The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights (Modern Library Classics)

by A. S. Byatt

  163. A popular Arab hyperbole.

  164. Arab. “Shakáik al-Nu’umán,” lit. the fissures of Nu’uman, the beautiful anemone, which a tyrannical King of Hirah, Nu’uman Al-Munzir, a contemporary of Mohammed, attempted to monopolize.

  165. I need hardly say that in the East, where bells are unused, clapping the hands summons the servants. In India men cry “Quy hye” (Koi hái?) and in Brazil whistle “Pst!” after the fashion of Spain and Portugal.

  166. Arab. “Simát” (prop. “Sumát”); the “dinner-table,” composed of a round wooden stool supporting a large metal tray, the two being called “Sufrah” (or “Simat”): thus “Sufrah házirah!” means dinner is on the table. After the meal they are at once removed.

  167. In the text “Dastúr,” the Persian word before noticed; “Izn” would be the proper Arabic equivalent.

  168. In the Moslem East a young woman, single or married, is not allowed to appear alone in the streets; and the police have a right to arrest delinquents. As a preventive of intrigues the precaution is excellent. During the Crimean war hundreds of officers, English, French and Italian, became familiar with Constantinople; and not a few flattered themselves on their success with Turkish women. I do not believe that a single bona fide case occurred: the “conquests” were all Greeks, Wallachians, Armenians or Jewesses.

  169. Arab. “Azím”: translators do not seem to know that this word in The Nights often bears its Egyptian and slang sense, somewhat equivalent to our “deuced” or “mighty” or “awfully fine.”

  170. This is a very serious thing amongst Moslems and scrupulous men often make great sacrifices to avoid taking an oath.

  171. We should say “into the noose.”

  172. The man had fallen in love with her and determined to mark her so that she might be his.

  173. Arab. “Dajlah,” in which we find the Heb. Hid-dekel.

  174. When a woman is bastinadoed in the East they leave her some portion of dress and pour over her sundry buckets of water for a delicate consideration. When the hands are beaten they are passed through holes in the curtain separating the sufferer from mankind, and made fast to a “falakah” or pole.

  175. Arab. “Khalifah,” Caliph. The word is also used for the successor of a Santon or holy man.

  176. Arab. “Sár;” here the Koranic word for carrying out the venerable and undying lex talionis the original basis of all criminal jurisprudence. Its main fault is that justice repeats the offence.

  177. Both these sons of Harun became Caliphs, as we shall see in The Nights.

  THE TALE OF THE THREE APPLES

  1. “Dog” and “hog” are still highly popular terms of abuse. The Rabbis will not defile their lips with “pig;” but say “Dabhar akhir” = “another thing.”

  2. The “hero eponymus” of the Abbaside dynasty, Abbas having been the brother of Abdullah, the father of Mohammed. He is a famous personage in Al-Islam (D’Herbelot).

  3. Europe translates the word “Barmecides.” It is Persian from bar (up) and makidan (to suck). The vulgar legend is that Ja’afar, the first of the name, appeared before the Caliph Abd al-Malik with a ring poisoned for his own need; and that the Caliph, warned of it by the clapping of two stones which he wore ad hoc, charged the visitor with intention to murder him. He excused himself and in his speech occurred the Persian word “Barmakam,” which may mean “I shall sup it up,” or “I am a Barmak,” that is, a high priest among the Guebres. See D’Herbelot s.v.

  4. Arab. “Zulm,” the deadliest of monarch’s sins. One of the sayings of Mohammed, popularly quoted, is, “Kingdom endureth with Kufr or infidelity (i.e. without accepting Al-Islam) but endureth not with Zulm or injustice.” Hence the good Moslem will not complain of the rule of Kafirs or Unbelievers, like the English, so long as they rule him righteously and according to his own law.

  5. All this aggravates his crime: had she been a widow she would not have had upon him “the claims of maidenhead,” the premio della verginita of Boccaccio, x. 10.

  6. It is supposed that slaves cannot help telling these fatal lies. Arab storybooks are full of ancient and modern instances and some have become “Joe Millers.” Moreover it is held unworthy of a free-born man to take over-notice of these servile villainies; hence the scoundrel in the story escapes unpunished. I have already noticed the predilection of debauched women for these “skunks of the human race;” and the young man in the text evidently suspected that his wife had passed herself this “little caprice.” The excuse which the Caliph would find for him is the pundonorshown in killing one he loved so fondly.

