One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  376 “Moon of the age,” a name which has before occurred.

  377 The Malocchio or gettatura, so often noticed.

  378 The crescent of the month Zu ‘l-Ka’dah when the Ramazan-fast is broken. This allusion is common. Comp. vol. i. 84.

  379 This line contains one of the Yes, Yes and No, No trifles alluded to in vol. ii, 60. Captain Lockett (M. A. 103) renders it “I saw a fawn upon a hillock whose beauty eclipsed the full moon. I said, What is thy name? she answered Deer. What my Dear said I, but she replied, no, no!” To preserve the sound I have sacrificed sense: Lulu is a pearl, Li? li? (= for me, for me?) and La! La! = no! no! See vol. i, 217. I should have explained a line which has puzzled some readers,

  “A sun (face) on wand (neck) in knoll of sand (hips) she showed” etc,

  380 Arab. “Al-huwayna,” a rare term.

  381 Bright in the eyes of the famishing who is allowed to break his fast.

  382 Mr. Payne reads “Maghrabi” = a Mauritanian, Maroccan, the Moors (not the Moorish Jews or Arabs) being a race of Sodomites from highest to lowest. But the Mac. and Bul. Edit. have “Ajami.”

  383 For “Ishk uzri” = platonic love see vol. i. 232; ii. 104.

  384 Zaynab (Zenobia) and Zayd are generic names for women and men.

  385 i.e. He wrote “Kasidahs” (= odes, elegies) after the fashion of the “Suspended Poems” which mostly open with the lover gazing upon the traces of the camp where his beloved had dwelt. The exaggerated conventionalism of such exordium shows that these early poems had been preceded by a host of earlier pieces which had been adopted as canons of poetry.

  386 The verses are very mal-а-propos, like many occurring in The Nights, for the maligned Shaykh is proof against all the seductions of the pretty boy and falls in love with a woman after the fashion of Don Quixote. Mr. Payne complains of the obscurity of the original owing to abuse of the figure enallage; but I find them explicit enough, referring to some debauched elder after the type of Abu Nowбs.

  387 Arab. “‘Irk” = a root which must here mean a sprig, a twig. The basil grows to a comparatively large size in the East.

  388 Arab. “Lait “= one connected with the tribe of Lot, see vol. v. 161.

  389 For the play upon “Saki” (oblique case of sak, leg-calf) and Saki a cupbearer see vol. ii. 327.

  390 “On a certain day the leg shall be bared and men shall be called upon to bow in adoration, but they shall not be able” (Koran, lxviii. 42). “Baring the leg” implies a grievous calamity, probably borrowed from the notion of tucking up the skirts and stripping for flight. On the dangerous San Francisco River one of the rapids is called “Tira-calcoens” = take off your trousers (Highlands of the Brazil, ii. 35). But here the allusion is simply ludicrous and to a Moslem blasphemous.

  391 Arab. “Istahi,” a word of every day use in reproof. So the Hindost. “Kuchh sharm nahin?” hast thou no shame? Shame is a passion with Orientals and very little known to the West.

  392 i.e. Angels and men saying, “The Peace (of God) be on us and on all righteous servants of Allah!” This ends every prayer.

  393 Arab. “Al-Niyah,” the ceremonial purpose or intent to pray, without which prayer is null and void. See vol. v. 163. The words would be “I purpose to pray a two-bow prayer in this hour of deadly danger to my soul.” Concerning such prayer see vol. i. 142.

  394 Arab. “Sбkin” = quiescent, Let a sleeping hound lie.

  395 Arab. “Бsбr” lit. traces i.e. the works, the mighty signs and marvels.

  396 The mention of coffee now frequently occurs in this tale and in that which follows: the familiar use of it showing a comparatively late date, and not suggesting the copyist’s hand.

  397 Arab. “Al-Kahwah,” the place being called from its produce. See Pilgrimage i. 317-18.

  398 Arab. “Al-Ghurbah Kurbah:” the translation in the text is taken from my late friend Edward Eastwick, translator of the Gulistan and author of a host of works which show him to have been a ripe Oriental scholar.

  399 The fiction may have been suggested by the fact that in all Moslem cities from India to Barbary the inner and outer gates are carefully shut during the noontide devotions, not “because Friday is the day on which creation was finished and Mohammed entered Al-Medinah;” but because there is a popular idea that in times now approaching the Christians will rise up against the Moslems during prayers and will repeat the “Sicilian Vespers.”

  400 i.e. the syndic of the Guild of Jewellers.

