One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  370 Here we find the old superstitious idea that no census or “numbering of the people” should take place save by direct command of the Creator. Compare the pestilence which arose in the latter days of David when Joab by command of the King undertook the work (2 Sam. xxiv. 1-9, etc.).

  371 The text has “Salásín” = thirty, evidently a clerical error.

  372 [In Ar. “yanjaaru,” vii. form of “jaara” (med. Hamzah), in which the idea of “raising,” “lifting up,” seems to prevail, for it is used for raising the voice in prayer to God, and for the growing high of plants.?ST.]

  373 The text, which is wholly unedited, reads, “He found the beasts and their loads (? the camels) and the learned men,” &c. A new form of “bos atque sacerdos” and of place pour les ânes et les savants, as the French soldiers cried in Egypt when the scientists were admitted into the squares of infantry formed against the doughty Mameluke cavalry.

  374 [In the MS. “wáraytaní ilŕ l-turáb” = thou hast given me over to the ground for concealment, iii. form of “warŕ,” which takes the meaning of “hiding,” “keeping secret.”?ST.]

  375 [The MS. has “wa dazz-há,” which is an evident corruption. The translator, placing the diacritical point over the first radical instead of the second, reads “wa zarr-há,” and renders accordingly. But if in the MS. the dot is misplaced, the Tashdid over it would probably also belong to the Dál, resp. Zal, and as it is very feasible that a careless writer should have dropped one Wáw before another, I am inclined to read “wa wazzar-ha” = “and he left her,” “let her go,” “set her free.” In classical Arabic only the imperative “Zar,” and the aorist “yazaru” of the verb “wazara” occur in this sense, while the preterite is replaced by “taraka,” or some other synonym. But the language of the common people would not hesitate to use a form scorned by the grammarians, and even to improve upon it by deriving from it one of their favourite intensives.?St.]

  376 Both are civil forms of refusal: for the first see vols. i. 32; vi. 216; and for the second ix. 309.

  377 Everything being fair in love and war and dealing with a

  “Káfir,” i.e. a non-Moslem.

  378 In text “Labbayka” = here am I: see vol. i. 226.

  379 In text “‘Úd Khayzarán” = wood of the rattan, which is orig. “Rota,” from the Malay “Rotan.” Vol. ii. 66, &c.

  380 [In the MS. “al-Zamán.” The translation here adopted is plausible enough. Still I think it probable that the careless scribe has omitted the words “yá al-Malik” before it, and meant to write “O king of the age!” as in so many preceding places.- -St.]

  381 Arab. “Al-Kuhná,” plur. of “Káhin ‘t” = diviner, priest (non-Levitical): see “Cohen,” ii. 221. [The form is rather curious. The Dictionaries quote “Kuhná” as a Syriac singular, but here it seems to be taken as a plural of the measure “fu’alá” (Kuhaná), like Umará of Amír or Shu’ará of Shá’ir. The usual plurals of Káhin are Kahanah and Kuhhán.?St.]

  382 This is the celebrated incident in “Alaeddin,” “New lamps for old:” See Suppl. vol. iii. 160.

  383 In text “Jazdán” = a pencase (Pers.) more pop. called “Kalamdán” = reed-box, vol. iv. 167: Scott () has a “writing-stand.” It appears a queer place wherein to keep a ring, but Easterns often store in these highly ornamented boxes signets and other small matters.

  384 Arab. “Bahr al-Muhít” = Circumambient Ocean; see vol. i. 133.

  385 Arab. “Fár” (plur. “Firán”) = mouse rather than rat.

  386 Sleep at this time is considered very unwholesome by Easterns. See under “Kaylúlah” = siesta, vols. i. 51; ii. 178, and viii. 191.