  7. The Arab equivalent of our pitcher and well.

  8. i.e. Where the dress sits loosely about the bust.

  9. He had trusted in Allah and his trust was justified.

  TALE OF NUR AL-DIN ALI AND HIS SON BADR AL-DIN HASAN

  1. Arab. “Khila’ah” prop. what a man strips from his person: gen. an honorary gift. It is something more than the “robe of honour” of our chivalrous romances, as it includes a horse, a sword (often gold-hilted), a black turban (amongst the Abbasides) embroidered with gold, a violet-coloured mantle, a waist-shawl and a gold neck-chain and shoe-buckles.

  2. Arab. “Izá,” i.e. the visits of condolence and so forth which are long and terribly wearisome in the Moslem East.

  3. Arab. “Mahr,” the money settled by the man before marriage on the woman and without which the contract is not valid. Usually half of it is paid down on the marriage-day and the other half when the husband dies or divorces his wife. But if she take a divorce she forfeits her right to it, and obscene fellows, especially Persians, often compel her to demand divorce by unnatural and preposterous use of her person.

  4. Bismillah here means “Thou art welcome to it.”

  5. Arab. “Bassak,” half Pers. (bas = enough) and -ak = thou; for thee. “Bas” sounds like our “buss” (to kiss) and there are sundry good old Anglo-Indian jokes of feminine mistakes on the subject.

  6. This saving clause makes the threat worse. The scene between the two brothers is written with characteristic Arab humour; and it is true to nature. In England we have heard of a man who separated from his wife because he wished to dine at six and she preferred half-past six.

  7. Arab. “Misr.” (vulg. Masr). The word, which comes of a very ancient house, was applied to the present Capital about the time of its conquest by the Osmanli Turks A.H. 923 = 1517.

  8. The Arab “Jízah,” = skirt, edge; the modern village is the site of an ancient Egyptian city, as the “Ghizah inscription” proves (Brugsch, History of Egypt, ii. 415).

  9. Arab. “Watan” literally meaning “birthplace,” but also used for “patria, native country;” thus “Hubb al-Watan” = patriotism. The Turks pronounce it “Vatan,” which the French have turned into Va-t’en!

  10. Arab. “Zarzariyah” = the colour of a stare or starling (Zurzúr).

  11. Now a railway station on the Alexandria-Cairo line.

  12. Even as late as 1852, when I first saw Cairo, the city was girt by waste lands and the climate was excellent. Now cultivation comes up to the house walls; while the Mahmudiyah Canal, the planting the streets with avenues and over-watering have seriously injured it; those who want the air of former Cairo must go to Thebes. Gout, rheumatism and hydrophobia (before unknown) have become common of late years.

  13. This is the popular pronunciation: Yákút calls it “Bilbís.”

  14. An outlying village on the “Long Desert,” between Cairo and Palestine.

  15. Arab. “Al-Kuds” = holiness. There are few cities which in our day have less claim to this title than Jerusalem; and, curious to say, the “Holy Land” shows Jews, Christians and Moslems all in their worst form. The only religion (if it can be called one) which produces men in Syria is the Druse. “Heiligen-landes Jüden” are proverbial and nothing can be meaner than the Christians while the Moslems are famed for treachery.

  16. Arab. “Shamm al-hawá.” In vulgar parlance to “smell the air” is to take
a walk, especially out of town. There is a peculiar Egyptian festival called “Shamm al-Nasím” (smelling the Zephyr) which begins on Easter-Monday (O.S.), thus corresponding with the Persian Nau-roz, vernal equinox and introducing the fifty days of “Khammasín” or “Mirísi” (hot desert winds). On awakening, the people smell and bathe their temples with vinegar in which an onion has been soaked and break their fast with a “fisikh” or dried “búri”= mullet from Lake Menzalah: the late Hekekiyan Bey had the fish-heads counted in one public garden and found 70,000. The rest of the day is spent out of doors “Gypsying,” and families greatly enjoy themselves on these occasions. For a longer description see a paper by my excellent friend Yacoub Artin Pasha, in the Bulletin de l’Institut Égyptien, 2nd series, No. 4, Cairo, 1884.I have noticed the Mirísi (southwester) and other winds in the Land of Midian, i., 23.

