Chapter XXII: Conclusion (5)

[FN#374] The phrase of J. Matthias Gesner, Comm. Reg. Soc. Gottingen i. 1–32. It was founded upon Erasmus’ “Sancte Socrate, ore pro nobis,” and the article was translated by M. Alcide Bonmaire, Paris, Liseux, 1877.

[FN#375] The subject has employed many a pen, e.g., Alcibiade Fanciullo a Scola, D. P. A. (supposed to be Pietro Aretino—ad captandum?), Oranges, par Juann Wart, 1652: small square 8vo of pp. 102, including 3 preliminary pp. and at end an unpaged leaf with 4 sonnets, almost Venetian, by V. M. There is a re-impression of the same date, a small 12mo of longer format, pp. 124 with pp. 2 for sonnets: in 1862 the Imprimerie Racon printed 102 copies in 8vo of pp. iv.–108, and in 1863 it was condemned by the police as a liber spurcissimus atque execrandus de criminis sodomici laude et arte. This work produced “Alcibiade Enfant à l’école,” traduit pour la première fois de l’Italien de Ferrante Pallavicini, Amsterdam, chez l’Ancien Pierre Marteau, mdccclxvi. Pallavicini (nat. 1618), who wrote against Rome, was beheaded, aet. 26 (March 5, 1644), at Avignon in 1644 by the vengeance of the Barberini: he was a bel esprit déréglé, nourri d’études antiques and a Memb. of the Acad. Degl’ Incogniti. His peculiarities are shown by his “Opere Scelte,” 2 vols. 12mo, Villafranca, mdclxiii.; these do not include Alcibiade Fanciullo, a dialogue between Philotimus and Alcibiades which seems to be a mere skit at the Jesuits and their Péché philosophique. Then came the “Dissertation sur l’Alcibiade fanciullo a scola,” traduit de l’Italien de Giambattista Baseggio et accompagnée de notes et d’une post-face par un bibliophile francais (M. Gustave Brunet, Librarian of Bordeaux), Paris. J. Gay, 1861—an octavo of pp. 78 (paged), 254 copies. The same Baseggio printed in 1850 his Disquisizioni (23 copies) and claims for F. Pallavicini the authorship of Alcibiades which the Manuel du Libraire wrongly attributes to M. Girol. Adda in 1859. I have heard of but not seen the “Amator fornaceus, amator ineptus” (Palladii, 1633) supposed by some to be the origin of Alcibiade Fanciullo; but most critics consider it a poor and insipid production.

[FN#376] The word is from numbness, torpor, narcotism: the flowers, being loved by the infernal gods, were offered to the Furies. Narcissus and Hippolytus are often assumed as types of morose voluptas, masturbation and clitorisation for nymphomania: certain mediæval writers found in the former a type of the Saviour, and ’Mirabeau a representation of the androgynous or first Adam: to me Narcissus suggests the Hindu Vishnu absorbed in the contemplation of his own perfections.

[FN#377] The verse of Ovid is parallel’d by the song of Al-Záhir al-Jazari (Ibn Khall. iii. 720).

Illum impuberem amaverunt mares; puberem feminæ.

Gloria Deo! nunquam amatoribus carebit.

[FN#378] The venerable society of prostitutes contained three chief classes. The first and lowest were the Dicteriads, so called from Diete (Crete), who imitated Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, in preferring a bull to a husband; above them was the middle class, the Aleutridæ, who were the Almahs or professional musicians, and the aristocracy was represented by the Hetairai, whose wit and learning enabled them to adorn more than one page of Grecian history. The grave Solon, who had studied in Egypt, established a vast Dicterion (Philemon in his Delphica), or bordel whose proceeds swelled the revenue of the Republic.

[FN#379] This and Saint Paul (Romans i. 27) suggested to

Caravaggio his picture of St. Rosario (in the museum of the Grand

Duke of Tuscany), showing a circle of thirty men turpiter ligati.

[FN#380] Properly speaking, “Medicus” is the third or ring finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses,

Est pollex Veneris; sed Jupiter indice gaudet,

Saturnus medium; Sol medicumque tenet.

[FN#381] So Seneca uses digito scalpit caput. The modern Italian does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and medius to suggest the clitoris.

[FN#382] What can be wittier than the now trite Tale of the Ephesian Matron, whose dry humour is worthy of The Nights? No wonder that it has made the grand tour of the world. It is found in the neo-Phædrus, the tales of Musæus and in the Septem Sapientes as the “Widow which was comforted.” As the “Fabliau de la Femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son Mari,” it tempted Brantôme and La Fontaine; and Abel Rémusat shows in his Contes Chinois that it is well known to the Middle Kingdom. Mr. Walter K. Kelly remarks, that the most singular place for such a tale is the “Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying” by Jeremy Taylor, who introduces it into his chapt. v.—“Of the Contingencies of Death and Treating our Dead.” But in those days divines were not mealy-mouthed.

