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

by A. S. Byatt

  5. Arab. “Masúkah,” the stick used for driving cattle, bâton gourdin (Dozy). Lane applies the word to a wooden plank used for levelling the ground.

  6. i.e., the words I am about to speak to thee.

  7. Arab. “Sahífah,” which may mean “page” (Lane) or “book” (Payne).

  8. Pronounce, “Abussa’ádát” = Father of Prosperities: Lane imagines that it came from the Jew’s daughter being called “Sa’adat.” But the latter is the Jew’s wife and the word in the text is plural.

  9. Arab. “Furkh samak,” lit. a fish-chick, an Egyptian vulgarism.

  10. Arab. “Al-Rasíf;” usually a river quay, levée, an embankment. Here it refers to the great dyke which distributed the Tigris water.

  11. Arab. “Dajlah.” It is evidently the origin of the biblical “Hiddekel,” “Hid” = fierceness, swiftness.

  12. Arab. “Bayáz,” a kind of Silurus (S. Bajad, Forsk.) which Sonnini calls Bayatto, Saksatt and Hébedé; also Bogar (Bakar, an ox). The skin is lubricous, the flesh is soft and insipid and the fish often grows to the size of a man. Captain Speke and I found huge specimens in the Tanganyika Lake.

  13. Arab. “Mu’allim,” vulg. “M’allim,” prop. = teacher, master, esp. of a trade, a craft. In Egypt and Syria it is a civil address to a Jew or a Christian, as Hájj is to a Moslem.

  14. Arab. “Gharámah,” an exaction, usually on the part of government like a corvée, etc. The Europeo-Egyptian term is avania (Ital.) or avanie (French).

  15. Arab. “Sayyib-hu,” an Egyptian vulgarism found also in Syria. Hence Sáibah, a woman who lets herself go (a-whoring), etc. It is syn. with “Dashar,” which Dozy believes to be a softening of Jashar; as Jashsh became Dashsh.

  16. The Silurus is generally so called in English on account of the length of its feeler-acting mustachios.

  17. This extraordinary confusion of two distinct religious mythologies cannot be the result of ignorance. Educated Moslems know at least as much as Christians do, on these subjects, but the Ráwi or story-teller speaks to the “Gallery.” In fact it becomes a mere “chaff” and The Nights give some neat specimens of our modern linguistics.

  18. “Al-Siddíkah” (fem.) is a title of Ayishah, who, however, does not appear to have deserved it.

  19. The Jew’s wife.

  20. Here is a double entendre. The fisherman meant a word or two. The Jew understood the Shibboleth of the Moslem Creed, popularly known as the “Two Words”—I testify that there is no Ilah (god) but Allah (the God) and I testify that Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah. Pronouncing this formula would make the Jew a Moslem. Some writers are surprised to see a Jew ordering a Moslem to be flogged; but the former was rich and the latter was poor. Even during the worst days of Jewish persecutions their money-bags were heavy enough to lighten the greater part, if not the whole, of their disabilities. And the Moslem saying is, “The Jew is never your (Moslem or Christian) equal: he must be either above you or below you.” This is high, because unintentional, praise of the (self-) Chosen People.

  21. He understands by the “two words” (Kalmatáni) the Moslem’s double profession of belief; and Khalifah’s reply embodies the popular idea that the number of Moslems (who will be saved) is preordained and that no art of man can add to it or take from it.

  22. Arab. “Mamarr al-Tujjár” (passing-place of the traders) which Lane renders “A chamber within the place through which the merchants passed.” At the end of the tale (the 845th night) we find him living in a Khan and the Bresl. Edit. makes him dwell in a magazine (i.e., ground-floor storeroom) of a ruined Khan.

  23. The text is somewhat too concise and the meaning is that the fumes of the Hashish he had eaten (“his mind under the influence of hasheesh,” says Lane) suggested to him, etc.