  17. So in the days of the “Mameluke Beys” in Egypt a man of rank would not cross the street on foot.

  18. Basrah. The city now in decay and not to flourish again till the advent of the Euphrates Valley R.R., is a modern place, founded in A.H. 15, by the Caliph Omar upon the Aylah, a feeder of the Tigris. Here, according to Al-Haríri, the “whales and the lizards meet;” and, as the tide affects the river,

  Its stream shows prodigy, ebbing and flowing.

  In its far-famed market-place, Al-Marbad, poems used to be recited; and the city was famous for its mosques and Saint-shrines, fair women and school of Grammar which rivalled that of Kúfah. But already in Al-Hariri’s day (nat. A.H. 446 = A.D. 1030) Baghdad had drawn off much of its population.

  19. This fumigation (Bukhúr) is still used. A little incense or perfumed wood is burnt upon an open censer (Mibkharah) of earthenware or metal, and passed round, each guest holding it for a few moments under his beard. In the Somali Country, the very home of incense, both sexes fumigate the whole person after carnal intercourse. Lane (Mod. Egypt, chap. viii) gives an illustration of the Mibkharah.

  20. The reader of The Nights will remark that the merchant is often a merchant-prince, consorting and mating with the highest dignitaries. Even amongst the Romans, a race of soldiers, statesmen and lawyers, “mercatura” on a large scale was “not to be vituperated.” In Boccaccio (x. 19) they are netti e delicati uomini. England is perhaps the only country which has made her fortune by trade, and much of it illicit trade, like that in slaves which built Liverpool and Bristol, and which yet disdains or affects to disdain the trader. But the unworthy prejudice is disappearing with the last generation, and men who formerly would have half starved as curates and ensigns, barristers and carabins are now only too glad to become merchants.

  21. These lines in the Calc. and Bul. Edits. have already occurred (page 36), but such carelessness is characteristic despite the proverb, “In repetition is no fruition.” I quote Torrens (p. 60) by way of variety. As regards the anemone (here called a tulip) being named “Shakík” = fissure, I would conjecture that it derives from the flower often forming long lines of red like stripes of blood in the landscape. Travellers in Syria always observe this.

  22. Such an address to a royalty (Eastern) even in the present day, would be a passport to future favours.

  23. In England the man marries and the woman is married: there is no such distinction in Arabia.

  24. “Sultan” (and its corruption “Soldan”) etymologically means lord, victorious, ruler, ruling over. In Arabia it is a not uncommon proper name; and as a title it is taken by a host of petty kinglets. The Abbaside Caliphs (as Al-Wásik who has been noticed) formally created these Sultans as their regents. Al-Tá’i bi’llah (regn. A.H. 363 = 974), invested the famous Sabuktagin with the office; and, as Alexander-Sikandar was wont to do, fashioned for him two flags, one of silver, after the fashion of nobles, and the other of gold, as Viceroy-designate. Sabuktagin’s son, the famous Mahmúd of the Ghaznavite dynasty in A.H. 393 = 1002, was the first to adopt “Sultan” as an independent title some two hundred years after the death of Harun al-Rashid. In old writers we have the Soldan of Egypt, the Soudan of Persia, and the Sowdan of Babylon; three modifications of one word.

  25. i.e. he was a “Háfiz,” one who commits to memory the whole of the Koran. It is a serious task and must be begun early. I learnt by rote the last “Juzw” (or thirtieth part) and found that quite enough. This is the vulgar use of “Hafiz”: technically and theologically it means the third order of Traditionists (the total being five) who know by heart 300,000 traditions of the Prophet with their ascriptions. A curious “spiritualist” book calls itself “Hafed, Prince of Persia,” proving by the very title that the Spirits are equally ignorant of Arabic and Persian.

  26. This naive admiration of beauty in either sex characterized our chivalrous times. Now it is mostly confined to “professional beauties” of what is conventionally called the “fair sex;” as if there could be any comparison between the beauty of man and the beauty of woman, the Apollo Belvidere with the Venus de Medici.