[FN#383] Glossarium eroticum linguæ Latinæ, sive theogoniæ, legum et morum nuptialium apud Romanos explanatio nova, auctore P. P. (Parisiis, Dondey-Dupré, 1826, in 8vo). P. P. is supposed to be Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues, an engineer who made a plan of Bordeaux and who annotated the Erotica Biblion. Gay writes, “On s’est servi pour cet ouvrage des travaux inédits de M. Ie Baron de Schonen, etc. Quant au Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues qu’on désignait comme l’auteur de ce savant volume, son existence n’est pas bien avérée, et quelques bibliographes persistent à penser que ce nom cache la collaboration du Baron de Schonen et d’Eloi Johanneau.” Other glossicists as Blondeau and Forberg have been printed by Liseux, Paris.

[FN#384] This magnificent country, which the petty jealousies of Europe condemn, like the glorious regions about Constantinople, to mere barbarism, is tenanted by three Moslem races. The Berbers, who call themselves Tamazight (plur. of Amazigh), are the Gætulian indigenes speaking an Africo-Semitic tongue (see Essai de Grammaire Kabyle, etc., par A. Hanoteau, Paris, Benjamin Duprat). The Arabs, descended from the conquerors in our eighth century, are mostly nomads and camel-breeders. Third and last are the Moors proper, the race dwelling in towns, a mixed breed originally Arabian but modified by six centuries of Spanish residence and showing by thickness of feature and a parchment-coloured skin, resembling the American Octaroon’s, a negro innervation of old date. The latter are well described in “Morocco and the Moors,” etc. (Sampson Low and Co., 1876), by my late friend Dr. Arthur Leared, whose work I should like to see reprinted.

[FN#385] Thus somewhat agreeing with one of the multitudinous modern theories that the Pentapolis was destroyed by discharges of meteoric stones during a tremendous thunderstorm. Possible, but where are the stones?

[FN#386] To this Iranian domination I attribute the use of many Persic words which are not yet obsolete in Egypt. “Bakhshísh,” for instance, is not intelligible in the Moslem regions west of the Nile-Valley, and for a present the Moors say Hadíyah, regalo or favor.

[FN#387] Arnobius and Tertullian, with the arrogance of their caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored “Consuistis in precibus ’Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,’ dicere!” These men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man’s brains and armed him with a despotism of omnipotence which rendered their creation truly dreadful.

[FN#388] Gallus lit. = a cock, in pornologic parlance is a capon, a castrato.

[FN#389] The texts justifying or enjoining castration are Matt. xviii. 8–9; Mark ix. 43–47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St. Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D. 250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna and is called by the chronicles Nawjè or the Corpse. But in the early part of the last century (1715–1733) a sect arose in the circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift für Ethn. Berlin, 1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.

[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious

“Dead Sea” in the Purchas v. 84.

[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying men instead of teaching them better. But, “Nous faisons les Dieux à notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur la terre.” The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.

[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarát al-Ashará, a clump of trees near the village Al-Ghájar (of the Gypsies?) at the foot of Hermon.

[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Müller and Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.

[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metáwali heretics, a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry of “Bilád B’sharrah,” which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah, still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the Sayyidat al-Kabírah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt—the Lady’s tree—an Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of Kasrawán, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the Kadashah of the Phnicians. This survival of old superstition is unknown to missionary “Handbooks,” but amply deserves the study of the anthropologist.

[FN#395] Some commentators understand “the tabernacles sacred to the reproductive powers of women;” and the Rabbis declare that the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.

[FN#396] “Dog” is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and the Catamite, and thus they understand the “price of a dog” which could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have noticed it in one of the derivations of cinædus and can only remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.

[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some, “King’s mother”: she founded the sect of Communists who rejected marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the Turlupins, long infested Savoy.

[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.

[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2–11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught the “Art of le Thalaba” to his son Pan who wandered about the mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.

[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the “he” in Arabic poetry denotes a “she”; but the Arab, when uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is a Badawi.

[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the masculine.

[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptæ, youths or girls who wiped the gymnast’s perspiring body with swan-down, a practice renewed by the professors of “Massage”; Unctores who applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or shampooers; Dropacistæ, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the hair, etc., etc., etc.

[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect. 2, No. 1602):

The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of

jewelry;

The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar’s worth his lord,

Ali.

[FN#404] For “Sindí” Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99) has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjábi peasant, and others vary the saying ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.

