Chapter XIX: Part 19

[FN#500] Arab. "'Innín": alluding to all forms of impotence, from dislike, natural deficiency or fascination, the favourite excuse. Easterns seldom attribute it to the true cause, weak action of the heart; but the Romans knew the truth when they described one of its symptoms as cold feet. "Clino-pedalis, ad venerem invalidus, ab ea antiqua opinione, frigiditatem pedum concubituris admodum officere." Hence St. Francis and the bare-footed Friars. See Glossarium Eroticum Linguae Latinæ, Parisiis, Dondey-Dupré, MDCCCXXVI.

[FN#501] I have noted the use of "island" for "land" in general. So in the European languages of the sixteenth century, insula was used for peninsula, e.g. Insula de Cori = the Corean peninsula.

[FN#502] As has been noticed (vol. i. 333), the monocular is famed for mischief and men expect the mischief to come from his blinded eye.

[FN#503] Here again we have a specimen of "inverted speech" (vol. ii. 265); abusive epithets intended for a high compliment, signifying that the man was a tyrant over rebels and a froward devil to the foe.

[FN#504] Arab. "Bab al-Bahr," see vol. iii. 281.

[FN#505] Arab. "Batárikah" see vol. ii. 89. The Templars, Knights of Malta and other orders half ecclesiastic, half military suggested the application of the term.

[FN#506] These lines have occurred in vol. i. 280--I quote Torrens (p. 283).

[FN#507] Maryam al-Husn containing a double entendre, "O place of the white doe (Rím) of beauty!" The girl's name was Maryam the Arab. form of Mary, also applied to the B.V. by Eastern Christians. Hence a common name of Syrian women is "Husn Maryam" = (one endowed with the spiritual beauties of Mary: vol. iv. 87). I do not think that the name was "manufactured by the Arab story-tellers after the pattern of their own names (e.g. Nur al-Din or Noureddin, light of the faith, Tajeddin, crown of faith, etc.) for the use of their imaginary Christian female characters."

[FN#508] I may here remind readers that the Bán, which some Orientalists will write "Ben," is a straight and graceful species of Moringa with plentiful and intensely green foliage.

[FN#509] Arab. "Amúd al-Sawári" = the Pillar of Masts, which is still the local name of Diocletian's column absurdly named by Europeans "Pompey's Pillar."

[FN#510] Arab. "Batiyah," also used as a wine-jar (amphora), a flagon.

[FN#511] Arab. "Al-Kursán," evidently from the Ital. "Corsaro," a runner. So the Port. "Cabo Corso," which we have corrupted to "Cape Coast Castle" (Gulf of Guinea), means the Cape of Tacking.

[FN#512] Arab. "Ghuráb," which Europeans turn to "Grab."

[FN#513] Arab. "Sayyib" (Thayyib) a rare word: it mostly applies to a woman who leaves her husband after lying once with him.

[FN#514] Arab. "Batárikah:" here meaning knights, leaders of armed men as in Night dccclxii., supra p. 256, it means "monks."

[FN#515] i.e. for the service of a temporal monarch.

[FN#516] Arab. "Sayr" = a broad strip of leather still used by way of girdle amongst certain Christian religions in the East.

[FN#517] Arab. "Haláwat al-Salámah," the sweetmeats offered to friends after returning from a journey or escaping sore peril. See vol. iv. 60.

[FN#518] So Eginhardt was an Erzcapellan and belonged to the ghostly profession.

[FN#519] These lines are in vols. iii. 258 and iv. 204. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#520] Arab. "Firásah," lit. = skill in judging of horse flesh (Faras) and thence applied, like "Kiyáfah," to physiognomy. One Kári was the first to divine man's future by worldly signs (Al-Maydáni, Arab. prov. ii. 132) and the knowledge was hereditary in the tribe Mashíj.

[FN#521] Reported to be a "Hadis" or saying of Mohammed, to whom are attributed many such shrewd aphorisms, e.g. "Allah defend us from the ire of the mild (tempered)."

[FN#522] These lines are in vol. i. 126. I quote Torrens (p. 120).

[FN#523] These lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#524] Arab. "Khák-bák," an onomatopÂœia like our flip-flap and a host of similar words. This profaning a Christian Church which contained the relics of the Virgin would hugely delight the coffee-house habitués, and the Egyptians would be equally flattered to hear that the son of a Cairene merchant had made the conquest of a Frankish Princess Royal. That he was an arrant poltroon mattered very little, as his cowardice only set of his charms.

[FN#525] i.e. after the rising up of the dead.

[FN#526] Arab. "Nafísah," the precious one i.e. the Virgin.

[FN#527] Arab. "Nákús," a wooden gong used by Eastern Christians which were wisely forbidden by the early Moslems.

[FN#528] i.e. a graceful, slender youth.

[FN#529] There is a complicatd pun in this line: made by splitting the word after the fashion of punsters. "Zarbu 'l-Nawákísí" = the striking of the gongs, and "Zarbu 'l Nawá, Kísí = striking the departure signal: decide thou (fem. addressed to the Nafs, soul or self)" I have attempted a feeble imitation.

[FN#530] The modern Italian term of the venereal finish.

[FN#531] Arab. "Najm al-Munkazzi," making the envious spy one of the prying Jinns at whom is launched the Shiháb or shooting-star by the angels who prevent them listening at the gates of Heaven. See vol. i. 224.

