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Footnote 138:
The name of this celebrated successor of Nineveh, where some suppose The Nights were written, is orig. Μεσοπύλαι (middle-gates) because it stood on the way where four great highways meet. The Arab. form "Mausil" (the vulgar "Mosul") is also significant, alluding to the "junction" of Assyria and Babylonia. Hence our "muslin."
Footnote 139:
This is Mr. Thackeray's "nose-bag." I translate by "walking-shoes" the Arab "Khuff" which are a manner of loose boot covering the ankle; they are not usually embroidered, the ornament being reserved for the inner shoe.
Footnote 140:
_i.e._ Syria (says Abulfeda) the "land on the left" (of one facing the east) as opposed to Al-Yaman the "land on the right." Osmani would mean Turkish, Ottoman. When Bernard the Wise (Bohn, p. 24) speaks of "Bagada and Axiam" (Mabillon's text) or "Axinarri" (still worse), he means Baghdad and Ash-Shám (Syria, Damascus), the latter word puzzling his Editor. Richardson (Dissert. lxxii) seems to support a hideous attempt to derive Shám from Shámat, a mole or wart, because the country is studded with hillocks! Al-Shám is often applied to Damascus-city whose proper name Dimishk belongs to books: this term is generally derived from Dimáshik b. Káli b. Málik b. Sham (Shem). Lee (Ibn Batútah, 29) denies that ha-Dimishki means "Eliezer of Damascus."
Footnote 141:
From Oman=Eastern Arabia.
Footnote 142:
Arab. "Tamar Hanná" lit. date of Henna, but applied to the flower of the eastern privet (_Lawsonia inermis_) which has the sweet scent of freshly mown hay. The use of Henna as a dye is known even in England. The "myrtle" alluded to may either have been for a perfume (as it is held an anti-intoxicant) or for eating, the bitter aromatic berries of the "Ás" being supposed to flavour wine and especially Raki (raw brandy).
Footnote 143:
Lane. (i. 211) pleasantly remarks, "A list of these sweets is given in my original, but I have thought it better to omit the names" (!) Dozy does not shirk his duty, but he is not much more satisfactory in explaining words interesting to students because they are unfound in dictionaries and forgotten by the people "Akrás" (cakes) Laymuníyah (of limes) wa "Maymuníyah" appears in the Bresl. Edit. as "Ma'amuniyah" which may mean "Ma'amun's cakes" or "delectable cakes." "Amshát"=(combs) perhaps refers to a fine kind of Kunáfah (vermicelli) known in Egypt and Syria as "Ghazl al-banát"=girl's spinning.
Footnote 144:
The new moon carefully looked for by all Moslems because it begins the Ramazán-fast.
Footnote 145:
Solomon's signet ring has before been noticed.
Footnote 146:
The "high-bosomed" damsel, with breasts firm as a cube, is a favourite with Arab tale-tellers. _Fanno baruffa_ is the Italian term for hard breasts pointing outwards.
Footnote 147:
A large hollow navel is looked upon not only as a beauty, but in children it is held a promise of good growth.
Footnote 148:
Arab. "Ka'ah," a high hall opening upon the central court: we shall find the word used for a mansion, barrack, men's quarters, etc.
Footnote 149:
Babel=Gate of God (El), or Gate of Ilu (P.N. of God), which the Jews ironically interpreted "Confusion." The tradition of Babylonia being the very centre of witchcraft and enchantment by means of its Seven Deadly Spirits, has survived in Al-Islam; the two fallen angels (whose names will occur) being confined in a well; Nimrod attempting to reach Heaven from the Tower in a magical car drawn by monstrous birds and so forth. See p. 114, Francois Lenormant's "Chaldean Magic," London, Bagsters.
Footnote 150:
Arab. "Kámat Alfiyyah"=like the letter Alif, a straight perpendicular stroke. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the origin of every alphabet (not syllabarium) known to man, one form was a flag or leaf of water-plant standing upright. Hence probably the Arabic Alif-shape; while other nations preferred other modifications of the letter (ox's head, etc.), which in Egyptian number some thirty-six varieties, simple and compound.
Footnote 151:
I have not attempted to order this marvellous confusion of metaphors so characteristic of The Nights and the exigencies of Al-Saj'a=rhymed prose.
