One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  239 The old name of the parish bull in rural England.

  240 Arab. “Kawík:” see The Nights, vol. vi. 182, where the bird is called “Ak’ak.” Our dicts. do not give the word, but there is a {root} “Kauk” (Káka, yakúku) to cluck, and “Kauk” = an aquatic bird with a long neck. I assume “Kawík” to be an intensive form of the same root. The “Mother of Solomon” is a fanciful “Kunyah,” or bye name given to the bird by the Bhang-eater, suggesting his high opinion of her wisdom.

  241 Arab. “Nátúr,” prop. a watchman: also a land-mark, a bench-mark of tamped clay.

  242 In text “Bartamán” for “Martaban” = a pot, jar, or barrel-shaped vessel: others apply the term to fine porcelain which poison cannot affect. See Col. Yule’s Glossary, s. v. Martabán, where the quotation from Ibn Batutah shows that the term was current in the xivth century. Linschoten (i. 101) writes, “In this town (Martaban of Pegu) many of the great earthen pots are made, which in India are called Martananas, and many of them are carried throughout all India of all sorts both small and great: and some are so great that they will fill two pipes of water.” Pyrard (i. 259) applies the name to “certain handsome jars, of finer shape and larger than I have seen elsewhere” (Transl. by Albert Gray for the Hakluyt Soc. 1887). Mr. Hill adds that at Málé the larger barrel-shaped jars of earthenware are still called “Mátabán,” and Mr. P. Brown (Zillah Dictionary, 1852) finds the word preserved upon the Madras coast = a black jar in which rice is imported from Pegu.

  243 The Arabic here changes person, “he repeated” after

  Eastern Fashion, and confuses the tale to European readers.

  244 Such treasure trove belonging to the State, i.e. the

  King.

  245 Arab. “Húrí” for “Húr” = a pool, marsh, or quagmire, in fact corresponding with our vulgar “bogshop.” Dr. Steingass would read “Haurí,” a “mansúb” of “Haur” = pond, quagmire, which, in connection with a Hammam, may = sink, sewer, etc.

  246 The Bedlam: see vol. i. 288.

  247 Arab. “Tamtar aysh?” (i.e. Ayyu shayyin, see vol. i. 79). I may note that the vulgar abbreviation is of ancient date. Also the Egyptian dialect has borrowed, from its ancestor the Coptic, the practice of putting the interrogatory pronoun or adverb after (not before the verb, e.g. “Rá’ih fayn?” = Wending (art thou) whither? It is regretable that Egyptian scholars do not see the absolute necessity of studying Coptic, and this default is the sole imperfection of the late Dr. Spitta Bey’s admirable Grammar of Egyptian.

  248 Arab. “‘Arsah,” akin to “Mu’arris” (masc.) = a pimp, a pander. See vol. i. 338; and Supp. vol. i. 206; and for its use Pilgrimage i. 276.

  249 i.e. Abú Kásim the Drummer. The word “Tambúr” is probably derived from “Tabl” = a drum, which became by the common change of liquids “Tabur” in O. French and “Tabour” in English. Hence the mod. form “Tambour,” which has been adopted by Turkey, e.g. Tambúrji = a drummer. In Egypt, however, “Tambúr” is applied to a manner of mandoline or guitar, mostly used by Greeks and other foreigners. See Lane, M.E. chap. xviii.

  250 Arab. “Bál” (sing. Bálah) = a bale, from the Span. Bala and Italian Balla, a small parcel made up in the shape of a bale, Lat. Palla.

  251 Arab. “Walásh,” i.e. “Was lá shayya” = “And nihil” (nil, non ens, naught).

  252 Arab. “Kurbáj” = cravache: vol. viii. 17. The best are made of hippopotamus-hide (imported from East Africa), boiled and hammered into a round form and tapering to the point. Plied by a strong arm they cut like a knout.

  253 The text “Yá Sultán-am,” a Persian or Turkish form for the Arab. “Yá Sultán-i.”

  254 In text “Kalb” for “Kulbat” = a cave, a cavern.

  255 The houses were of unbaked brick or cob, which readily melts away in rain and requires annual repairing at the base of the walls where affected by rain and dew. In Sind the damp of the earth with its nitrous humour eats away the foundations and soon crumbles them to dust.

  256 Here meaning the under-Governor or head Clerk.

  257 “Níl” (= the Nile), in vulgar Egyptian parlance the word is = “high Nile,” or the Nile in flood.

  258 Arab. “Darwayshah” = a she-Fakír, which in Europe would be represented by that prime pest a begging nun.

  259 Arab. “Allah háfiz-ik” = the popular Persian expression,

  “Khudá Háfiz!”