[FN#532] Arab. "Sandúk al-Nuzur," lit. "the box of vowed oblations." This act of sacrilege would find high favour with the auditory.

[FN#533] The night consisting like the day of three watches. See vol. i.

[FN#534] Arab. "Al-Khaukhah," a word now little used.

[FN#535] Arab. "Námúsiyah," lit. mosquito curtains.

[FN#536] Arab. "Jáwashiyah," see vol. ii. 49.

[FN#537] Arab. "Kayyimah," the fem. of "Kayyim," misprinted "Kayim" in vol. ii. 93.

[FN#538] i.e. hadst thou not disclosed thyself. He has one great merit in a coward of not being ashamed for his cowardice; and this is a characteristic of the modern Egyptian, whose proverb is, "He ran away, Allah shame him! is better than, He was slain, Allah bless him!"

[FN#539] Arab. "Ahjar al-Kassárín" nor forgotten. In those days ships anchored in the Eastern port of Alexandria which is now wholly abandoned on account of the rocky bottom and the dangerous "Levanter," which as the Gibraltar proverb says

"Makes the stones canter."

[FN#540] Arab. "Hakk" = rights, a word much and variously used. To express the possessive "mine" a Badawi says "Hakki" (pron. Haggi) and "Lílí;" a Syrian "Shítí" for Shayyati, my little thing or "taba 'i" my dependent; an Egyptian "Bitá' i" my portion and a Maghribi "M'tá 'i" and "diyyáli" (di allazí lí = this that is to me). Thus "mine" becomes a shibboleth.

[FN#541] i.e. The "Good for nothing," the "Bad'un;" not some forgotten ruffian of the day, but the hero of a tale antedating The Nights in their present form. See Terminal Essay, x. ii.

[FN#542] i.e. Hoping to catch Nur al-Din.

[FN#543] Arab. "Sawwáhún" = the Wanderers, Pilgrims, wandering Arabs, whose religion, Al-Islam, so styled by its Christain opponents. And yet the new creed was at once accepted by whole regions of Christians, and Mauritania, which had rejected Roman paganism and Gothic Christianity. This was e.g. Syria and the so-called "Holy Land," not because, as is fondly asserted by Christians, al-Islam was forced upon them by the sword, but on account of its fulfilling a need, its supplying a higher belief, unity as opposed to plurality, and its preaching a more manly attitude of mind and a more sensible rule of conduct. Arabic still preserves a host of words special to the Christian creed; and many of them have been adopted by Moslems but with changes of signification.

[FN#544] i.e. of things commanded and things prohibited. The writer is thinking of the Koran in which there are not a few abrogated injunctions.

[FN#545] See below for the allusion.

[FN#546] Arab. "Kafrá" = desert place. It occurs in this couplet,

"Wa Kabrun Harbin fí-makánin Kafrin;
Wa laysa Kurba Kabri Harbin Kabrun."
"Harb's corse is quartered in coarse wold accurst;
Nor close to corse of Harb is other corse;--"

words made purposely harsh because uttered by a Jinni who killed a traveller named "Harb." So Homer:--

{pollà d' hánanta, kátanta, párantá te dachmía t' êlthon.}

and Pope:--

"O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go, etc."

See Preface (p. v.) to Captain A. Lockett's learned and whimsical volume, "The Muit Amil" etc. Calcutta, 1814.

[FN#547] These lines have occurred vol. iv. 267. I quote Mr. Lane.

[FN#548] The topethesia is here designedly made absurd. Alexandria was one of the first cities taken by the Moslems (A.H. 21 = 642) and the Christian pirates preferred attacking weaker places, Rosetta and Damietta.

[FN#549] Arab. "Bilád al-Rúm," here and elsewhere applied to France.

[FN#550] Here the last line of p. 324, vol. iv. in the Mac. Edit. is misplaced and belongs to the next page.

[FN#551] Arab. "Akhawán shakíkán" = brothers german (of men and beasts) born of one father and mother, sire and dam.

[FN#552] "The Forerunner" and "The Overtaker," terms borrowed from the Arab Epsom.

[FN#553] Known to us as "the web and pin," it is a film which affects Arab horses in the damp hot regions of Malabar and Zanzibar and soon blinds them. This equine cataract combined with loin-disease compels men to ride Pegu and other ponies.

[FN#554] Arab. "Zujáj bikr" whose apparent meaning would be glass in the lump and unworked. Zaj áj bears, however, the meaning of clove-nails (the ripe bud of the clove-shrub) and may possibly apply to one of the manifold "Alfáz Adwiyah" (names of drugs). Here, however, pounded glass would be all sufficient to blind a horse: it is much used in the East especially for dogs affected by intestinal vermicules.

[FN#555] Alluding to the Arab saying "The two rests" (Al-ráhatáni) "certainty of success or failure," as opposed to "Wiswás" when the mind fluctuates in doubt.

[FN#556] She falls in love with the groom, thus anticipating the noble self-devotion of Miss Aurora Floyd.

[FN#557] Arab. "Túfán" see vol. {iv. 136}: here it means the "Deluge of Noah."

[FN#558] Two of the Hells. See vol. v. 240.

[FN#559] Lit. "Out upon a prayer who imprecated our parting!"

[FN#560] The use of masculine for feminine has frequently been noted. I have rarely changed the gender or the number the plural being often employed for the singular (vol. i. 98). Such change may avoid "mystification and confusion" but this is the very purpose of the substitution which must be preserved if "local colour" is to be respected.