  24. Arab. “Mamrak,” either a simple aperture in ceiling or roof for light and air or a more complicated affair of lattice-work and plaster; it is often octagonal and crowned with a little dome. Lane calls it “Memrak,” after the debased Cairene pronunciation, and shows its base in his sketch of a Ka’áh (M.E., Introduction).

  25. Arab. “Kamar.” This is a practice especially amongst pilgrims. In Hindostan the girdle, usually a waist-shawl, is called Kammar-band, our old “Cummerbund.” Easterns are too sensible not to protect the pit of the stomach, that great ganglionic centre, against sun, rain and wind, and now our soldiers in India wear flannel-belts on the march.

  26. Arab. “Fa-immá ’alayhá wa-immá bihá,” i.e., whether (luck go) against it or (luck go) with it.

  27. “O vilest of sinners!” alludes to the thief. “A general plunge into worldly pursuits and pleasures announced the end of the pilgrimage ceremonies. All the devotees were now ‘white-washed’—the book of their sins was a tabula rasa: too many of them lost no time in making a new departure down South and in opening a fresh account” (Pilgrimage, iii. 365). I have noticed that my servant at Jeddah would carry a bottle of Raki, uncovered by a napkin, through the main streets.

  28. The copper cucurbits in which Solomon imprisoned the rebellious Jinn, often alluded to in The Nights.

  29. i.e., Son of the Chase: it is prob. a corruption of the Persian “Kurnas,” a pimp, a cuckold, and introduced by way of chaff, intelligible only to a select few “fast” men.

  30. For the name see note 32, in the Tale of Ghánim bin ’Ayyúb where the Caliph’s concubine is also drugged by the Lady Zubaydah.

  31. Zubaydah, I have said, was the daughter of Ja’afar, son of the Caliph al-Mansur, second Abbaside. The story-teller persistently calls her the daughter of Al-Kásim for some reason of his own.

  32. Arab. “Shakhs,” a word which has travelled as far as Hindostan.

  33. Arab. “Shamlah,” described in dictionaries as a cloak covering the whole body. For Hizám (girdle) the Bresl. Edit. reads “Hirám,” vulg. “Ehrám,” the waist-cloth, the Pilgrim’s attire.

  34. He is described by Al-Siyúti (p. 309) as “very fair, tall, handsome and of captivating appearance.”

  35. Arab. “Uzn al-Kuffah,” lit. “Ear of the basket,” which vulgar Egyptians pronounce “Wizn,” so “Wajh” (face) becomes “Wishsh” and so forth.

  36. Arab. “Bi-fardayn” = with two baskets, lit. “two singles,” but the context shows what is meant. English Frail and French Fraile are from Arab. “Farsalah,” a parcel (now esp. of coffee beans) evidently derived from the low Lat. “Parcella” (Du Cange, Paris: Firmin Didot, 1845).

  37. Arab. “Sátúr,” a kind of chopper which here would be used for the purpose of splitting and cleaning and scaling the fish.

  38. And, consequently, that the prayer he is about to make will find ready acceptance.

  39. Arab. “Ruh bilá Fuzúl” (lit. excess, exceedingly), still a popular phrase.

  40. i.e., better give the fish than have my head broken.

  41. Said ironicé, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.

  42. The penalty of theft.

  43. This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be admired wherever Arabs are not “frankified.”

  44. The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar and going to church.

  45. Arab. “Yá Shukayr,” from Shakar, being red (clay, etc.): Shukár is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim. form. Lane’s Shaykh made it a dim. of “Ashkar” = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former writes, “O Shukeyr.” Mr. Payne prefers “O Rosy cheeks.”

  46. For “Sandal,” see note 16 for The Tale of Ghanim. Sandalí properly means an Eunuch clean rasé, but here Sandal is a p.n. = Sandalwood.

  47. Arab. “Yá mumátil,” one who retards payment.

  48. Arab. “Kirsh al-Nukhál” = Guts of bran, a term little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a Fellah-grazioso of normal assurance, shrewd withal; he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and uses the first epithet that comes to his tongue.