  260 Arab. “Sálihin” = the Saints, the Holy Ones.

  261 Arab. “Sharkh” = in dicts. the unpolished blade of a hiltless sword.

  262 In the text “Miláyah,” a cotton stuff some 6 feet long, woven in small chequers of white and indigo-blue with an ending of red at either extremity. Men wrap it round the body or throw it over the shoulder like our plaid, whose colours I believe are a survival of the old body-paintings, Pictish and others. The woman’s “Miláyah” worn only out of doors may be of silk or cotton: it is made of two pieces which are sewed together lengthwise and these cover head and body like a hooded cloak. Lane figures it in M.E. chapt. i. When a woman is too poor to own a “Miláyah” or a “Habarah” (a similar article) she will use a bed-sheet for out-of-doors work.

  263 The pun here is “Khalíyát” = bee-hive and empty: See vols. vi. 246; ix. 291. It will occur again in Supplementary vol. v. Night DCXLVI.

  264 i.e. Caravan, the common Eastern term. In India it was used for a fleet of merchantmen under convoy: see Col. Yule, Glossary, s. v.

  265 Again “Bartamán” for “Martabán.”

  266 The “Sáhib” = owner, and the “Dallál” = broker, are evidently the same person.

  267 “Alŕ kám” for “kam” (how much?)?peasants’ speech.

  268 She has appeared already twice in The Nights, esp. in

  The Tale of Ghánim bin ‘Ayyúb (vol. ii. 45) and in Khalifah the

  Fisherman of Baghdad (vol. viii. 145). I must again warn my

  readers not to confound “Kút” = food with “Kuwwat” = force, as in

  Scott’s “Koout al Koolloob” (vi. 146). See Terminal Essay .

  269 In text “Mu’ammarjiyah” (master-masons), a vulgar Egyptianism for “Mu’ammarin.” See “Jáwashiyah,” vols. ii. 49; viii. 330. In the third line below we find “Muhandizín” = geometricians, architects, for “Muhandisín.” [Perhaps a reminiscence of the Persian origin of the word “Handasah” = geometry, which is derived from “Andázah” = measurement, etc. St.]

  270 The text ends this line in Arabic.

  271 Alluding to the curious phenomenon pithily expressed in the Latin proverb, “Suus cuique crepitus benč olet,” I know of no exception to the rule, except amongst travellers in Tibet, where the wild onion, the only procurable green-stuff, produces an odour so rank and fetid that men run away from their own crepitations. The subject is not savoury, yet it has been copiously illustrated: I once dined at a London house whose nameless owner, a noted bibliophile, especially of “facetić,” had placed upon the drawing-room table a dozen books treating of the “Crepitus ventris.” When the guests came up and drew near the table, and opened the volumes, their faces were a study. For the Arab. “Faswah” = a silent break wind, see vol. ix. 11 and 291. It is opposed to “Zirt” = a loud fart and the vulgar term, see vol. ii. 88.

  272 Arab. “Yá Házá,” see vol. i. 290.

  273 In text “Yumkinshayy,” written in a single word, a favourite expression, Fellah-like withal, throughout this MS.

  274 In text “Tafazzalú;” see vol. ii. 103.

  275 The word (Saráy) is Pers. but naturalised throughout Egypt and Syria; in places like Damascus where there is no king it is applied to the official head-quarters of the Walí (provincial governor), and contains the prison like the Maroccan “Kasbah.” It must not be confounded with “Serraglio” = the Harem, Gynecium or women’s rooms, which appears to be a bastard neo-Latin word “Serrare,” through the French Serrer. I therefore always write it with the double “canine letter.”

  276 I have noted (vol. i. 95) that the “Khil�
��ah” = robe of honour, consists of many articles, such as a horse, a gold-hilted sword, a fine turban, etc., etc.

  277 This again shows the “Nakkál” or coffee-house tale-teller. See vol. x. 163.

  278 This is the Moslem version of “Solomon’s Judgment” (1 Kings iii. 16-20). The Hebrew legend is more detailed but I prefer its rival for sundry reasons. Here the women are not “harlots” but the co-wives of one man and therefore hostile; moreover poetical justice is done to the constructive murderess.

  279 I am not aware that the specific gravity of the milks has ever been determined by modern science; and perhaps the experiment is worthy a trial.

  280 Arab. “Dúna-k.” See vol. iv. .

  281 “Al-Wazíru’l-’Arif bi-lláhi Ta’álŕ,” a title intended to mimic those of the Abbaside Caliphs; such as “Mu’tasim bi’llah” (servant of Allah), the first of the long line whose names begin with an epithet (the Truster, the Implorer, etc.), and end with “bi’llah.”

