Footnote 98:
Some proverbial name now forgotten. Torrens (p. 48) translates it "the giglot" (Fortune?) but "cannot discover the drift."
Footnote 99:
Arab. "Ihtizáz," that natural and instinctive movement caused by good news suddenly given, etc.
Footnote 100:
Arab "Kohl," in India, Surmah, not a "collyrium," but powdered antimony for the eyelids. That sold in the bazars is not the real grey ore of antimony but a galena or sulphuret of lead. Its use arose as follows. When Allah showed Himself to Moses on Sinai through an opening the size of a needle, the Prophet fainted and the Mount took fire: thereupon Allah said, "Henceforth shalt thou and thy seed grind the earth of this mountain and apply it to your eyes!" The powder is kept in an étui called Makhalah and applied with a thick blunt needle to the inside of the eyelid, drawing it along the rim; hence etui and probe denote the sexual _rem in re_ and in cases of adultery the question will be asked, "Didst thou see the needle in the Kohl-pot?" Women mostly use a preparation of soot or lamp-black (Hind. Kajala, Kajjal) whose colour is easily distinguished from that of Kohl. The latter word, with the article (Al-Kohl) is the origin of our "alcohol;" though even M. Littré fails to show how "fine powder" became "spirits of wine." I found this powder (wherewith Jezebel "painted" her eyes) a great preservative from ophthalmia in desert-travelling: the use in India was universal, but now European example is gradually abolishing it.
Footnote 101:
The tale of these two women is now forgotten.
Footnote 102:
Arab. "Atadakhkhal". When danger threatens it is customary to seize a man's skirt and cry "Dakhíl-ak!" (=under thy protection). Among noble tribes the Badawi thus invoked will defend the stranger with his life. Foreigners have brought themselves into contempt by thus applying to women or to mere youths.
Footnote 103:
The formula of quoting from the Koran.
Footnote 104:
Lit. "Allah not desolate me" (by thine absence). This is still a popular phrase—Lá tawáhishná=Do not make me desolate, _i.e._ by staying away too long; and friends meeting after a term of days exclaim "Auhashtani!"=thou hast made me desolate, _Je suis désolé_.
Footnote 105:
Charming simplicity of manners when the Prime Minister carries the fish (shade of Vattel!) to the cookmaid. The "Gesta Romanorum" is nowhere more naive.
Footnote 106:
Arab. "Kahílat al-taraf"=lit. eyelids lined with Kohl; and figuratively "with black lashes and languorous look." This is a phrase which frequently occurs in The Nights and which, as will appear, applies to the "lower animals" as well as to men. Moslems In Central Africa apply Kohl not to the thickness of the eyelid but upon both outer lids, fixing it with some greasy substance. The peculiar Egyptian (and Syrian) eye with its thick fringes of jet-black lashes, looking like lines of black drawn with soot, easily suggests the simile. In England I have seen the same appearance amongst miners fresh from the colliery.
Footnote 107:
Of course applying to her own case.
Footnote 108:
Prehistoric Arabs who measured from 60 to 100 cubits high: Koran, chapt. xxvi., etc. They will often be mentioned in The Nights.
Footnote 109:
Arab. "Dastúr" (from Persian)=leave, permission. The word has two meanings (see Burckhardt, Arab. Prov. No. 609) and is much used, _e.g._ before walking up stairs or entering a room where strange women might be met. So "Tarík"=Clear the way (Pilgrimage, iii., 319). The old Persian occupation of Egypt, not to speak of the Persian-speaking Circassians and other rulers has left many such traces in popular language. One of them is that horror of travellers—"Bakhshísh" pron. bakh-sheesh and shortened to shísh from the Pers. "baksheesh." Our "Christmas _box_" has been most unnecessarily derived from the same, despite our reading:—
Gladly the boy, with Christmas box in hand.
And, as will be seen, Persians have bequeathed to the outer world worse things than bad language, _e.g._ heresy and sodomy.
Footnote 110:
He speaks of his wife, but euphemistically in the masculine.
Footnote 111:
A popular saying throughout Al-Islam.
Footnote 112:
Arab. "Fata": lit=a youth; a generous man, one of noble mind (as youth-tide should be). It corresponds with the Lat. "vir," and has much the meaning of the Ital. "Giovane," the Germ. "Junker" and our "gentleman."
