One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  102 i.e. to find the thief or make good the loss.

  103 i.e. the claimants.

  104 Arab. “Sakiyah:” see vol. i. 123.

  105 The lower orders of Egypt and Syria are addicted to this bear-like attack; so the negroes imitate fighting-rams by butting with their stony heads. Let me remark that when Herodotus (iii. 12), after Psammenitus’ battle of Pelusium in B.C. 524, made the remark that the Egyptian crania were hardened by shaving and insolation and the Persians were softened by wearing head-cloths, he tripped in his anthropology. The Iranian skull is naturally thin compared with that of the negroid Egyptian and the negro.

  106 Arab. “Farkalah,” {phragéllion} from flagellum; cattle-whip with leathern thongs. Lane, M.E.; Fleischer Glos. 83-84; Dozy s.v.

  107 This clause is supplied to make sense.

  108 i.e. to crucify him by nailing him to an upright board.

  109 i.e. a native of the Hauran, Job’s country east of Damascus, now a luxuriant waste, haunted only by the plundering Badawin and the Druzes of the hills, who are no better; but its stretches of ruins and league-long swathes of stone over which the vine was trained, show what it has been and what it will be again when the incubus of Turkish mis-rule shall be removed from it. Herr Schuhmacher has lately noted in the Hauran sundry Arab traditions of Job; the village Nawá, where he lived; the Hammam ‘Ayyúb, where he washed his leprous skin; the Dayr Ayyúb, a monastery said to date from the third century; and the Makan Ayyub at Al-Markáz, where the semi-mythical patriarch and his wife are buried. The “Rock of Job”, covered by a mosque, is a basaltic monolith 7 feet high by 4, and is probably connected with the solar worship of the old Phnicians.

  110 This habit “torquere mero,” was a favourite with the medićval Arabs. Its effect varies greatly with men’s characters, making some open-hearted and communicative, and others more cunning and secretive than in the normal state. So far it is an excellent detection of disposition, and many a man who passes off well when sober has shown himself in liquor a rank snob. Among the lower orders it provokes what the Persians call Bad-mastí (le vin méchant) see Pilgrimage iii. 385.

  111 This mystery is not unfamiliar to the modern “spiritualist;” and all Eastern tongues have a special term for the mysterious Voice. See vol. i. 142.

  112 Arab. “Alaykum:” addressed to a single person. This is generally explained by the “Salam” reaching the ears of Invisible Controls, and even the Apostle. We find the words cruelly distorted in the Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile (partly translated by John E. Taylor, London: Bogue, 1848), “The Prince, coming up to the old woman heard an hundred Licasalemme,” .

  113 Arab. “Al-Zalamah”; the policeman; see vol. vi. 214.

  114 i.e. in my punishment.

  115 i.e. on Doomsday thou shalt get thy deserts.

  116 i.e. what I could well afford.

  117 Arab. Hirfah=a trade, a guild, a corporation: here the officers of police.

  118 Gen. “tip-cat” (vol. ii. 314.) Here it would mean a rude form of tables or backgammon, in which the players who throw certain numbers are dubbed Sultan and Wazir, and demean themselves accordingly. A favourite bit of fun with Cairene boys of a past generation was to “make a Pasha;” and for this proceeding, see Pilgrimage, vol. i. 119.

  119 In Marocco there is great difficulty about finding an executioner who becomes obnoxious to the Thár, vendetta or blood-revenge. For salting the criminal’s head, however, the soldiers seize upon the nearest Jew and compel him to clean out the brain and to prepare it for what is often a long journey. Hence, according to some, the local name of the Ghetto, Al-Malláh,=the salting-ground.

  120 Mr. Payne suspects that “laban,” milk, esp. artificially soured (see vol. vi, 201), is a clerical error for “jubn”=cheese. This may be; but I follow the text as the exaggeration is greater

  121 i.e. in relinquishing his blood-wite for his brother.

  122 The Story-teller, probably to relieve the monotony of the Constables’ histories, here returns to the original cadre. We must not forget that in the Bresl. Edit. the Nights are running on, and that the charming queen is relating the adventure of Al-Malik al-Zahir.

  123 Arab. “Za’amu”=they opine, they declare, a favourite term with the Bresl. Edit.

  124 Arab. “Zirtah” the coarsest of terms for what the French nuns prettily termed un sonnet; I find ung sonnet also in Nov. ii. of the Cent nouvelles Nouvelles. Captain Lockett () quotes Strepsiades in The Clouds {brontâ komidę pappáx} “because he cannot express the bathos of the original (in the Tale of Ja’afar and the old Badawi) without descending to the oracular language of Giacoma Rodogina, the engastrymythian prophetess.” But Sterne was by no means so squeamish. The literature of this subject is extensive, beginning with “Peteriana, ou l’art de peter,” which distinguishes 62 different tones. After dining with a late friend en garçon we went into his sitting-room and found on the table 13 books and booklets upon the Crepitus Ventris, and there was some astonishment as not a few of the party had never seen one.