  401 This is an Arab Lady Godiva of the wrong sort.

  402 This is explained in my Pilgrimage i. 99 et seq.

  403 About three pennyweights. It varies, however, everywhere and in Morocco the “Mezkal” as they call it is an imaginary value, no such coin existing.

  404 i.e. over and above the value of the gold, etc.

  405 This was the custom of contemporary Europe and more than one master cutler has put to death an apprentice playing Peeping Tom to detect the secret of sword-making.

  406 Among Moslems husbands are divided into three species; (1) of “Bahr” who is married for love; (2) of “Dahr,” for defence against the world, and (3) of “Mahr” for marriage-settlements (money). Master Obayd was an unhappy compound of the two latter; but he did not cease to be a man of honour.

  407The Mac. Edit. here is a mass of blunders and misprints.

  408 The Mac. Edit. everywhere calls her “Sabiyah” = the young lady and does not mention her name Halimah = the Mild, the Gentle till the cmlxxivth Night. I follow Mr. Payne’s example by introducing it earlier into the story, as it avoids vagueness and repetition of the indefinite.

  409 Arab “Adнm al-Zauk,”=without savour. applied to an insipid mannerless man as “bбrid” (cold) is to a fool. “Ahl Zauk” is a man of pleasure, a voluptuary, a hedonist.

  410 Arab. “Finjбn” the egg-shell cups from which the

  Easterns still drink coffee.

  411 Arab. “Awбshik” a rare word, which Dozy translates “osselet” (or osselle) and Mr. Payne, “hucklebones,” concerning which he has obliged me with this note. Chambaud renders osselet by “petit os avec lequel les enfants jouent.” Hucklebone is the hip-bone but in the plural it applies to our cockals or cockles: Latham gives “hucklebone,” (or cockal), one of the small vertebrж of the coccygis, and Littleton translates “Talus,” a hucklebone, a bone to play with like a dye, a play called cockal. (So also in Rider.) Hucklebones and knucklebones are syn.: but the latter is modern and liable to give a false idea, besides being tautological. It has nothing to do with the knuckles and derives from the German “Knцchel” (dialectically Knцchelein) a bonelet.

  412 For ablution after sleep and before prayer. The address of the slave-girl is perfectly natural: in a Moslem house we should hear it this day, nor does it show the least sign of “frowardness.”

  413 The perfect stupidity of the old wittol is told with the driest Arab humour.

  414 This is a rechauffй of the Language of Signs in “Azнz and Azнzah” vol. ii. 302.

  415 In the Mac. Edit. “Yб Fulбnah”=O certain person.

  416 Arab. “Laylat al-Kбbilah,” lit.=the coming night, our to-night; for which see vol. iii. {249}.

  417 Arab. “Ya Ahmak!” which in Marocco means a madman, a maniac, a Santon.

  418 The whole passage has a grammatical double entendre whose application is palpable. Harf al-Jarr=a particle governing the noun in the genitive or a mode of thrusting and tumbling.

  419 Arab. “Al-Silah” =conjunctive (sentence), also coition; Al-Mausъl= the conjoined, a grammatical term for relative pronoun or particle.

  420 Arab. “Tanwнn al-Izбfah ma’zъl” = the nunnation in construction cast out. “Tanwнn” (nunnation) is pronouncing the vowels of the case-endings of a noun with n -un for u (nominative) -in for i (genitive) and -an for a (accusative). This nunnation expresses indefiniteness, e.g. “Malikun”=a king, any king. When the noun is made definite by the Ma’rifah or article (al), the Tanwin must be dropped, e.g. Al
-Maliku = the King; Al- Malikun being a grammatical absurdity. In construction or regimen (izбfah) the nunnation must also disappear, as Maliku ‘l-Hindi = the King of Hind (a King of Hind would be Malikun min Mulъki ‘l-Hindi = a King from amongst the Kings of Hind). Thus whilst the wife and the lover were conjoined as much as might be, the hocussed and sleeping husband was dismissed (ma’zъl=degraded) like a nunnation dropped in construction. I may add that the terminal syllables are invariably dropped in popular parlance and none but Mr. G. Palgrave (who afterwards ignored his own assertion) ever found an Arab tribe actually using them in conversation although they are always pronounced when reading the Koran and poetry.

  421 This was a saying of Mohammed about overfrequency of visits, “Zur ghibban, tazid hubban”=call rarely that friendship last fairly. So the verse of Al-Mutanabbi,

  “How oft familiarity breeds dislike.”