  27. Arab. “Shásh” (in Pers. urine), a light turband generally of muslin.

  28. This is a lieu commun of Eastern worldly wisdom. Quite true! Very unadvisable to dive below the surface of one’s acquaintances, but such intimacy is like marriage of which Johnson said, “Without it there is no pleasure in life.”

  29. The lines are attributed to the famous Al-Mutanabbi = the claimant to “Prophecy,” of whom I have given a few details in my Pilgrimage, iii. 60, 62. He led the life of a true poet, somewhat Chauvinistic withal; and, rather than run away, was killed in A.H. 354 = 965.

  30. Arab. “Nabíz” = wine of raisins or dates; any fermented liquor; from a root to “press out” in Syriac, like the word “Talmiz” (or Tilmiz, says the Kashf al-Ghurrah) a pupil, student. Date-wine (fermented from the fruit, not the Tádi, or juice of the stem, our “toddy”) is called Fazikh. Hence the Masjid al-Fazikh at Al-Medinah where the Ansar or Auxiliaries of that city were sitting cup in hand when they heard of the revelation forbidding inebriants and poured the liquor upon the ground (Pilgrimage, ii. 322).

  31. Arab. “Huda” = direction (to the right way), salvation, a word occurring in the Opening Chapter of the Koran. Hence to a Kafir who offers the Salam-salutation many Moslems reply “Allah-yahdík” = Allah direct thee! (i.e. make thee a Moslem), instead of Allay yusallimak = Allah lead thee to salvation. It is the root word of the Mahdi and Mohdi.

  32. I quote with permission Mr. Payne’s version (i. 93).

  33. Arab. “Farajíyah,” a long-sleeved robe worn by the learned (Lane, M. E., chap. i.).

  34. Arab. “Sarráf” (vulg. Sayrafi), whence the Anglo-Indian “Shroff,” a familiar corruption.

  35. Arab. “Yahúdi” which is less polite than “Banú Isráíl” = Children of Israel. So in Christendom “Israelite” when in favour and “Jew” (with an adjective or a participle) when nothing is wanted of him.

  36. Also called “Ghilmán” = the beautiful youths appointed to serve the True Believers in Paradise. The Koran says (chap. lvi. 9, etc.) “Youths, which shall continue in their bloom for ever, shall go round about to attend them, with goblets, and beakers, and a cup of flowing wine,” etc. Mohammed was an Arab (not a Persian, a born pederast) and he was too fond of women to be charged with love of boys: even Tristram Shandy (vol. vii., chap. 7; “No, quoth a third; the gentleman has been committing) knew that the two tastes are incompatibles. But this and other passages in the Koran have given the Chevaliers de la Pallie a hint that the use of boys, like that of wine, here forbidden, will be permitted in Paradise.

  37. Which, by the by, is the age of an oldish old maid in Egypt. I much doubt puberty being there earlier than in England where our grandmothers married at fourteen. But Orientals are aware that the period of especial feminine devilry is between the first menstruation and twenty when, according to some, every girl is a “possible murderess.” So they wisely marry her and get rid of what is called the “lump of grief,” the “domestic calamity”—a daughter. Amongst them we never hear of the abominable egotism and c
ruelty of the English mother, who disappoints her daughter’s womanly cravings in order to keep her at home for her own comfort; and an “old maid” in the house, especially a stout, plump old maid, is considered not “respectable.” The ancient virgin is known by being lean and scraggy; and perhaps this diagnosis is correct.

  38. This prognostication of destiny by the stars and a host of follies that end in -mancy is an intricate and extensive subject. Those who would study it are referred to chap. xiv. of the Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Mussulmans of India; etc., etc., by Jaffur Shurreeff and translated by G. A. Herklots, M. D. of Madras. This excellent work first appeared in 1832 (Allen and Co., London) and thus it showed the way to Lane’s Modern Egyptians (1833-35). The name was unfortunate as “Kuzzilbash” (which rhymed to guzzle and hash), and kept the book back till a second edition appeared in 1863 (Madras: J. Higginbotham).

  39. Arab. “Bárid,” lit. cold: metaph. vain, foolish, insipid.

  40. Not to “spite thee” but “in spite of thee.” The phrase is still used by high and low.