书城公版Volume Five
16697700000132

第132章

[99]This is the'House of Sadness'of our old chivalrous Romances.See chapt.vi.of'Palmerin of England,'by Francisco de Moraes (ob.1572),translated by old Anthony Munday (dateless;1590?) and'corrected'(read spoiled) by Robert Southey,London;Longmans,1807.

[100]The lines have occurred in Night clix.(vol.iii.183);I quote Mr.Payne who,like Lane,prefers'in my bosom'to'beneath my ribs.'

[101]In this tale the Bresl.Edit.more than once adds'And let us and you send a blessing to the Lord of Lords'(or to'Mohammed,'or to the'Prophet');and in vol.v.p.52 has a long prayer.This is an act of contrition in the tale-teller for romancing against the expressed warning of the Founder of Al-Islam.

[102]From Bresl.Edit.(vi.29): the four in the Mac.Edit.are too irrelevant.

[103]Arab.'Ghayār'--jealous,an admirable epithet which Lane dilutes to'changeable'--making a truism of a metaphor.

[104]These lines have occurred before.I quote Mr.Payne.

[105]i.e.One fated to live ten years.

[106]This poetical way of saying'fourteen'suggests Camoens (The Lusiads) Canto v.2.

[107]Arab.'Surrah,'lit.= a purse: a few lines lower down it is called''Ulbah'= a box which,of course,may have contained the bag.

[108]The month which begins the Moslem year.

[109]As an Arab often does when deep in thought.Lane appositely quotes John viii.6.'Jonas stooped down,and with his finger wrote on the ground.'Mr.Payne translates,'He fell a-drumming on the earth with his fingers,'but this does not complete the sense.

[110]i.e.'And the peace of Allah be upon thee! that will end thy story.' The Arab formula,'Wa al-Sal m'(pron.Wassal m) is used in a variety of senses.

[111]Like Camoens,one of the model lovers,he calls upon Love to torment him still more--ad majorern Dei (amoris) gloriam.

[112]Pron.Aboor-Ruwaysh.'The Father of the little Feather': he is afterwards called'Son of the daughter of the accursed Iblis';yet,as Lane says,'he appears to be a virtuous person.'

[113]Arab.'Kantara al-lij m fi Karbās (bow) sarjih.'

[114]I do not translate'beckoned'because the word would give a wrong idea.Our beckoning with the finger moved towards the beckoner makes the so-beckoned Eastern depart in all haste.

To call him you must wave the hand from you.

[115]The Arabs knew what large libraries were;and a learned man could not travel without camel-loads of dictionaries.

[116]Arab.'Adim;'now called Bulgh r,our Moroccan leather.

[117]Arab.'Zin d,'which Lane renders by'instruments for striking fire,'and Mr.Payne,after the fashion of the translators of Al-Hariri,'flint and steel.'

[118]A congener of Hasan and Husayn,little used except in Syria where it is a favourite name for Christians.The Muhit of Butrus Al-Bost ni (s.v.) tells us that it also means a bird called Abā Hasan and supplies various Egyptian synonyms.In Mod.

Arab.Grammar the form Fa''āl is a diminutive as Hammād for Ahmad,'Ammār for'Amrā.So the fem.form,Fa''ālah,e.g.

Khaddāgah = little Khadijah and Naffāsah=little Nafisah;Ar'ārah = little clitoris - whereas in Heb.it is an incrementative e.g.

dabbālah a large dablah (cake or lump of dried figs,etc.).

[119]In the Mac.Edit.'Soldiers of Al-Daylam'i.e.warlike as the Daylamites or Medes.See vol.ii.94.

[120]Bilkis,it will be remembered,is the Arab.name of the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon.In Abyssinia she is termed Kebra z negest or z makad ,the latter (according to Ferdinand Werne's'African Wanderings,'Longmans,1852) being synonymous with Ityopia or Habash (Ethiopia or Abyssinia).

[121]Arab.'Dakkah,'which Lane translates by'settee.'

[122]Arab.'Ambar al-Kh m'the latter word (raw) being pure Persian.

[123]The author neglects to mention the ugliest part of old-womanhood in the East,long empty breasts like tobacco-pouches.In youth the bosom is beautifully high,arched and rounded,firm as stone to the touch,with the nipples erect and pointing outwards.But after the girl-mother's first child (in Europe le premier embellit) all changes.Nature and bodily power have been overtasked;then comes the long suckling at the mother's expense: the extension of the skin and the enlargement of its vessels are too sudden and rapid for the diminished ability of contraction and the bad food aids in the continual consumption of vitality.Hence,among Eastern women age and ugliness are synonymous.It is only in the highest civilisation that we find the handsome old woman.

[124]The name has occurred in the Knightly tale of King Omar and his sons,Vol.ii.269.She is here called Mother of Calamities,but in p.123,Vol.iv.of the Mac.Edit.she becomes'Lady (Z t) al-Daw hi.'It will be remembered that the title means calamitous to the foe.

[125]By this address she assured him that she had no design upon his chastity.In Moslem lands it is always advisable to accost a strange woman,no matter how young,with,'Y Ummi!'= O

my mother.This is pledging one's word,as it were,not to make love to her.

[126]Apparently the Wakites numbered their Islands as the Anglo-Americans do their streets.For this they have been charged with'want of imagination';but the custom is strictly classical.See at Pompeii'Reg (io) I;Ins (ula) 1,Via Prima;Secunda,'etc.

[127]These are the Puell‘ Wakwakienses of whom Ibn Al-Wardi relates after an ocular witness,'Here too is a tree which bears fruits like women who have fair faces and are hung by their hair.

They come forth from integuments like large leathern bags (calabash-gourds?) and when they sense air and sun they cry'Wak!