  Preston quotes Jesus ben Sirach, {mи йmpipte hнna mи epoorthкs, kaм mи makrаn aphнstoo hнna mи epilesthкs}. Also Al-Hariri (Ass. xv. of “The Legal”; De Sacy 1. 2.) “Visit not your friend more than one day in a month, nor stop longer than that with him!” Also Ass. xvi. 487, 8. “Multiply not visits to thy friend.” “None so disliked as one visiting too often.” (Preston ). In the Cent nouvelles (52) Nouvelles (No. lii.) the dying father says to his son:— “Jamais ne vous hantez tant en l’ostel de votre voisin que l’on vous y serve de pain bis.” In these matters Moslems follow the preaching and practice of the Apostle, who was about as hearty and genial as the “Great Washington.” But the Arab had a fund of dry humour which the Anglo-American lacked altogether.

  422 Arab. “‘Amal” — action, operation. In Hindostani it is used (often with an Alif for an Ayn) as intoxication e.g. Amal pбnн strong waters and applied to Sharбb (wine), Bozah (Beer), Tбdн (toddy or the fermented juice of the Tбd, Borassus flabelliformis), Naryбli (juice of the cocoa-nut tree) Saynddi (of the wild date, Elate Sylvestris), Afyъn (opium and its preparations as post=poppy seeds) and various forms of Cannabis Sativa, as Ganja, Charas, Madad, Sabzi etc. for which see Herklots’ Glossary.

  423 Arab “Sardбb,” mostly an underground room (vol. i. 340) but here a tunnel.

  424 Arab. “Al-Lбwandiyah”: this and the frequent mention of coffee and presently of a watch (sб’ah) show that the tale in its present state, cannot be older than the end of the sixteenth century.

  425 Arab. “Su’bбn,” vol. i. 172.

  426 The lines have occurred in vol. i. 238, where I have noted the punning “Sabr”= patience or aloes. I quote Torrens: the Templar, however, utterly abolishes the pun in the last couplet:- -

  “The case is not at my command, but in fair Patience hand

  I’m set by Him who order’th all and doth such case command.”

  “Amr” here=case (circumstance) or command (order) with a suspicion of reference to Murr=myrrh, bitterness. The reader will note the resignation to Fate’s decrees which here and in host of places elevates the tone of the book.

  427 i.e. as one loathes that which is prohibited, and with a loathing which makes it unlawful for me to cohabit with thee.

  428 This is quite natural to the sensitive Eastern.

  429 Hence, according to Moslem and Eastern theory generally her lewd and treasonable conduct. But in Egypt not a few freeborn women and those too of the noblest, would beat her hollow at her own little game. See for instance the booklet attributed to Jalбl al-Siyъtн and entitled Kitбb al-Нzбh (Book of Explanation) fн ‘Ilm al-Nikбh (in the Science of Carnal Copulation). There is a copy of it in the British Museum; and a friend kindly supplied me with a lithograph from Cairo; warning me that there are doubts about the authorship.

  430 These lines have occurred in vol. iii. 214: I quote Mr.

  Payne.

  431 This ejaculation, as the waw shows, is parenthetic; spoken either by Halimah, by Shahrazad or by the writer.

  432 Arab. “Kasr” here meaning an upper room.

  433 To avoid saying, I pardon thee.

  434 A proverbial saying which here means I could only dream of such good luck.

  435 A good old custom amongst Moslems who have had business transactions with each other: such acquittance of all possible claims will be quoted on “Judgment-Day,” when debts will be severely enquired into.

  436 Arab. “Kutr (tract or quarter) Misr,” vulgarly pronounced “Masr.” I may remind the reader that the Assyrians called the Nile-valley “Musur” whence probably the Heb. Misraim a dual form denoting Upper and Lower Egypt which are still distinguished by the Arabs into Sa’id and Misr. The hieroglyphic term is Ta-mera=Land of the Flood; and the Greek Aigyptos is probably derived from Kahi-Ptah (region of the great God Ptah) or Ma Ka Ptah (House of the soul of Ptah). The word “Copt” or “Kopt,” in Egyptian “Kubti” and pronounced “Gubti,” contains the same consonants

  437 Now an unimportant frontier fort and village dividing Syria-Palestine from Egypt and famed for the French battle with the Mamelukes (Feb. 19, 1799) and the convention for evacuating Egypt. In the old times it was an important site built upon the “River of Egypt” now a dried up Wady; and it was the chief port of the then populous Najab or South Country. According to Abulfeda it derived its name (the “boothy,” the nest) from a hut built there by the brothers of Joseph when stopped at the frontier by the guards of Pharaoh. But this is usual Jewish infection of history.