  387 Modern science which, out of the depths of its self-consciousness, has settled so many disputed questions, speaking by the organs of Messieurs Woodman and Tidy (“Medical Jurisprudence”) has decided that none of the lower animals can bear issue to man. But the voice of the world is against them and as Voltaire says one cannot be cleverer than everybody. To begin with there is the will: the she-quadruman shows a distinct lust for man by fondling him and displaying her parts as if to entice him. That carnal connection has actually taken place cannot be doubted: my late friend Mirza Ali Akbar, of Bombay, the famous Munshi to Sir Charles Napier during the conquest of Sind, a man perfectly veracious and trustworthy, assured me that in the Gujarát province he had witnessed a case with his own eyes. He had gone out “to the jungle,” as the phrase is, with another Moslem who, after keeping him waiting for an unconscionable time, was found carnally united to a she-monkey. My friend, indignant as a good Moslem should be, reproved him for his bestiality and then asked him how it had come to pass: the man answered that the she-monkey came regularly to look at him on certain occasions, that he was in the habit of throwing her something to eat and that her gratitude displayed such sexuality that he was tempted and “fell.” That the male monkey shows an equal desire for the woman is known to every frequenter of the “Zoo.” I once led a party of English girls to see a collection of mandrils and other anthropoid apes in the Ménagerie of a well-known Russian millionaire, near Florence, when the Priapism displayed, was such that the girls turned back and fled in fright. In the mother-lands of these anthropoids (the Gaboon, Malacca etc.,) the belief is universal and women have the liveliest fear of them. In 1853 when the Crimean war was brewing a dog-faced baboon in Cairo broke away from his “Kuraydati” (ape-leader), threw a girl in the street and was about to ravish her when a sentinel drew his bayonet and killer the beast. The event was looked upon as an evil omen by the older men, who shook their heads and declared that these were bad times when apes attempted to ravish the daughters of Moslems. But some will say that the grand test, the existence of the mule between man and monkey, though generally believed in, is characteristically absent, absent as the “missing link” which goes so far as to invalidate Darwinism in one and perhaps the most important part of its contention. Of course the offspring of such union would be destroyed, yet t he fact of our never having found a trace of it except in legend and idle story seems to militate against its existence. When, however, man shall become “Homo Sapiens” he will cast off the prejudices of the cradle and the nursery and will ascertain by actual experiment if human being and monkey can breed together. The lowest order of bimana, and the highest order of quadrumana may, under most favourable circumstances, bear issue and the “Mule,” who would own half a soul, might prove most serviceable as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in fact as an agricultural labourer. All we can say is that such “miscegenation” stands in the category of things not proven and we must object to science declaring them non-existing. A correspondent favours me with the following note upon the subject:?Castanheda (Annals of Portugal) relates that a woman was transporter to an island inhabited by monkeys and took up her abode in a cavern where she was visited by a huge baboon. He brought her apples and fruit and at last had connection with her, the result being two children in two to three years; but when she was being carried off by a ship the parent monkey kissed his progeny. The woman was taken to Lisbon and imprisoned for life by the King. Langius, Virgilius Polydorus and others quote many instances of monstruous births in Rome resulting from the connection of women with dogs and bears, and cows with horses, &c. The following relative conditions are deduced on the authority of MM. Jean Polfya and Mauriceau:?1. If the sexual organism of man or woman be more powerful than that of the monkey, dog, etc., the result will be a monster in the semblance of man. 2. If vice-versâ the appearance will be that of a beast. 3. If both are equal the result will be a distinct sub-species as of the horse with the ass.

  388 Arab. “Tamím” (plur. of Tamímat) = spells, charms, amulets, as those hung to a horse’s neck, the African Greegree and the Heb. Thummim. As was the case with most of these earliest superstitions, the Serpent, the Ark, the Cherubim, the Golden Calf (Apis) and the Levitical Institution, the Children of Israel derived the now mysterious term “Urím” (lights) and “Thummim” (amulets) from Egypt and the S
emitic word (Tamímah) still remains to explain the Hebrew. “Thummim,” I may add, is by “general consensus” derived from “Tôm” = completeness and is englished “Perfection,” but we can find a better origin near at hand in spoken Arabic.

  389 These verses have already occurred, see my vol. i. . I have therefore quoted Payne, i. .

  390 Arab. “Wakíl” who, in the case of a grown-up girl, declares her consent to the marriage in the presence of two witnesses and after part payment of the dowry.

  391 Such is the meaning of the Arab. “Thayyib.”

  392 This appears to be the popular belief in Egypt. See vol. iv. 297, which assures us that “no thing poketh and stroketh more strenuously than the Gird” (or hideous Ahyssinian cynocephalus). But it must be based upon popular ignorance: the private parts of the monkey although they erect stiffly, like the priapus of Osiris when swearing upon his Phallus, are not of the girth sufficient to produce that friction which is essential to a woman’s pleasure. I may here allude to the general disappointment in England and America caused by the exhibition of my friend Paul de Chaillu’s Gorillas: he had modestly removed penis and testicles, the latter being somewhat like a bull’s, and his squeamishness caused not a little grumbling and sense of grievance?especially amongst the curious sex.