[FN#405] See “Sind Revisited” i. 133–35.

[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs, the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however refused to undergo the operation.

[FN#407] Relation des découvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p. 137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci’s letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and Paro’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains.

[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the Thèse de Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, “Frictiones per coitum productæ magnum mucosæ membranæ vaginalis turgorem, ac simul hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quæritatam afferunt.”

[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.

[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as “counterfeit hair for women’s privy parts. See Bailey’s Dict.” The Bailey of 1764, an “improved edition,” does not contain the word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.

[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes to Mr. Albert Tootle’s excellent translation of “The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse:” London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.

[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes 200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct. 1873.

[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America, by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.

[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraíbes) of the Brazil: they will be noticed in page 211.

[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries, a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.

[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.

[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.

[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.

[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.

[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Série de la Curiosité

Littéraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.

[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.

[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius

Arbiter, the “Larissa” story of Théophile Viand. His cousin, the

Sévigné, highly approved of it. See Bayle’s objections to

Rabutin’s delicacy and excuses for Petronius’ grossness in his

“Éclaircissement sur les obscénités” (Appendice au Dictionnaire

Antique).

[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle for Boulgre, an “indorser,” derived from the Bulgarus or Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo—liar. Bougre and Bougrerie date (Littré) from the xiiith century. I cannot, however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fête in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three hundred men (including fifty “Bugres” or Tupis) with parroquets and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The procession is given in the four-folding woodcut “Figure des Brésiliens” in Jean de Prest’s Edition of 1551.

[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadésch (pp. 93 et seq.), Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues of Bordeaux, before noticed.

[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw in the mouth, à la Palmerston.

[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly paid and have given the reason.

[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to, p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.

[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Cæsar and Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii., Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i., xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the Composer), D’Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Condé, Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Vallière, De Soleinne, Count D’Avaray, Saint Mégrin, D’Epernon, Admiral de la Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievée, Théodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambacèrés, Marquis de Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D’Orsay. For others refer to the three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices will supply the names.

[FN#429] Of this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii. 43), “There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their character. Abú al-Atahíyah wrote pious poems himself being an atheist; Abú Hukayma’s verses proved his impotence, yet he was more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Házim praised contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abú Nowás hymned the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a baboon.”

[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour an author’s unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a popular Review books which have been printed and not published is hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper “The Reviewer Reviewed” which will, amongst other things, explain the motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the Edinburgh.

[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of

Gladwin’s “Dissertations on Rhetoric,” etd., Calcutta, 1801.

[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife, | to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose style. In that delightful old French the Saj’a frequently appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books: e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.

[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration

(Ibn Khall. ii., 316).

[FN#434] He called himself “Nabiyun ummí” = illiterate prophet; but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists, were “Aatíní dawáta wa kalam” (bring me ink-case and pen); upon which the Shi’ah or Persian sectaries base, not without probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the intention, exclaimed, “The Prophet is delirious; have we not the Koran?” thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even when not “under inspiration.” The vulgar idea would arise from a pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.

[FN#435] I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical who, “by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil, discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the antediluvian fathers.” Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius (lib. ii ) relates how this Græco-Egyptian philosopher, passing by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by experiment that such was the case when different weights were hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are Galileo’s discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.

[FN#436] To what an absurd point this has been carried we may learn from Ibn Khallikán (i. 114). A poet addressing a single individual does not say “My friend!” or “My friends!” but “My two friends!” (in the dual) because a Badawi required a pair of companions, one to tend the sheep and the other to pasture the camels.

[FN#437] For further details concerning the Sabab, Watad and

Fasilah, see at the end of this Essay the learned remarks of Dr.

Steingass.

[FN#438] e.g., the Mu’allakats of “Amriolkais,” Tarafah and Zuhayr compared by Mr. Lyall (Introduction to Translations) with the metre of Abt Vogler, e.g.,

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told

[FN#439] e.g., the Poem of Hareth which often echoes the hexameter

[FN#440] Gladwin, p. 80.

[FN#441] Gladwin (p. 77) gives only eight, omitting F ’ l which he or his author probably considers the Muzáhaf, imperfect or apocopêd form of F ’ l n, as M f ’ l of M f ’ l n. For the infinite complications of Arabic prosody the Khafíf (soft breathing) and Sahíh (hard breathing); the Sadr and Arúz (first and last feet), the Ibtidá and Zarb (last foot of every line); the Hashw (cushion-stuffing) or body part of verse, the ’Amúd al-Kasídah or Al-Musammat (the strong) and other details I must refer readers to such specialists as Freytag and Sam. Clarke (Prosodia Arabica), and to Dr. Steingass’s notes infra.