  125 This tale is a replica of the Cranes of Ibycus. This was a Rhegium man who when returning to Corinth, his home, was set upon by robbers and slain. He cast his dying eyes heavenwards and seeing a flight of cranes called upon them to avenge him and this they did by flying over the theatre of Corinth on a day when the murderers were present and one cried out, “Behold the avengers of Ibycus!” Whereupon they were taken and put to death. So says Paulus Hieronymus, and the affecting old tale has newly been sung in charming verse by Mr. Justin H. McCarthy (“Serapion.” London: Chatto and Windus).

  126 This scene is perfectly true to Badawi life; see my

  Pilgrimage iii. 68.

  127 Arab. “Durráj”: so it is rendered in the French translation of Al-Masudi, vii. 347.

  128 A fair friend found the idea of Destiny in The Nights become almost a night-mare. Yet here we suddenly alight upon the true Johnsonian idea that conduct makes fate. Both extremes are as usual false. When one man fights a dozen battles unwounded and another falls at the first shot we cannot but acknowledge the presence of that mysterious “luck” whose laws, now utterly unknown to us, may become familiar with the ages. I may note that the idea of an appointed hour beyond which life may not be prolonged, is as old as Homer (Il. vi. 487).

  The reader has been told (vol. vii. 135) that “Kazá” is Fate in a general sense, the universal and eternal Decree of Allah, while “Kadar” is its special and particular application to man’s lot, that is Allah’s will in bringing forth events at a certain time and place. But the former is popularly held to be of two categories, one Kazá al-Muham which admits of modification and Kazá al-Muhkam, absolute and unchangeable, the doctrine of irresistible predestination preached with so much energy by St. Paul (Romans ix. 15-24); and all the world over men act upon the former while theoretically holding to the latter. Hence “Chinese Gordon” whose loss to England is greater than even his friends suppose, wrote “It is a delightful thing to be a fatalist,” meaning that the Divine direction and pre-ordination of all things saved him so much trouble of forethought and afterthought. In this tenet he was not only a Calvinist but also a Moslem whose contradictory ideas of Fate and Freewill (with responsibility) are not only beyond Reason but are contrary to Reason; and although we may admit the argumentum ad verecundiam, suggesting that there are things above (or below) human intelligence, we are not bound so to do in the case of things which are opposed to the common sense of mankind. Practically, however, the Moslem attitude is to be loud in confessing belief of “Fate and Fortune” before an event happens and after it wisely to console himself with the conviction that in no way could he have escaped the occurrence. And the belief that this destiny was in the hands of Allah gives him a certain dignity especially in the presence of disease and death which is wanting in his rival religionist the Christian. At the same time the fanciful picture of the Turk sitting stolidly under a shower of bullets because Fate will not find him out unless it be so written is a freak
of fancy rarely found in real life.

  There are four great points of dispute amongst the schoolmen in Al-Islam; (1) the Unity and Attributes of Allah, (2) His promises and threats, (3) historical as the office of Imám; and (4) Predestination and the justice thereof. On the latter subject opinions range over the whole cycle of possibilities. For instance, the Mu’tazilites, whom the learned Weil makes the Protestants and Rationalists of Al-Islam, contend that the word of Allah was created in subjecto, ergo, an accident and liable to perish, and one of their school, the Kádiriyah ( = having power) denies the existence of Fate and contends that Allah did not create evil but left man an absolutely free agent. On the other hand, the Jabariyah (or Mujabbar = the compelled) is an absolute Fatalist who believes in the omnipotence of Destiny and deems that all wisdom consists in conforming with its decrees. Al-Mas’udi (chapt. cxxvii.) illustrates this by the saying of a Moslem philosopher that chess was the invention of a Mu’tazil, while Nard (backgammon with dice) was that of a Mujabbar proving that play can do nothing against Destiny. Between the two are the Ashariyah; trimmers whose stand-point is hard to define; they would say, “Allah creates the power by which man acts, but man wills the action,” and care not to answer the query, “Who created the will ?” (See Pocock, Sale and the Dabistan ii. 352). Thus Sa’adi says in the Gulistan (iii. 2), “The wise have pronounced that though daily bread be allotted, yet it is so conditionally upon using means to acquire it, and although calamity be predestined, yet it is right to secure oneself against the portals by which it may have access.” Lastly, not a few doctors of Law and Religion hold that Kaza al-Muhkam, however absolute, regards only man’s after or final state; and upon this subject they are of course as wise as other people, and — no wiser. Lane has treated the Moslem faith in Destiny very ably and fully (Arabian Nights, vol. i. p-61), and he being a man of moderate and orthodox views gives valuable testimony.