  49. So the Persian
“May your shadow never be less” means, I have said, the shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade, cold water and fresh breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.

  50. When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the Government of Egypt, he was at once imprisoned for arrears of taxes and thus prevented from being troublesome. I am told that matters have improved under English rule, but I “doubt the fact.”

  51. This freak is, of course, not historical. The tale-teller introduces it to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun al-Rashid, and the vulgar would regard it as a right kingly diversion. Westerns only wonder that such things could be.

  52. Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage, ii. 248.

  53. First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abú Tálib, a brother of Al-Abbas from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.

  54. i.e., I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good tidings to tell me.

  55. Arab. “Nákhúzah Zulayt.” The former, from the Persian Nákhodá or ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense, “a godless wight,” one owning no (ná) God (Khudá). Zulayt = a low fellow, blackguard.

  56. Yásamín and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.

  57. Arab. Tamar-hanná, the cheapest of dyes used by the poorest classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.

  58. The formula (meaning, “What has he to do here?”) is by no means complimentary.

  59. Arab. “Jarrah” (pron. “Garrah”), a “jar.” See Lane (M. E., chap. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von Hammer for his superficial notices. The “Jarrah” is of pottery, whereas the “Dist” is a large copper cauldron and the Khalkínah one of lesser size.

  60. i.e., What a bother thou art, etc.

  61. This sudden transformation, which to us seems exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in the biographies of their distinguished men, especially by students. A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a slippery wall and, after repeated falls, succeeding. Allah opens the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends with being an Allámah (doctissimus).

  62. Arab. “Bismillah, Námí!” here it is not a blessing but a simple invitation, “Now please go to sleep.”

  63. The modern ink-case of the Universal East is a lineal descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an illustration of that of “Amásis, the good god and lord of the two lands” (circ. 1350 B.C.) in British Museum (p. 41, The Dwellers on the Nile, by E. A. Wallis Budge, London: 56, Paternoster Row, 1885).

  64. Not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a specimen of inverted speech—Thou art in luck this time!

  65. Arab. “Marhúb” = terrible: Lane reads “Mar’úb” = terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with something terrible.

  66. i.e., in Kut al-Kulúb.

  67. Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, i.e., Mohammed.

  68. In the text he tells the whole story beginning with the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.: but—“of no avail is a twice-told tale.”

  69. Koran, xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.

  70. Easterns find it far easier to “get the chill of poverty out of their bones” than Westerns.

  71. Arab. “Dar al-Na’ím.” Name of one of the seven stages of the Moslem heaven. This style of inscription dates from the days of the hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of Raamses ends with these lines:—

  Daily is there a supply of food:

  Within it gladness doth ever brood

  * * * *

  Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc. etc.

  ABU KIR THE DYER AND ABU SIR THE BARBER

  1. Abu Sír is a manifest corruption of the old Egyptian Pousiri, the Busiris of our classics, and it gives a name to sundry villages in modern Egypt where it is usually pronounced “Búsír.” Abu Kír lit. = the Father of Pitch, is also corrupted to Abou Kir (Bay); and the townlet now marks the site of jolly old Canopus, the Chosen Land of Egyptian debauchery.

  2. It is interesting to note the superior gusto with which the Eastern, as well as the Western, tale-teller describes his scoundrels and villains whilst his good men and women are mostly colourless and unpicturesque. So Satan is the true hero of Paradise Lost and by his side God and man are very ordinary; and Mephistopheles is much better society than Faust and Margaret.

  3. Arab. “Dukhán,” lit. = smoke, here tobacco for the Chibouk, “Timbák” or “Tumbák” being the stronger (Persian and other) variety which must be washed before smoking in the Shíhah or water pipe. Tobacco is mentioned here only and is evidently inserted by some scribe: the “weed” was not introduced into the East before the end of the sixteenth century (about a hundred years after coffee), when it radically changed the manners of society.

