be that given above. (W. F. K.) [FN#435] This I take to be the meaning of the words, “une autre monde sous la terre par sept fois.” (W.F.K.) [FN#436] Galland writes “on fait un jeu de Giret (tournoi), etc.”

(W. F. K.)

 

[FN#437] Perhaps an error of Galland’s. (W. F. K.) [FN#438] I do not know the German edition referred to.

 

[FN#439] This great class of tales is quite as widely extended in the north of Europe and Asia, as in the south. We meet with them in Siberia, and they are particularly common in Lapland I believe, too, that the Indian story of the Red Swan (referred to by Longfellow, Hiawatha xii.) is only a Swan Maiden legend in a rather modified form. As usual, we find a bizarre form of the Swan Maiden story among the Samoghitians of Lithuania. The Zemyne is a one eyed venomous snake, with black blood which cures all diseases and neutralises all magic. It is an enchanted maiden; and sometimes the skin has been stolen, and she has reamed a man.

But if she recovers her skin, she resumes her snake-form, and bites and kills her husband and children. Many other strange things are related of the Zemyne (Veckenstedt, Mythen, Sagen, und Legenden der Zamaiten, ii., pp. 149-152).]

 

[FN#440] About twenty pounds.

 

[FN#441] Spitta Bey (p. 27 note) suggests that this is a reminiscence of the ancient Egyptian idea of the Scarab�us which typifies life.

 

[FN#442] Southey, in his story of the Young Dragon, relates how Satan, disapproving of the rapid conversion of the inhabitants of Antioch to Christianity, laid an egg, and hatched out a dragon, which he sent to destroy the inhabitants. But a Pagan whose Christian daughter was devoted to the dragon by lot, stole the thumb from a relic (the hand of John the Baptist), as he pretended to kiss it, and cast it into the mouth of the dragon, and blew him up.

 

[FN#443] This is a variant of the Nose-Tree; I do not remember another in genuine Oriental literature (cf. Nights, x., app., p.

449).]

 

[FN#444] How small the world becomes in this story!

 

[FN#445] It is evident that a young she-bear is all that is meant.

 

[FN#446]These Vigilants and Purifiers, with that hypocritical severity which ever makes the worst sinner in private the most rigorous judge in public, lately had the imprudent impudence to summons a publisher who had reprinted the Decameron with the “objectionable passages” in French. Mr. Alderman Faudell Phillips had the good sense contemptuously to dismiss the summons.

Englishmen are no longer what they were if they continue to tolerate this Ignoble espionnage of Vicious and prurient virtuous “Associations.” If they mean real work why do they commence by condemning scholar-like works, instead of cleansing the many foul cesspools of active vice which are a public disgrace to London.

 

[FN#447] It may serve the home-artist and the home-reader to point out a few of the most erroneous The harp (i. 143) is the Irish and not the Eastern, yet the latter has been shown In i.

228; and the “K�n�n ” (ii. 77) is a reproduction from Lane’s Modern Egyptians. The various Jinn�s are fanciful, not traditional, as they should be (see inter alia Doughty’s Arabia Deserta, ii. 3, etc.). In i. 81 and ii. 622 appears a specimen bogie with shaven chin and “droopers” by way of beard and mustachios: mostly they have bestial or simiad countenances with rabbits’ ears, goats’ horns and so forth (i. 166, 169; ii. 97, 100), instead of faces more or less human and eyes disposed perpendicularly. The spreading yew-tree (i. 209) is