  129 Arab. “Shaykh al-Hujjáj.” Some Santon like Hasan al- Marábit, then invoked by the Meccan pilgrims: see Pilgrimage, i. 321. It can hardly refer to the famous Hajjáj bin Yúsuf al-Sakafí (vol. iv. 3).

  130 Here the Stories of the Sixteen Constables abruptly end, after the fashion of the Bresl. Edit. They are summarily dismissed even without the normal “Bakhshísh.”

  131 Bresl. Edit. vol xi. p-473 and vol. xii. p-50,

  Nights dccccxli.-dcccclvii. For Kashghar, see vol. i. 255.

  132 Mr. Payne proposes to translate “‘Anbar” by amber, the semi-fossilised resin much used in modern days, especially in Turkey and Somaliland, for bead necklaces. But, as he says, the second line distinctly alludes to the perfume which is sewn in leather and hung about the neck, after the fashion of our ancient pomanders (pomme d’ ambre).

  133 i.e. The Caliph: see vol. i. .

  134 Arab. “Adab :” see vol. i. 132, etc. In Moslem dialects which borrow more or less from Arabic, “Bí-adabí” = being without Adab, means rudeness, disrespect, “impertinence” (in its modern sense).

  135 i.e. Isaac of Mosul, the greatest of Arab musicians: see vol. iv. 119.

  136 The elder brother of Ja’afar, by no means so genial or fitted for a royal frolic. See Terminal Essay.

  137 Ibn Habíb, a friend of Isaac, and a learned grammarian who lectured at Basrah.

  138 A suburb of Baghdad, mentioned by Al Mas’údi.

  139 Containing the rooms in which the girl or girls were sold. See Pilgrimage i. 87.

  140 Dozy quotes this passage but cannot explain the word

  Fawwák.

  141 “A passage has apparently dropped out here. The Khalif seems to have gone away without buying, leaving Ishac behind, whereupon the latter was accosted by another slave-girl, who came out of a cell in the corridor.” So says Mr. Payne. vol. ii. 207. The “raiser of the veil” means a fitting purchaser.

  142 i.e. “Choice gift of the Fools,” a skit upon the girl’s name “Tohfat al-Kulúb” = Choice gift of the Hearts. Her folly consisted in refusing to be sold at a high price, and this is often seen in real life. It is a Pundonor amongst good Moslems not to buy a girl and not to sleep with her, even when bought, against her will.

  143 “Every one cannot go to Corinth.” The question makes the assertion emphatic.

  144 i.e. The Narrows of the (Dervishes’) convent.

  145 Arab. “Akwŕ min dahni ‘l-lauz.” These unguents have been used in the East from time immemorial whilst the last generation in England knew nothing of anointing with oil for incipient consumption. A late friend of mine, Dr. Stocks of the Bombay Establishment, and I proposed it as long back as 1845; but in those days it was a far cry from Sind to London.

  146 The sequel will explain why she acted in this way.

  147 i.e. Thou hast made my gold piece (10 shill.) worth only a doit by thy superiority in the art and mystery of music.

  148 Arab. “Uaddíki,” Taadiyah (iid. of Adá, he assisted) means sending, forwarding. In Egypt and Syria we often find the form “Waddi” for Addi, imperative.

  149 Again “he” for “she”.

  150 i.e. Honey and wine.

  151 i.e. he died.

  152 i.e. if my hand had lost its cunning.

  153 Arab. “Thiyáb ‘Amúdiyah”: ‘Amud = tent prop or column, and

  Khatt ‘Amúd = a perpendicular line.

  154 i.e. a choice gift. The Caliph speaks half ironically. “Where’s this wonderful present etc?” So further on when he compares her with the morning.

  155 Again the usual pun upon the name.

  156 Throughout the East this is the action of a servant or a slave, practised by freemen only when in danger of life or extreme need and therefore humiliating.

  157 It had been thrown down from the Mamrak or small dome built over such pavilions for the purpose of light by day and ventilation by night. See vol. i. 257, where it is called by the Persian term “Bádhanj.”

  158 The Nights have more than once applied this patronymic to Zubaydah. See vol. viii. 56, 158.

  159 Arab. “Mutahaddisín” = novi homines, upstarts.

  160 i.e. thine auspicious visits.