  438 Arab. “Bбb.” which may also=“Chapter” or category. See vol. i., 136 and elsewhere (index). In Egypt “Bбb” sometimes means a sepulchral cave hewn in a rock (plur. Bнbбn) from the Coptic “Bнb.”

  439 i.e. “The Holy,” a town some three marches (60 miles) N. East of Cairo; thus showing the honour done to our unheroic hero. There is also a Sбlihiyah quarter or suburb of Damascus famous for its cemetery of holy men, but the facetious Cits change the name to Zбlliniyah=causing to stray; in allusion to its Kurdish population. Baron von Hammer reads “le faubourg Adelieh” built by Al-Malik Al-Adil and founded a chronological argument on a clerical error.

  440 Kamar al-Zaman; the normal pun on the name; a practice as popular in the East as in the West, and worthy only of a pickpocket in either place.

  441 Arab. “Azrбr” plur. of “Zirr” and lit. = “buttons,” i.e. of his robe collar from which his white neck and face appear shining as the sun.

  442 Arab. “Dбirah”: the usual inclosure of Kanбts or tent-flaps pitched for privacy during the halt.

  443 i.e. it was so richly ornamented that it resembled an enchanted hoard whose spells, hiding it from sight, had been broken by some happy treasure seeker.

  444 The merchant who is a “stern parent” and exceedingly ticklish on the Pundonor saw at first sight her servile origin which had escaped the mother. Usually it is the other way.

  445 Not the head of the Church, or Chief Pontiff, but the Chief of the Olema and Fukahб (Fбkihs or D.D.’s.) men learned in the Law (divinity). The order is peculiarly Moslem, in fact the succedaneum for the Christian “hierarchy,” an institution never contemplated by the Founder of Christianity. This title shows the modern date of the tale.

  446 Arab. “Maulid,” prop. applied to the Birth-feast of Mohammed which begins on the 3rd day of Rabн al-Awwal (third Moslem month) and lasts a week or ten days (according to local custom), usually ending on the 12th and celebrated with salutes of cannon, circumcision feasts, marriage banquets, Zikr-litanies, perlections of the Koran and all manner of solemn festivities including the “powder-play” (Lбb al-Bбrъt) in the wilder corners of Al-Islam. It is also applied to the birth-festivals of great Santons (as Ahmad al-Badawi) for which see Lane M. E. chapt. xxiv. In the text it is used like the Span. “Funcion” or the Hind “Tamбshб,” any great occasion of merry-making.

  447 Arab. “Sanбjik” Plur. of Sanjak (Turk.) = a banner, also applied to the bearer (ensign or cornet) and to a military rank mostly corresponding with Bey or Colonel.

  448 I have followed Mr. Payne’s ordering of the text which, both in the Mac. an
d Bull. Edits., is wholly inconsequent and has not the excuse of rhyme.

  449 Arab. “Jilbбb,” a long coarse veil or gown which in Barbary becomes a “Jallбbiyah,” a striped and hooded cloak of woollen stuff.

  450 i.e. a broken down pilgrim left to die on the road.

  451 These lines have occurred in vol. i. 272. I quote Mr.

  Payne.

  452 Note the difference between “Zirt,” the loud crepitus

  and “Faswah” the susurrus which Captain Grose in his quaint

  “Lexicum Balatronicum,” calls a “fice” or a “foyse” (from the

  Arabic Fas, faswah ?).

  453 These lines have occurred in Night dcxix, vol. vi. 246; where the pun on Khaliyah is explained. I quote Lane.

  454 The usual pretext of “God bizness,” as the Comoro men call it. For the title of the Ka’abah see my Pilgrimage vol. iii. 149.

  455 This was in order to travel as a respectable man; he could also send the girl as a spy into the different Harims to learn news of the lady who had eloped.

  456 A polite form of alluding to their cursing him.

  457 i.e. on account of the King taking offence at his unceremonious departure.

  458 i.e. It will be the worse for him.

  459 I would here remind the reader that “‘Arabiyyun” pl. ‘Urb is a man of pure Arab race, whether of the Ahl al-Madar (=people of mortar, i.e. citizens) or Ahl al-Wabar (=tents of goat or camel’s hair); whereas “A’rбbiyyun” pl. A’rбb is one who dwells in the Desert whether Arab or not. Hence the verse: —