Footnote 152:
Here and elsewhere I omit the "kála (_dice Turpino_)" of the original: Torrens preserves "Thus goes the tale" (which it only interrupts). This is simply letter-wise and sense-foolish.
Footnote 153:
Of this worthy more at a future time.
Footnote 154:
_i.e._, sealed with the Kazi or legal authority's seal of office.
Footnote 155:
"Nothing for nothing" is a fixed idea with the Eastern woman: not so much for greed as for a sexual _point d'honneur_ when dealing with the adversary—man.
Footnote 156:
She drinks first, the custom of the universal East, to show that the wine she had bought was unpoisoned. Easterns, who utterly ignore the "social glass" of Western civilisation, drink honestly to get drunk; and, when far gone are addicted to horseplay (in Pers. "Badmasti"=_le vin mauvais_) which leads to quarrels and bloodshed. Hence it is held highly irreverent to assert of patriarchs, prophets and saints that they "drank wine;" and Moslems agree with our "Teatotallers" in denying that, except in the case of Noah, inebriatives are anywhere mentioned in Holy Writ.
Footnote 157:
Arab. "Húr al-Ayn," lit. (maids) with eyes of lively white and black, applied to the virgins of Paradise who will wive with the happy Faithful. I retain our vulgar "Houri," warning the reader that it is a masc. for a fem. ("Huríyah") in Arab, although accepted in Persian, a genderless speech.
Footnote 158:
Arab. "Zambúr," whose head is amputated in female circumcision. See Night cccclxxiv.
Footnote 159:
Ocymum basilicum noticed in Introduction; the bassilico of Boccaccio iv. 5. The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah represents it as "sprouting with something also whose smell is foul and disgusting and the sower at once sets to gather it and burn it with fire." (The Fables of Bidpai translated from the later Syriac version by I. G. N. Keith-Falconer, etc., etc., etc., Cambridge University Press, 1885). Here, however, Habk is a pennyroyal (_mentha puligium_), and probably alludes to the pecten.
Footnote 160:
_i.e._ common property for all to beat.
Footnote 161:
"A digit of the moon" is the Hindú equivalent.
Footnote 162:
Better known to us as Caravanserai, the "Travellers' Bungalow" of India: in the Khan, however, shelter is to be had, but neither bed nor board.
Footnote 163:
Arab. "Zubb." I would again note that this and its synonyms are the equivalents of the Arabic, which is of the lowest. The tale-teller's evident object is to accentuate the contrast with the tragical stories to follow.
Footnote 164:
"In the name of Allah," is here a civil form of dismissal.
Footnote 165:
Lane (i. 124) is scandalized and naturally enough by this scene, which is the only blot in an admirable tale admirably told. Yet even here the grossness is but little more pronounced than what we find in our old drama (_e.g._, Shakspeare's King Henry V.) written for the stage, whereas tales like The Nights are not read or recited before both sexes. Lastly "nothing follows all this palming work:" in Europe the orgie would end very differently. These "nuns of Theleme" are physically pure: their debauchery is of the mind, not the body. Galland makes them five, including the two doggesses.
Footnote 166:
So Sir Francis Walsingham's "They which do that they should not, should hear that they would not."
Footnote 167:
The old "Calendar," pleasantly associated with that form of almanac. The Mac. Edit. has "Karandaliyah," a vile corruption, like Ibn Batutah's "Karandar" and Torrens' "Kurundul:" so in English we have the accepted vulgarism of "Kernel" for Colonel. The Bul. Edit. uses for synonym "Su'ulúk"=an asker, a beggar. Of these mendicant monks, for such they are, much like the Sarabaites of mediæval Europe, I have treated, and of their institutions and its founder, Shaykh Sharif Bu Ali Kalandar (ob. A.H. 724=1323-24), at some length in my "History of Sindh," chapt. viii. See also the Dabistan (i, 136) where the good Kalandar exclaims:—
If the thorn break in my body, how trifling the pain! But how sorely I feel for the poor broken thorn!
D'Herbelot is right when he says that the Kalandar is not generally approved by Moslems: he labours to win free from every form and observance and he approaches the Malámati who conceals all his good deeds and boasts of his evil doings—our "Devil's hypocrite."
Footnote 168:
The "Kalandar" disfigures himself in this manner to show "mortification."
Footnote 169:
Arab. "Gharíb:" the porter is offended because the word implies "poor devil;" esp. one out of his own country.