  4. Which meant that the serjeant, after the manner of such officials, would make him pay dearly before giving up the key. Hence a very severe punishment in the East is to “call in a policeman” who carefully fleeces all those who do not bribe him to leave them in freedom.

  5. Arab. “Má Dáhiyatak?” lit. “What is thy misfortune?” The phrase is slighting if not insulting.

  6. Amongst Moslems the plea of robbing to keep life and body together would be accepted by a good man like Abu Sir, who still consorted with a self-confessed thief.

  7. To make their agreement religiously binding. [Burton here cross-references a note to a tale not included in this edition that reads:] The opening chapter is known as the “Mother of the Book” (as opposed to Yá Sín, the “heart of the Koran”), the “Surat (chapter) of Praise,” and the “Surat of repetition” (because twice revealed?) or thanksgiving, or laudation (Al-Masáni) and by a host of other names for which see Mr. Rodwell who, however, should not write “Fatthah” (p. xxv.) nor “Fathah” (xxvii.). The Fátihah, which is to Al-Islam much what the “Paternoster” is to Christendom, consists of seven verses, in the usual Saj’a or rhymed prose, and I have rendered it as follows:—

  In the name of the Compassionating, the Compassionate! * Praise be to Allah who all the Worlds made * The Compassionating, the Compassionate * King of the Day of Faith! * Thee only do we adore and of Thee only do we crave aid * Guide us to the path which is straight * The path of those for whom Thy love is great, not those on whom is hate, nor they that deviate * Amen! O Lord of the Worlds trine.

  8. Arab. “Ghaliyún;” many of our names for craft seem connected with Arabic: I have already noted “Carrack” = harrák: to which add Uskuf, in Morocco pronounced ’Skuff= skiff; Katírah = a cutter; Bárijah = a barge; etc. etc.

  9. The patient is usually lathered in a big basin of tinned brass, a “Mambrino’s helmet” with a break in the rim to fit the throat; but the poorer classes carry only a small cup with water instead of soap and water, ignoring the Italian proverb, “Barba ben saponata mezza fatta” = well lathered is half shaved. A napkin fringed at either end is usually thrown over the Figaro’s shoulder and used to wipe the razor.

  10. Arab. “Nusf.” [Burton here cross-references a note to a tale not included in this edition that reads:] Arab. “Nusf” = half (a dirham): vulgarly pronounced “nuss,” and synonymous with the Egypt. “Faddah” (= silver), the Greek “Asper,” and the Turkish “paráh.” It is the smallest Egyptian coin, made of very base metal and, there being forty to the piastre, it is worth nearly a quarter of a farthing.

  11. Arab. “Batárikh,” the roe (sperm or spawn) of the salted Fasíkh (fish) and the Búrí (mugil cephalus), a salt-water fish caught in the Nile and considered fair eating. Some write Butárghá from the old Egyptian town Burát, now a ruin between Tinnis and Damietta (Sonnini).

  12. Arab. “Kaptán.” [Burton here cross-references a note to a tale not included in this edition that reads:] From the Ital. “Capitano.”

  13. Arab. “Anyáb,” plur. of Náb, applied to the grinder teeth but mostly to the canines o
r eye teeth, tusks of animals, etc.: opp. to Saniyah, one of the four central incisors, a camel in the sixth year and horse, cow, sheep and goat in the fourth year.

  14. The coffee like the tobacco is probably due to the scribe; but the tale appears to be comparatively modern. In The Nights men eat, drink and wash their hands but do not smoke and sip coffee like the moderns.

  15. Arab. “Mi’lakah” (Bresl. Edit. x. 456). The fork is modern even in the East and the Moors borrow their term for it from fourchette. But the spoon, which may have begun with a cockle-shell, dates from the remotest antiquity.

  16. Arab. “Sufrah,” properly the cloth or leather upon which food is placed. See also note 166 to “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.”