The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 by Richard F. Burton

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[FN#306] Arab. "Al-'Ar£s, one of the innumerable tropical names
given to wine by the Arabs. Mr. Payne refers to Grangeret de la
Grange, Anthologie Arabe, p, 190.

[FN#307] Here the text of the Mac. Edition is resumed.

[FN#308] i.e. "Adornment of (good) Qualities." See the name
punned on in Night dcccli. Lane omits this tale because it
contains the illicit "Amours of a Christian and a Jewess who
dupes her husband in various abominable ways." The text has been
taken from the Mac. and the Bresl. Edits. x. 72 etc. In many
parts the former is a mere Epitome.

[FN#309] The face of her who owns the garden.

[FN#310] i.e. I am no public woman.

[FN#311] i.e. with the sight of the garden and its mistress--
purposely left vague.

[FN#312] Arab. "D dat." Night dcclxxvi. vol. vii. p. 372.

[FN#313] Meaning respectively "Awaking" (or blowing hard),
"Affairs" (or Misfortunes) and "Flowing" (blood or water). They
are evidently intended for the names of Jewish slave-girls.

[FN#314] i.e. the brow-curls, or accroche-coeurs. See vol. i.
168.

[FN#315] Arab. "Wish h" usually applied to woman's broad belt,
stomacher (Al-Hariri Ass. af Rayy).

[FN#317] The old Greek "Stephane."

[FN#317] Alluding to the popular fancy of the rain-drop which
becomes a pearl.

[FN#318] Arab. "Gh zi"=one who fights for the faith.

[FN#319] i.e. people of different conditions.

[FN#320] The sudden change appears unnatural to Europeans; but
an Eastern girl talking to a strange man in a garden is already
half won. The beauty, however, intends to make trial of her
lover's generosity before yielding.

[FN#321] These lines have occurred in the earlier part of the
Night: I quote Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#322] Arab. "Al-Sh h m t"=the King is dead, Pers. and Arab.
grotesquely mixed: Europeans explain "Checkmate" in sundry ways,
all more or less wrong.

[FN#323] Cheating (Ghadr) is so common that Easterns who have no
tincture of Western civilisation look upon it not only as venial
but laudable when one can take advantage of a simpleton. No idea
of "honour" enters into it. Even in England the old lady
whist-player of the last generation required to be looked after
pretty closely--if Mr. Charles Dickens is to be trusted.

[FN#324] Arab. "Al-Gh liyah," whence the older English Algallia.
See vol. i., 128. The Voyage of Linschoten, etc. Hakluyt Society
MDCCCLXXXV., with notes by my learned friend the late Arthur Coke
Burnell whose early death was so sore a loss to Oriental
students.

[FN#325] A favourite idiom, "What news bringest thou?" ("O
As m!" Arab. Prov. ii. 589) used by H ris bin Amr£, King of
Kindah, to the old woman As m whom he had sent to inspect a girl
he purposed marrying.

[FN#326] Amongst the Jews the Arab Sal m becomes "Shal£m" and a
Jewess would certainly not address this ceremonial greeting to a
Christian. But Eastern storytellers care little for these
minutiae; and the "Adornment of Qualities," was not by birth a
Jewess as the sequel will show.

[FN#327] Arab. "S lifah," the silken plaits used as adjuncts.
See vol. iii, 313.

[FN#328] I have translated these lines in vol. i. 131, and
quoted Mr. Torrens in vol. iv. 235. Here I borrow from Mr. Payne.

[FN#329] Mr. Payne notes:--Apparently some place celebrated for
its fine bread, as Gonesse in seventeenth-century France. It
occurs also in Bresl. Edit. (iv. 203) and Dozy does not
understand it. But Arj the root=good odour.

[FN#330] Arab. "T s," from Pers. T sah. M. Charbonneau a
Professor of Arabic at Constantine and Member of the Asiatic Soc.
Paris, who published the Histoire de Chams-Eddine et Nour-Eddine
with Maghrabi punctuation (Paris, Hachette, 1852) remarks the
similarity of this word to Tazza and a number of other whimsical
coincidences as Zauj, {Greek letters} jugum; Ink r, negare;
matrah, matelas; Ishtir , acheter, etc. To which I may add wasat,
waist; zabad, civet; B s, buss (kiss); uzrub (pron. Zrub), drub;
Kat', cut; Tarik, track; etc., etc.

[FN#331] We should say "To her (I drink)" etc.

[FN#332] This is ad captandum. The lovers becoming Moslems would
secure the sympathy of the audience. In the sequel (Night
dccclviii) we learn that the wilful young woman was a born
Moslemah who had married a Jew but had never Judaized.

[FN#333] The doggerel of this Kasidah is not so phenomenal as
some we have seen.

[FN#334] Arab. "'Andam"=Brazil wood, vol. iii. 263.

[FN#335] Arab. " Him…." See supra, p. 102.

[FN#336] i.e. her favours were not lawful till the union was
sanctified by heartwhole (if not pure) love.

[FN#337] Arab. "Mans£r wa munazzam=oratio soluta et ligata.