[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied their Arab cousins by turning Fa’la into Pael and so forth.

[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose “Ancient Arabic Poetry” (Williams and Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, ’85, did the absolute reverse of what is required: he preserved the metre and sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself. For instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier than to write,

Ah sweet and soft wi’ thee her ways: bethink thee well! The day

shall be

When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain

and free;

And if she swear that parting ne’er shall break her word of

constancy,

When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e’er

agree?

[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgär Dialekts von Ægyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880. In pp. 489–493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawáwíl varying in length from four to fifteen lines. The assonance mostly attempts monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.

[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan. Our knowledge of oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katáb al-Aghání (Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfaháni who flourished A.H. 284–356 (= 897– 967): it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.

[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.

[FN#447] His Diwán has been published with a French translation, par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.

[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imám Abu al-Hasan al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob. A.D. 868; Ibn Makúla (murdered in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob. A.D. 933) Al-Zahr the Poet (ob. A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob. A.D. 989), Kábús ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012–13); Ibn Nabatah the Poet (ob. A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa’ati (ob. A.D. 1028); Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu’tasim ibn Sumadih (ob. A.D. 1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob. A.D. 1117); Ibn Sara al-Shantaráni (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D. 1123; Ibn al-Kházin (ob. A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob. A D. 1172) Ibn al-Ta’wizi (ob. A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabádah (ob. A.D. 1198), Bahá al-Dín Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob. A.D. 1266) and sundry others. Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of Ibn al-Sumám (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sáhib al-Ishbíli, of Seville (vol. i. 100), are deficient. The most notable point in Arabic verse is its savage satire, the language of excited “destructiveness” which characterises the Badawi: he is “keen for satire as a thirsty man for water:” and half his poetry seems to consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal abuse.

[FN#449] If the letter preceding Wáw or Yá is moved by Fathah, they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in “bout’” and se, pronounced as i in “bite.”

[FN#450] For the explanation of this name and those of the following terms, see Terminal Essay, p. 225.

[FN#451] This Fásilah is more accurately called sughrá, the smaller one, there is another Fásilah kubrà, the greater, consisting of four moved letters followed by a quiescent, or of a Sabab sakíl followed by a Watad majmú’. But it occurs only as a variation of a normal foot, not as an integral element in its composition, and consequently no mention of it was needed in the text.

[FN#452] It is important to keep in mind that the seemingly identical feet 10 and 6, 7 and 3, are distinguished by the relative positions of the constituting elements in either pair. For as it will be seen that Sabab and Watad are subject to different kinds of alterations it is evident that the effect of such alterations upon a foot will vary, if Sabab and Watad occupy different places with regard to each other.

[FN#453] i.e. vertical to the circumference.

[FN#454] This would be a Fásilah kubrá spoken of in the note p. 239.

[FN#455] In pause that is at the end of a line, a short vowel counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the pronoun of the first person aná, I, is generally read short, although it is written with Alif.

[FN#456] On p. 236 the word akámú, as read by itself, was identified with the foot Fa’úlun. Here it must be read together with the following syllable as “akámulwaj,” which is Mafá’ílun.

[FN#457] Prof. Palmer, p. 328 of his Grammar, identifies this form of the Wáfir, when every Mufá’ alatum of the Hashw has become Mafá’ílun, with the second form of the Rajaz It should be Hazaj. Professor Palmer was misled, it seems, by an evident misprint in one of his authorities, the Muhít al-Dáirah by Dr. Van Dayk, p. 52.

[FN#458] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac 134b “The Merchant’s Wife and the Parrot.”

[FN#459] This will be found translated in my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. vii. p. 307, as an Appendix to the Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac version of the story, from which it differs in detail.

[FN#460] Called “Bekhit” in Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac

Editions.

[FN#461] Yehya ben Khalid (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac),

[FN#462] “Shar” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac).

[FN#463] “Jelyaad” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac.)

[FN#464] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, No. 63. See my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. iv., p. 211.

[FN#465] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “Jaafar the Barmecide.”

[FN#466] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “The Thief turned Merchant and the other Thief,” No. 88.

[FN#467] This story will be found translated in my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. v., p. 345.

[FN#468] After this I introduce the Tale of the Husband and the Parrot.

[FN#469] The Bulak Edition omits this story altogether.

[FN#470] After this I introduce How Abu Hasan brake wind.

[FN#471] Probably Wakksh al-Falák=Feral of the Wild.

[FN#472] This is the date of the Paris edition. There was an earlier edition published at La Haye in 1743.

[FN#473] There are two other Oriental romances by Voltaire; viz.,

Babouc, and the Princess of Babylon.