  393 [In the MS. “fahakat,” lit. she flowed over like a brimful vessel.?ST.]

  394 In 1821, Scott () following Gilchrist’s method of transliterating eastern tongues wrote “Abou Neeut” and “Neeuteen” (the latter a bad blunder making a masc. plural of a fem. dual). In 1822 Edouard Gauttier (vi. 320) gallicised the names to “Abou- Nyout” and “Abou-Nyoutyn” with the same mistake and one superadded; there is no such Arabic word as “Niyút.” Mr. Kirby in 1822, “The New Arabian Nights” () reduced the words to “Abu Neut” and “Abu Neuteen,” which is still less intelligible than Scott’s; and, lastly, the well-known Turkish scholar Dr. Redhouse converted the tortured names to “Abú Niyyet” and “Abú Niyyeteyn,” thus rightly giving a “tashdíd” (reduplication sign) to the Yá (see Appendix to Suppl. v. No iii. and Turk. Dict. sub voce “Niyyat”). The Arab. is “Niyyah” = will, purpose, intent; “Abú Niyyah” (Grammat. “Abú Niyyatin”) Father of one Intent = single-minded and “Abú Niyyatayn” = Father of two Intents or double-minded; and Richardson is deficient when he writes only “Niyat” for “Niyyat.” I had some hesitation about translating this tale which begins with the “Envier and the Envied” (vol. i. 123) and ends with the “Sisters who envied their Cadette” (Suppl. vol. iii. 492). But the extant versions of it are so imperfect in English and French that I made up my mind to include it in this collection.?[Richardson’s “Niyat” is rather another, although rarer form of the same word.?St.]

  395 [I read: “wa tukarribu ‘I-’abda ilayya,” referring the verb to “al-Sadakh” (the alms) and translating: “and it bringeth the servant near to me,” the speaker, in Coranic fashion supposed to be Allah.?St.]

  396 The text prefers the Egyptian form “Sherífi” pl.

  “Sherífíyah,” which was adopted by the Portuguese.

  397 The grace after meat, “Bismillah” being that which precedes it. Abu Niyyah was more grateful than a youth of my acquaintance who absolutely declined asking the Lord to “make him truly thankful” after a dinner of cold mutton.

  398 [The root “Kart” is given in the dictionaries merely to introduce the word “karít” = complete, speaking of a year, &c., and “Takrít,” the name of a town in Mesopotamia, celebrated for its velvets and as the birth-place of Saladin. According to the first mentioned word I would take the signification of “Kart” to be “complement” which here may fitly be rendered by “remainder,” for that which with regard to the full contents of the dinner tray is their complement would of course be their remainder with regard to the viands that have been eaten.?St.]

  399 For the “Zakát” = legal alms, which must not be less than two-and-a-half per cent, see vol. i. 339.

  400 In text “Kazdír,” for which see vols. iv. 274 and vi. 39. Here is may allude to the canisters which make great show in the general store of a petty shopkeeper.

  401 [The MS. reads “murafraf” (passive), from “Rafraf” = a shelf, arch, anything overhanging something else, therefore here applying either to the eye-brows as overhanging the eyes, or to the sockets, as forming a vault or cave for them. Perhaps it should be “murafrif” (active part), used of a bird, who spreads his wings and circles round his prey, ready to pounce upon it; hence with prying, hungry, greedy eyes.?St.]

  402 Arab. “Niyyah” with the normal pun upon the name.

  403 Arab. “‘Ámil Rasad,” lit. acting as an observatory: but the style is broken as usual, and to judge from the third line below the sentence may signify “And I am acting as Talisman (to the Hoard)”.

  404 In the text “Ishári,” which may have many meanings: I take “a shot” at the most likely. In “The Tale of the Envier and the Envied” the counter-spell i{s} a fumigation by means of some white hair plucked from a white spot, the size of a dirham, at the tail-end of a black tom-cat (vol. i. 124). According to the Welsh legend, “the Devil hates cocks”?I suppose since that fowl warned Peter of his fall.

