The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 5, Sir Richard Francis Burton [best book clubs .txt] 📗

Epiphanius that this story was first translated into Arabic. A similar account is given by Marco Polo and by Nicol� de Conti, as of a usage which they had heard was practiced in India, and the position ascribed to the mountain by Conti, namely, fifteen days’

journey north of Vijanagar, renders it highly probable that Golconda was alluded to. He calls the mountain Albenigaras, and says that it was infested with serpents. Marco Polo also speaks of these serpents, and while his account agrees with that of Sindbad, inasmuch as the serpents, which are the prey of Sindbad’s Rukh, are devoured by the Venetian’s eagles, that of Conti makes the vultures and eagles fly away with the meat to places where they may be safe from the serpents. (Introd. p.

xiii., India in the Fifteenth Century, etc., R. H. Major, London, Hakluyt Soc. MDCCCLVII.)

 

[FN#545] Elder Victory: “Nasr” is a favourite name with Moslems.

 

[FN#546] These are the “Swan-maidens” of whom Europe in late years has heard more than enough. It appears to me that we go much too far for an explanation of the legend; a high-bred girl is so like a swan in many points that the idea readily suggests itself. And it is also aided by the old Egyptian (and Platonic) belief in pre-existence and by the Rabbinic and Buddhistic doctrine of ante-natal sin, to say nothing of metempsychosis.

(Joseph Ant. xvii.. 153.)

 

[FN#547] The lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

 

[FN#548] Arab. “Al-Khay�l”: it is a synonym of “al-Tayf’ and the nearest approach to our “ghost,” as has been explained. In poetry it is the figure of the beloved seen when dreaming.

 

[FN#549] He does not kiss her mouth because he intends to marry her.

 

[FN#550] It should be “manifest” excellence. (Koran xxvii. 16.) [FN#551] The phrase is Koranic used to describe Paradise, and Damascus is a familiar specimen of a city under which a river, the Baradah, passes, distributed into a multitude of canals.

 

[FN#552] It may be noted that rose-water is sprinkled on the faces of the “nobility and gentry, ” common water being good enough for the commonalty. I have had to drink tea made in compliment with rose-water and did not enjoy it.

 

[FN#553] The “Valley Flowery:” Zahr�n is the name of a place near Al-Medinah.

 

[FN#554] The Proud or Petulant.

 

[FN#555] i.e. Lion, Son of ( ?).

 

[FN#556] i.e. Many were slain.

 

[FN#557] I venture to draw attention to this battle-picture which is at once simple and highly effective.

 

[FN#558] Anglic� a quibble, evidently evasive.

 

[FN#559] In text “An� A’amil,” etc., a true Egypto-Syrian vulgarism.

 

[FN#560] i.e. magical formul�. The context is purposely left vague.

 

[FN#561] The repetition is a condescension, a token of kindness.

 

[FN#562] This is the common cubic of 18 inches: the modern vary from 22 to 26.

 

[FN#563] I have noticed the two-humped Bactrian camel which the Syrians and Egyptians compare with an elephant. See p. 221 (the neo-Syrian) Book of Kalilah and Dimnah.

 

[FN#564] The Noachian dispensation revived the Islam or true religion first revealed to Adam and was itself revived and reformed by Moses.

 

[FN#565] Probably a corruption of the Turkish “Kara T�sh” = black stone, in Arab. “H�jar Jahannam” (hell-stone), lava, basalt.

 

[FN#566] A variant of lines in Night xx., vol. i., 211.

 

[FN#567] i.e. Daughter of Pride: the proud.

 

[FN#568] In the Calc. Edit. by misprint “Maktab.” Jabal Mukattam is the old sea-cliff where the Mediterranean once beat and upon whose North-Western slopes Cairo is built.

 

[FN#569] Arab. “Kutb”; lie. an axle, a pole; next a prince; a high order or doyen in Sainthood especially amongst the Sufi-gnostics.

 

[FN#570] Lit. “The Green” (Prophet), a mysterious personage confounded with Elijah, St. George and others. He was a Moslem, i.e. a ewe believer in the Islam of his day and Wazir to Kaykobad, founder of the Kayanian dynasty, sixth century B.C. We have before seen him as a contemporary of Moses. My learned friend Ch. Clermone-Ganneau traces him back, with a multitude of his similars (Proteus, Perseus, etc.), to the son of Osiris (p.

45, Horus et Saint Georges).

 

[FN#571] Arab. “Waled,” more ceremonious than “ibn.” It is, by the by, the origin of our “valet” in its sense of boy or servant who is popularly addressed Y� waled. Hence I have seen in a French book of travels “un petit Iavelet.”

 

[FN#572] Arab. “Azal” = Eternity (without beginning); “Abad” =

Infinity (eternity without end).

 

[FN#573] The Moslem ritual for slaughtering (by cutting the throat) is not so strict as that of the Jews; but it requires some practice; and any failure in the conditions renders the meat impure, mere carrion (fat�s).

 

[FN#574] The Wazir repeats all the words spoken by the Queen—but “in iteration there is no recreation.”

 

[FN#575] A phrase always in the Moslem’s mouth: the slang meaning of “we put our trust in Allah” is “let’s cut our stick.”

 

[FN#576] Koran liii. 14. This “Sidrat al-Muntah�” (Zizyphus lotus) stands m the seventh heaven on the right hand of Allah’s throne: and even the angels may not pass beyond it.

 

[FN#577] Arab. “Habash” the word means more than “Abyssinia” as it includes the Dankali Country and the sea-board, a fact unknown to the late Lord Stratford de Redcliffe when he disputed with the Porte. I ventured to set him right and suffered accordingly.

 

[FN#578] Here ends vol. ii. of the Mac. Edit.

 

End of Project Gutenberg’s The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, V5