  282 [Tarajjama, which is too frequently used in this MS. to be merely considered as a clerical error, I suppose to mean: he pronounced for him the formula: “A’uzzu bi lláhi mina ‘l-Shaytáni ‘l-Rajimi” = I take refuge with Allah against Satan the Stoned. See Koran xvi. 100. It would be thus equivalent with the usual ta’awwaza.?St.]

  283 The MS. here ends Night cdxii. and begins the next. Up to this point I have followed the numeration but from this forwards as the Nights become unconscionably short compared with the intervening dialogues, I have thrown two and sometimes three into one. The Arabic numbers are, however, preserved for easier reference.

  284 This is a poor and scamped version of “Ali the Persian and the Kurd Sharper,” in vol. iv. 149. It is therefore omitted.

  285 The dish-cover, usually made of neatly plaited straw variously coloured, is always used, not only for cleanliness but to prevent the Evil Eye falling upon and infecting the food.

  286 The “Bámiyah,” which = the Gumbo, Occra (Okrá) or Bhendi of Brit. India which names the celebrated bazar of Bombay, is the esculent hibiscus, the polygonal pod (some three inches long and thick as a man’s finger) full of seeds and mucilage making it an excellent material for soups and stews. It is a favourite dish in Egypt and usually eaten with a squeeze of lime-juice. See Lane, Mod. Egypt. chapt. v., and Herklots (App. p. xlii.) who notices the curry of “Bandakí” or Hibiscus esculentus.

  287 Written “Bakshísh” for “Bakhshísh,” after Fellah-fashion.

  288 [In the MS.: Wa’l-Sultánu karaa Wirduh (Wirda-hu) wa jalasa li ‘l-Munádamah = And the Sovran recited his appointed portion of the Koran, and then sat down to convivial converse. This reminds of the various passages of the present Shah of Persia’s Diary, in which he mentions the performance of his evening devotions, before setting out for some social gathering, say a supper in the Guildhall, which he neatly explains as a dinner after midnight (Shám ba’d az nisf-i-shab).?St.]

  289 This is Scott’s “Story of the Three Princes and Enchanting Bird,” vol. vi. 160. On the margin of the W. M. MS. he has written, “Story of the King and his Three Sons and the Enchanting Bird” (vol. i. Night cdxvii.). Gauttier, vi. 292, names it Histoire des Trois Princes et de l’Oiseau Magicien. Galland may have used parts of it in the “Two Sisters who envied their Cadette”: see Supp. vol. iii. p-549.

  290 In text “Al-Bulaybul” (the little Nightingale, Philomelet) “Al Sayyáh” (the Shrieker). The latter epithet suggests to me the German novel which begins, “We are in Italy where roses bestink the day and Nightingales howl through the live-long night,” &c.

  291 “Sanják,” Turk. = flag, banner, and here used (as in vulg. Arab.) for Sanják-dár, the banner-bearer, ensign. In mod. parlance, Sanják = minor province, of which sundry are included in an “Iyálah” = government-general, under the rule of a Wáli (Wiláyah).

  292 In the MS. “Zifr” = nail, claw, talon.

  293 “Al-Rizk maksúm,” an old and sage byword pregnant with significance: compare “Al-Khauf (fear) maksúm” = cowardice is equally divided. Vol. iii. 173. [I read: “Yas’ŕ ‘l-Kadamu li-’Umrin danŕ au li-Rizkin qusima,” taking “Rizk” as an equivalent for “al-Rizku ‘l-hasanu” = any good thing which a man obtains without exerting himself in seeking for it, and the passive “qusima” in the sense of Kismah, vulgo “Kismet.” Hence I would translate: The foot speeds to a life that is mean, or to a boon that is pre-ordained.?St.]

  294 In the text “Bát” (for Bit), in Fellah-speech “Pass the night here!” The Bird thus makes appeal to the honour and hospitality of his would-be captor, and punishes him if he consent. I have translated after Scott (v. 161). [I cannot persuade myself to take “bát” for an imperative, which would rather be “bít” for “bit,” as we shall find “kúm” for “kum,” “rúh” for “ruh.” It seems to me that the preterite “bát” means here “the night has passed,” and rendering “man” by the interrogative, I would translate: “O! who will say to the sad, the separated, night is over?” Complaints of the length of night are frequent with the parted in Arab poetry. This accords also better with the following ‘Atús al-Shams, the sneezing of the sun, which to my knowledge, applies only to daybreak, as in Hariri’s 15th Assembly (al-Farzíyah), where “the nose of the morning” sneezes.?St.]

  295 i.e., they bound kerchiefs stained blue or almost black round their brows. In modern days Fellah women stain their veils (face and head), kerchiefs and shirts with indigo; and some colour their forearms to the elbow.