  161 He being seated on the carpet at the time.

  162 A quotation from Al-Farazdat who had quarrelled with his wife Al-Howár (see the tale in Ibn Khallikan, i. 521), hence “the naked intercessor” became proverbial for one who cannot be withstood.

  163 i.e. Choice Gift of the Breasts, that is of hearts, the continens for the contentum.

  164 Pron. “Abuttawáif,” the Father of the (Jinn-)tribes. It is one of the Moslem Satan’s manifold names, alluding to the number of his servants and worshippers, so far agreeing with that amiable Christian doctrine, “Few shall be saved.”

  165 Mr. Payne supplies this last clause from the sequence.

  166 i.e. “Let us go,” with a euphemistic formula to defend her from evil influences. Iblis uses the same word to prevent her being frightened.

  167 Arab. “Al-Mustaráh,” a favourite haunting place of the

  Jinn, like the Hammám and other offices for human impurity. For

  its six names Al-Khalá, Al-Hushsh, Al-Mutawazzá, Al-Kaníf,

  Al-Mustaráh, and Mirház, see Al-Mas’udi, chap. cxxvii., and

  Shiríshi’s commentary to Hariri’s 47, Assembly.

  168 Which, in the East, is high and prominent whilst the cantle forms a back to the seat and the rider sits as in a baby’s chair. The object is a firm seat when fighting: “across country” it is exceedingly dangerous.

  169 In Swedenborg’s “Arcana Clestia” we read, “When man’s inner sight is opened, which is that of his spirit; then there appear the things of another life which cannot be made visible to the bodily sight.” Also “Evil spirits, when seen by eyes other than those of their infernal associates, present themselves by correspondence in the beast (fera) which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and atrocious.” These are the Jinns of Northern Europe.

  170 This exchange of salams was a sign of her being in safety.

  171 A
rab. “Shawáhid,” meaning that heart testifies to heart.

  172 i.e. A live coal, afterwards called Zalzalah, an earthquake; see post . “Wakhímah” = an unhealthy land, and “Sharárah” = a spark.

  173 I need hardly note the inscriptions upon the metal trays sold to Europeans. They are usually imitation words so that infidel eyes may not look upon the formulć of prayer; and the same is the case with table-cloths, etc., showing a fancy Tohgra or Sultanic sign-manual.

  174 i.e. I cannot look at them long.

  175 Evidently a diabolical way of clapping his hands in applause. This description of the Foul Fiend has an element of grotesqueness which is rather Christian than Moslem.

  176 Arab. “Rikkí al-Saut,” which may also mean either “lower thy voice,” or “change the air to one less touching.”

  177 “Your” for “thy.”

  178 i.e. written on the “Guarded Tablet” from all eternity.

  179 Arab. “Al-’Urs w’al-Tuhúr” which can only mean, “the wedding (which does not drop out of the tale) and the circumcision.”

  180 I here propose to consider at some length this curious custom which has prevailed amongst so many widely separated races. Its object has been noted (vol. v. 209), viz. to diminish the sensibility of the glans, no longer lubricated with prostatic lymph; thus the part is hardened against injury and disease and its work in coition is prolonged. On the other hand, “prćputium in coitu voluptatem (of the woman) auget, unde femina prćputiatis concubitum malunt quam cum Turcis ac Judćis “ says Dimerbroeck (Anatomie). I vehemently doubt the fact. Circumcision was doubtless practised from ages immemorial by the peoples of Central Africa, and Welcker found traces of it in a mummy of the xvith century B.C. The Jews borrowed it from the Egyptian priesthood and made it a manner of sacrament, “uncircumcised” being = “unbaptised,” that is, barbarian, heretic; it was a seal of reconciliation, a sign of alliance between the Creator and the Chosen People, a token of nationality imposed upon the body politic. Thus it became a cruel and odious protestation against the brotherhood of man, and the cosmopolitan Romans derided the verpć ac verpi. The Jews also used the term figuratively as the “circumcision of fruits” (Lev. xix. 23), and of the heart (Deut. x. 16); and the old law gives copious historical details of its origin and continuance. Abraham first amputated his horny “calotte” at ćt. 99, and did the same for his son and household (Gen. xvii. 24-27). The rite caused a separation between Moses and his wife (Exod. iv. 25). It was suspended during the Desert Wanderings and was resumed by Joshua (v. 3-7), who cut off two tons weight of prepuces. The latter became, like the scalps of the Scythians and the North-American “Indians,” trophies of victory; Saul promised his daughter Michol to David for a dowry of one hundred, and the son-in-law brought double tale.