Footnote 113:
From the Bul. Edit.
Footnote 114:
The vagueness of his statement is euphemistic.
Footnote 115:
This readiness of shedding tears contrasts strongly with the external stoicism of modern civilization; but it is true to Arab character; and Easterns, like the heroes of Homer and Italians of Boccaccio, are not ashamed of what we look upon as the result of feminine hysteria—"a good cry."
Footnote 116:
The formula (constantly used by Moslems) here denotes displeasure, doubt how to act and so forth. Pronounce, "Lá haula wa lá kuwwata illá bi 'lláhi 'l-Aliyyi 'l-Azim." As a rule mistakes are marvellous: Mandeville (chapt. xii.) for "Lá iláha illa 'lláhu wa Muhammadun Rasúlu 'llah" writes "La ellec sila, Machomete rores alla." The former (lá haula, etc.), on account of the four peculiar Arabic letters, is everywhere pronounced differently; and the exclamation is called "Haulak" or "Haukal."
Footnote 117:
An Arab holds that he has a right to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his father's brother, and if any win her from him a death and a blood-feud may result. It was the same in a modified form amongst the Jews and in both races the consanguineous marriage was not attended by the evil results (idiotcy, congenital deafness, etc.) observed in mixed races like the English and the Anglo-American. When a Badawi speaks of "the daughter of my uncle" he means wife; and the former is the dearer title, as a wife can be divorced, but blood is thicker than water.
Footnote 118:
Arab. "Kahbah;" the coarsest possible term. Hence the unhappy "Cava" of Don Roderick the Goth, which simply means The Whore.
Footnote 119:
The Arab "Banj" and Hindú "Bhang" (which I use as most familiar) both derive from the old Coptic "Nibanj" meaning a preparation of hemp (_Cannabis sativa_ seu _Indica_); and here it is easy to recognise the Homeric "Nepenthe." Al-Kazwini explains the term by "garden hemp" (Kinnab bostáni or Sháhdánaj). On the other hand not a few apply the word to the henbane (_hyoscyamus niger_) so much used in mediæval Europe. The Kámús evidently means henbane distinguishing it from "Hashish al haráfísh"=rascals' grass, _i.e._ the herb Pantagruelion. The "Alfáz Adwiya" (French translation) explains "Tabannuj" by "Endormir quelqu'un en lui faisant avaler de la jusquiame." In modern parlance Tabannuj is=our anæsthetic administered before an operation, a deadener of pain like myrrh and a number of other drugs. For this purpose hemp is always used (at least I never heard of henbane); and various preparations of the drug are sold at an especial bazar in Cairo. See the "powder of marvellous virtue" in Boccaccio, iii., 8; and iv., 10. Of these intoxicants, properly so termed, I shall have something to say in a future page.
The use of Bhang doubtless dates from the dawn of civilisation, whose earliest social pleasures would be inebriants. Herodotus (iv. c. 75) shows the Scythians burning the seeds (leaves and capsules) in worship and becoming drunken with the fumes, as do the S. African Bushmen of the present day. This would be the earliest form of smoking: it is still doubtful whether the pipe was used or not. Galen also mentions intoxication by hemp. Amongst Moslems, the Persians adopted the drink as an ecstatic, and about our thirteenth century Egypt, which began the practice, introduced a number of preparations to be noticed in the course of The Nights.
Footnote 120:
The rubbish heaps which outlie Eastern cities, some (near Cairo) are over a hundred feet high.
Footnote 121:
Arab. "Kurrat al-ayn;" coolness of eyes as opposed to a hot eye ("sakhin") _i.e._ one red with tears. The term is true and picturesque so I translate it literally. All coolness is pleasant to dwellers in burning lands: thus in Al-Hariri Abu Zayd says of Bassorah, "I found there whatever could fill the eye with coolness." And a "cool booty" (or prize) is one which has been secured without plunging into the flames of war, or simply a pleasant prize.
Footnote 122:
Popularly rendered Caucasus (see Night cdxcvi): it corresponds so far with the Hindu "Udaya" that the sun rises behind it; and the "false dawn" is caused by a hole or gap. It is also the Persian Alborz, the Indian Meru (Sumeru), the Greek Olympus, and the Rhiphæan Range (Veliki Camenypoys) or great starry girdle of the world, etc.