  296 Here again and in the following adventure we have

  “Khudadad and his Brothers.” Suppl. vol. iii. 209-304.

  297 In sign of despair. See vol. i. 298.

  298 In text “Kalamátu ‘llah” = the Koran: and the quotation is from chapt. cxiii. 5. For the “Two Refuge-takings” (Al-Mu’awizzatáni), see vol. iii. 222.

  299 i.e., caused his brothers to recover life. [I read: Allazí ‘amaltu fí-him natíjah yujázúní bi-Ziddi-há = Those to whom I did a good turn, requite me with the contrary thereof. Allazí, originally the masc. Sing. is in this MS. vulgarly, like its still more vulgar later contraction, “illí,” used for both genders and the three numbers.?St.]

  300 Arab. “Házir!” I have noted that this word, in Egypt and Syria, corresponds with the English waiter’s “Yes sir!”

  301 Koran, Chapter of Joseph, xii. 19.

  302 Arab. “Hanút:” this custom has become almost obsolete: the corpse is now sprinkled with a mixture of water, camphor diluted and the dried and pounded leaves of various trees, especially the “Nabk” (lote-tree or Zizyphus lotus).?Lane M.E. chapt. xxviii.

  303 These comical measures were taken by “Miss Lucy” in order to charm away the Evil Eye which had fascinated the article in question. Such temporary impotence in a vigorous man, which results from an exceptional action of the brain and the nervous system, was called in old French Nouement des aiguilettes (i.e. point-tying, the points which fastened the haut-de-chausses or hose to the jerkin, and its modern equivalent would be to “button up the flap”). For its cure, the “Déliement des aiguilettes” see Davenport “Aphrodisiacs” , and the French translation of the Shaykh al-Nafzáwi (Jardin Parfumé, chapt. xvii. p-53). The Moslem heal such impotence by the usual simples, but the girl in the text adopts a moral course of treatment which buries the dead parts in order to resurrect them. A friend of mine, a young and vigorous officer, was healed by a similar process. He had carried off a sergeant’s wife, and the husband lurked about the bungalow to shoot him, a copper cap being found under the window: hence a state of nervousness which induced perfect impotence. He applied to the regimental surgeon, happily a practised hand, and was gravely supplied with pills and a draught; his diet was carefully regulated and he was ordered to sleep by the woman but by no means to touch her for ten days. On the fifth he came to his adviser with a sheepish face and told him that he had not wholly followed the course prescribed, as last night he had suddenly?by the blessing of the draught and the pills?recovered and had given palpable evi
dence of his pristine vigour. The surgeon deprecated such proceeding until the patient should have had full benefit of his drugs?bread pills and cinnamon-water.

  304 Here ends vol. iii. of the W. M. MS. and begins Night cdxxvi.

  305 In the Text “Rísah,” copyist’s error for “Ríshah” = a thread, a line: it afterwards proves to be an ornament for a falcon’s neck. [I cannot bring myself to adopt here the explanation of “Ríshah” as a string instead of its usual meaning of “feather,” “plume.” My reasons are the following: 1. The youth sets it upon his head; that is, I suppose, his cap, or whatever his head-gear may be, which seems a more appropriate place for a feather than for a necklace. 2. Further on, Night cdxxx., it is said that the Prince left the residence of his second spouse in search (talíb) of the city of the bird. If the word “Ríshah,” which, in the signification of thread, is Persian, had been sufficiently familiar to an Arab to suggest, as a matter of course, a bird’s necklace, and hence the bird itself, we would probably find a trace of this particular meaning, if not in other Arabic books, at least in Persian writers or dictionaries; but here the word “Ríshah,” by some pronounced “Reshah” with the Yá majhúl, never occurs in connection with jewels; it means fringe, filament, fibre. On the other hand, the suggestion of the bird presents itself quite naturally at the sight of the feather. 3. Ib. the youth requests the old man to tell him concerning the “Tayrah allazí Rísh-há (not Rishat-há) min Ma’ádin,” which, I believe, can only be rendered by: the bird whose plumage is of precious stones. The “Ríshah” itself was said to be “min Zumurrud wa Lúlú,” of emeralds and pearls; and the cage will be “min Ma’ádin wa Lúlú,” of precious stones and pearls, in all which cases the use of the preposition “min” points more particularly to the material of which the objects are wrought than the mere Izáfah. The wonderfulness of the bird seems therefore rather to consist in his jewelled plumage than the gift of speech or other enchanting qualities, and I would take it for one of those costly toys, in imitation of trees and animals, in which Eastern princes rejoice, and of which we read so many descriptions, not only in books of fiction, but even in historical works. If it were a live-bird of the other kind, he would probably have put in his word to expose the false brothers of the Prince.?St.]