书城公版Volume Eight
16697800000116

第116章

denoting a section or portion of Scripture; but Moslems understand it to be the 'Book which distinguisheth (faraka,divided) the true from the false.' Thus Caliph Omar was entitled 'Faruk' = the Distinguisher (between right and wrong).Lastly,'Furkan,' meanings as in Syr.and Ethiop.deliverance,revelation,is applied alike to the Pentateuch and Koran.

[125]Euphemistic for 'thou shalt die.'

[126]Lit.'From (jugular) vein to vein' (Arab.'Warid').Our old friend Lucretius again: 'Tantane relligio,' etc.

[127]As opposed to the 'but' or outer room.

[128]Arab.'Darb al-Asfar' in the old Jamaliyah or Northern part of Cairo.

[129]A noble tribe of Badawin that migrated from Al-Yaman and settled in Al-Najd Their Chief,who died a few years before Mohammed's birth,was Al-Hatim (the 'black crow'),a model of Arab manliness and munificence; and although born in the Ignorance he will enter Heaven with the Moslems.Hatim was buried on the hill called Owarid: I have already noted this favourite practice of the wilder Arabs and the affecting idea that the Dead may still look upon his kith and kin.There is not an Arab book nor,indeed,a book upon Arabia which does not contain the name of Hatim: he is mentioned as unpleasantly often as Aristides.

[130]Lord of 'Cattle-feet,' this King's name is unknown; but the Kamus mentions two Kings called Zu 'l Kala'a,the Greater and the Less.Lane's Shaykh (ii.333) opined that the man who demanded Hatim's hospitality was one Abu'l-Khaybari.

[131]The camel's throat,I repeat,is not cut as in the case of other animals,the muscles being too strong: it is slaughtered by the 'nahr,' i.e.thrusting a knife into the hollow at the commissure of the chest.(Pilgrimage iii.303.)

[132]Adi became a Moslem and was one of the companions of the Prophet.

[133]A rival-in generosity to Hatim: a Persian poet praising his patron's generosity says that it buried that of Hatim and dimmed that of Ma'an (D'Herbelot).He was a high official-under the last Ommiade,Marwan al-Himar (the 'Ass,' or the 'Century,' the duration of Ommiade rule) who was routed and slain in A.H.132=750.

Ma'an continued to serve under the Abbasides and was a favourite with Al-Mansur.'More generous or bountiful than Ka'ab' is another saying (A.P.,i.325); Ka'ab ibn Mamah was a man who,somewhat like Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen,gave his own portion of drink while he was dying of thirst to a man who looked wistfully at him,whence the saying 'Give drink to thy brother the Namiri' (A.P.,i.608).Ka'ab could not mount,so they put garments over him to scare away the wild beasts and left him in the desert to die.'Scatterer of blessings' (Nashir al-Ni'am) was a title of King Malik of Al-Yaman,son of Sharhabil,eminent for his liberality.He set up the statue in the Western Desert,inscribed 'Nothing behind me,' as a warner to others.

[134]Lane (ii.352) here introduces,between Nights cclxxi.

and ccxc.,a tale entitled in the Bresl.Edit.(iv.134) 'The Sleeper and the Waker,' i.e.the sleeper awakened; and he calls it:

The Story of Abu-l-Hasan the Wag.It is interesting and founded upon historical-fact; but it can hardly be introduced here without breaking the sequence of The Nights.I regret this the more as Mr.

Alexander J.Cotheal-of New York has most obligingly sent me an addition to the Breslau text (iv.137) from his MS.But I hope eventually to make use of it.

[135]The first girl calls gold 'Titer' (pure,unalloyed metal); the second 'Asjad' (gold generally) and the third 'Ibriz'

(virgin ore,the Greek {Greek letters}.This is a law of Arab rhetoric never to repeat the word except for a purpose and,as the language can produce 1,200,000 (to 100,000 in English) the copiousness is somewhat painful to readers.

[136]Arab.'Shakes' before noticed.

[137]Arab.'Kussa'a'=the curling cucumber: the vegetable is of the cheapest and the poorer classes eat it as 'kitchen' with bread.

[138]Arab.'Haram-hu,' a double entendre.Here the Barlawi means his Harem the inviolate part of the house; but afterwards he makes it mean the presence of His Honour.

[139]Toledo? this tale was probably known to Washington Irving.The 'Land of Roum ' here means simply Frank-land as we are afterwards told that its name was Andalusia the old Vandal-land,a term still applied by Arabs to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula.

[140]Arab.'Amaim' (plur.of Imamah) the common word for turband which I prefer to write in the old unclipt fashion.We got it through the Port.Turbante and the old French Tolliban from the (now obsolete) Persian term Dolband=a turband or a sash.

[141]Sixth Ommiade Caliph,A.D.705-716,from 'Tarik' we have 'Gibraltar'=Jabal-al-Tarik.

[142]Arab.'Yunan' = Ionia,applied to ancient Greece as 'Roum' is to the Graeco-Roman Empire.

[143]Arab.'Bahramani ;' prob.alluding to the well-known legend of the capture of Somanath (Somnauth) from the Hindus by Mahmud of Ghazni.In the Aja'ib al-Hind (before quoted) the Brahmins are called Abrahamah.

[144]i.e.'Peace be with thee!'

[145]i.e.in the palace when the hunt was over.The bluntness and plain-speaking of the Badawi,which caused the revelation of the Koranic chapter 'Inner Apartments' (No.xlix.) have always been favourite themes with Arab tale-tellers as a contrast with citizen suavity and servility.Moreover the Badawi,besides saying what he thinks,always tells the truth (unless corrupted by commerce with foreigners); and this is a startling contrast with the townsfolk.