  405 In text “Yaum al-Ahad,” which begins the Moslem week: see vols. iii. 249, and vi. 190.

  406 [In Ar. “Harj wa Laght.” The former is generally joined with “Marj” (Harj wa Marj) to express utter confusion, chaos, anarchy. “Laght” (also pronounced Laghat and written with the palatal “t”) has been mentioned supra as a synonym of “Jalabah” = clamour, tumult, etc.?St.]

  407 [In Ar. “yahjubu,” aor. of “hajaba” = he veiled, put out of sight, excluded, warded off. Amongst other significations the word is technically used of a nearer degree of relationship excluding entirely or partially a more distant one from inheritance.?St.]

  408 Arab. “Yaum al-Jum’ah” = Assembly-day, Friday: see vol. vi. 120.

  409 A regular Badawi remedy. This Artemisia (Arab. Shayh), which the Dicts. translate “wormwood of Pontus,” is the sweetest herb of the Desert, and much relished by the wild men: see my “Pilgrimage,” vol. i. 228. The Finnish Arabist Wallin, who died Professor of Arabic at Helsingfors, speaks of a “Faráshat al- Shayh” = a carpet of wormwood.

  410 “Sáhibi-h,” the masculine; because, as the old grammar tells us, that gender is more worthy than the feminine.

  411 i.e. his strength was in the gold: see vol. i. 340.

  412 Arab. “Haysumah” = smooth stones (water-rounded?).

  413 For “his flesh was crushed upon his bones,” a fair specimen of Arab. “Metonomy-cum-hyperbole.” In the days when Mr. John Bull boasted of his realism versus Gallic idealism, he “got wet to the skin” when M. Jean Crapaud was mouillé jusqu’aux os.

  For the Angels supposed to haunt a pure and holy well, and the trick played by Ibn Túmart, see Ibn Khaldun’s Hist. of the Berbers, vol. ii. 575.

  414 Here begins the second tale which is a weak replica of

  Galland’s “Two Sisters,” &c.

  415 This is the usual term amongst savages and barbarians, and during that period the father has no connection with the mother. Civilisation has abolished this natural practice which is observed by all the lower animals and has not improved human matters. For an excellent dissertation on the subject see the letter on Polygamy by Mrs. Belinda M. Pratt, in “The City of the Saints,” .

  416 In text “Kuwayyis,” dim. of “Kayyis,” and much used in Egypt as an adj. = “pretty,” “nice,” and as an adv. “well,” “nicely.” See s.v. Spitta Bey’s Glossary to Contes Arabes Modernes. The word is familiar to the travellers in the Nile- valley.

  417 In Arab. a “Kanát;” see vol. iii. 141. The first occupation came from nature; the second from seeing the work of the adopted father.

  418 Abu Niyyah, like most house masters in the East, not to speak of Kings, was the last to be told a truth familiar to everyone but himself and his wife.

  419 The MS. breaks off abruptly at this sente
nce and evidently lacks finish. Scott (vi., 228) adds, “The young princes were acknowledged and the good Abou Neeut had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up to follow his example.”

  In the MS. this tale is followed by a “Story of his own Adventures related by a connection to an Emir of Egypt.” I have omitted it because it is a somewhat fade replica of “The Lovers of the Banú Ozrah” (Vol. vii. 177; Lane iii. 247).

  420 Mr. Chandler remarks (, “On Lending Bodleian Books, &c.”):?”It is said that the Curators can refuse any application if they choose; of course they can, but as a matter of fact no application has ever been refused, and every name added will make it more and more difficult, more and more invidious to refuse anyone.” I have, therefore, the singular honour of being the first chosen for rejection.

  421 Mr. Chandler’s motion (see , “Booklending, &c.”) was defeated by an amendment prepared by Professor Jowett and the former fought, with mixed success, the report of the Committee of Loans; the document being so hacked as to become useless, and, in this mangled condition, it was referred back to the Committee with a recommendation to consider the best way of carrying out the present statute. The manly and straightforward course of at once proposing a new statute was not adopted, nor was it even formally proposed. Lastly, the applications for loans, which numbered sixteen were submitted to the magnates and were all refused! whilst the application of an Indian subject that MSS. be sent to the India Office for his private use was at once granted. In my case Professors B. Price and Max Müller, who had often voted for loans, and were willing enough to lend anything to anybody, declined to vote.

  422 According to the statutes, “The Chancellor must be