The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01...

Militibus, Medicis, Tortori occidere ludo est;

Mentiri Astronomis, Pictoribus atque Poetis.

269. He does not perform the Wuzu or lesser ablution because he neglects his dawn prayers.

270. For this game see Lane (M. E. Chapt. xvii.) It is usually played on a checked cloth not on a board like our draughts; and Easterns are fond of eating, drinking and smoking between and even during the games. Torrens (p. 142) translates "I made up some dessert," confounding "Mankalah" with "Nukl" (dried fruit, quatre-mendiants).

271. Quoted from Mohammed whose saying has been given.

272. We should say "the night of the thirty-ninth."

273. The bath first taken after sickness.

274. Arab. "Dikák" used by way of soap or rather to soften the skin: the meal is usually of lupins, "Adas"="Revalenta Arabica," which costs a penny in Egypt and half-a-crown in England.

275. Arab. "Sukkar-nabát." During my day (1842-49) we had no other sugar in the Bombay Presidency.

276. This is one of the myriad Arab instances that the decrees of "Anagké," Fate, Destiny, Weird, are inevitable. The situation is highly dramatic; and indeed The Nights, as will appear in the terminal Essay, have already suggested a national drama.

277. Having lately been moved by Ajib.

278. Mr. Payne (i. 131.) omits these lines which appear out of place; but this mode of inappropriate quotation is a characteristic of Eastern tales.

279. Anglicè "him."

280. This march of the tribe is a lieu commun of Arab verse e.g. the poet Labid's noble elegy on the "Deserted Camp." We shall find scores of instances in The Nights.

281. I have heard of such sands in the Desert east of Damascus which can be crossed only on boards or camel furniture; and the same is reported of the infamous Region "Al-Ahkáf" ("Unexplored Syria").

282. Hence the Arab. saying "The bark of a dog and not the gleam of a fire;" the tired traveller knows from the former that the camp is near, whereas the latter shows from great distances.

283. Dark blue is the colour of mourning in Egypt as it was of the Roman Republic. The Persians hold that this tint was introduced by Kay Kawús (B.C. 600) when mourning for his son Siyáwush. It was continued till the death of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram (the first month, then representing the vernal equinox) when it was changed for black. As a rule Moslems do not adopt this symbol of sorrow (called "Hidád"), looking upon the practice as somewhat idolatrous and foreign to Arab manners. In Egypt and especially on the Upper Nile women dye their hands with indigo and stain their faces black or blacker.

284. The older Roc, of which more in the Tale of Sindbad. Meanwhile the reader curious about the Persian Símurgh (thirty bird) will consult the Dabistan, i., 55, 191 and iii., 237, and Richardson's Diss. p. xlviii. For the Anka (Enka or Unka=long-necked bird) see Dab. iii., 249 and for the Humá (bird of Paradise) Richardson lxix. We still lack details concerning the Ben or Bennu (nycticorax) of Egypt which with the Article pi gave rise to the Greek "phœnix."

285. Probably the Haledj of Forskal (p. xcvi. Flor. Ægypt. Arab.), "lignum tenax, durum, obscuri generis." The Bres. Edit, has "ákúl"=teak wood, vulg. "Sáj."

286. The knocker ring is an invention well known to the Romans.

287. Arab. "Sadr"; the place of honour; hence the "Sudder Adawlut" (Supreme Court) in the Anglo-Indian jargon.

288. Arab. "Ahlan wa sahlan wa marhabá," the words still popularly addressed to a guest.

289. This may mean "liquid black eyes"; but also, as I have noticed, that the lashes were long and thick enough to make the eyelids appear as if Kohl-powder had been applied to the inner rims.

290. A slight parting between the two front incisors, the upper only, is considered a beauty by Arabs; why it is hard to say except for the racial love of variety. "Sughr" (Thugr) in the text means, primarily, the opening of the mouth, the gape: hence the front teeth.

291. i.e. makes me taste the bitterness of death, "bursting the gall-bladder" (Marárah) being our "breaking the heart."

292. Almost needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a lieu commun in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard."

293. Lit. "apply Kohl to my eyes," even as Jezebel "painted her face," in Heb. put her eyes in painting (2 Kings ix., 30).

294. Arab. "Al-Barkúk," whence our older "Apricock." Classically it is "Burkúk" and Pers. for Arab. "Mishmish," and it also denotes a small plum or damson. In Syria the "side next the sun" shows a glowing red flush.

295. Arab. "Hazáṙ" (in Persian, a thousand)=a kind of mocking bird.

296. Some Edit. make the doors number a hundred, but the Princesses were forty and these coincidences, which seem to have significance and have none save for Arab symmetromania, are common in Arab stories.

297. Arab. "Májúr": hence possibly our "mazer," which is popularly derived from Masarn, a maple.

298. A compound scent of ambergris, musk and aloes.

299. The ends of the bridle-reins forming the whip

300. The flying horse is Pegasus which is a Greek travesty of an Egyptian myth developed in India.

301. The Bres. Edit. wrongly says "the seventh."

302. Arab. "Sharmutah" (plur. Sharámít) from the root Sharmat, to shred, a favourite Egyptian word also applied in vulgar speech to a strumpet, a punk, a piece. It is also the popular term for strips of jerked or boucaned meat hung up in the sun to dry, and classically called "Kadíd."

303. Arab. "Izár," the man's waist-cloth opposed to the Ridá or shoulder-cloth, is also the sheet of white calico worn by the poorer Egyptian women out of doors and covering head and hands. See Lane (M. E., chapt. i). The rich prefer a "Habárah" of black silk, and the poor, when they have nothing else, use a bed-sheet.

304. i.e. "My dears."

305. Arab. "Lá tawákhizná:" lit. "do not chastise (or blame) us;" the pop. expression for, "excuse (or pardon) us."

306. Arab. "Maskhút," mostly applied to change of shape as man enchanted to monkey, and in vulgar parlance applied to a statue (of stone, etc.). The list of metamorphoses in Al-Islam is longer than that known to Ovid. Those who have seen Petra, the Greek town of the Haurán and the Roman ruins in Northern Africa will readily detect the basis upon which these stories are built. I shall return to this subject in The City of Iram (Night cclxxvi.) and The City of Brass (dlxvii.).