[FN#338] i.e. the cupbearers.

[FN#339] Which is not worse than usual.

[FN#340] i.e. "Ornament of Qualities."

[FN#341] The 'Akik, a mean and common stone, ranks high in
Moslem poetry on account of the saying of Mohammed recorded by
Ali and Ayishah "Seal with seals of Carnelian." ('Akik.)

[FN#342] See note ii. at the end of this volume.

[FN#343] Arab. "Mahall" as opposed to the lady's "Manzil," which
would be better "Mak m." The Arabs had many names for their old
habitations, e.g.; Kubbah, of brick; Sutrah, of sun-dried mud;
Hazirah, of wood; Tir f, a tent of leather; Khab a, of wool;
Kash'a, of skins; Nakh d, of camel's or goat's hair; Khaymah, of
cotton cloth; Wabar, of soft hair as the camel's undercoat and
Fust t (the well-known P.N.) a tent of horsehair or any hair
(Sha'ar) but Wabar.

[FN#344] This is the Maghribi form of the Arab. S£k=a
bazar-street, known from Tanjah (Tangiers) to Timbuctoo.

[FN#345] Arab. "Walimah" usually=a wedding-feast. According to
the learned Nasif alYazaji the names of entertainments are as
follows: Al-Jafal…=a general invitation, opp. to Al-Nakar…,
especial; Khurs, a childbirth feast; 'Akikah, when the boy-babe
is first shaved; A'z r=circumcision-feast; Hiz k, when the boy
has finished his perlection of the Koran; Mil k, on occasion of
marriage-offer; Wazimah, a mourning entertainment; Wakirah=a
"house-warming"; Naki'ah, on returning from wayfare; 'Akirah, at
beginning of the month Rajab; Kir…=a guest-feast and Maadubah, a
feast for other cause; any feast.

[FN#346] Arab. "Anistan " the pop. phrase=thy company gladdens
us.

[FN#347] Here "Mu kh t" or making mutual brotherhood would
be=entering into a formal agreement for partnership. For the
forms of "making brotherhood," see vol. iii. 15.

[FN#348] Arab. "Ish rah" in classical Arab. signs with the
finger (beckoning); Aum with the hand; Ramz, with the lips;
Khalaj, with the eyelids (wink); and Ghamz with the eye. Aum z is
a furtive glance, especially of women, and Ilh z, a side-glance
from lahaza, limis oculis intuitus est. See Preston's Al-Hariri,
p. 181.

[FN#349] Arab. "Haudaj" (Hind. Haudah, vulg.
Howda=elephant-saddle), the women's camel-litter, a cloth
stretched over a wooden frame. See the Prize-poem of Lebid, v.
12.

[FN#350] i.e. the twelve days' visit.

[FN#351] See note, vol. vii. 267. So Dryden (Virgil):--

"And the hoarse raven on the blasted bough
By croaking to the left presaged the coming blow."

And Gay (Fable xxxvii.),

"That raven on the left-hand oak,
Curse on his ill-betiding croak!"

In some Persian tales two crows seen together are a good omen.

[FN#352] Vulgar Moslems hold that each man's fate is written in
the sutures of his skull but none can read the lines. See vol.
iii. 123.

[FN#353] i.e. cease not to bemoan her lot whose moon-faced
beloved ones are gone.

[FN#354] Arab. "Rukb" used of a return caravan; and also meaning
travellers on camels. The vulgar however apply "R kib" (a
camel-rider) to a man on horseback who is properly F ris plur.
"Khayy lah," while "Khayy l" is a good rider. Other names are
"Fayy l" (elephant-rider), Baghgh l (mule-rider) and Hamm r
(donkeyrider).

[FN#355] A popular exaggeration. See vol. i. 117

[FN#356] Lit. Empty of tent-ropes (Atn b).

[FN#357] Arab. "'Abir," a fragrant powder sprinkled on face,
body and clothes. In India it is composed of rice flower or
powdered bark of the mango, Deodar (uvaria longifolia),
Sandalwood, lign-aloes or curcuma (zerumbat or zedoaria) with
rose-flowers, camphor, civet and anise-seed. There are many of
these powders: see in Herklots Chiks , Phul, Ood, Sundul, Uggur,
and Urgujja.

[FN#358] i.e. fair faced boys and women. These lines are from
the Bresl. Edit. x. 160.

[FN#359] i.e. the Chief Kazi. For the origin of the Office and
title see vol. ii. 90, and for the Kazi al-Arab who administers
justice among the Badawin see Pilgrimage iii. 45.

[FN#360] Arab. "Raas al-M l"=capital, as opposed to Rib or
Ribh=interest. This legal expression has been adopted by all
Moslem races.

[FN#361] Our Aden which is thus noticed by Abulfeda (A.D. 1331):
"Aden in the lowlands of Teh mah * * * also called Abyana from a
man (who found it?), built upon the seashore, a station (for land
travellers) and a sailing-place for merchant ships India-bound,
is dry and sunparcht (Kashifah, squalid, scorbutic) and sweet
water must be imported. * * * It lies 86 parasangs from San' but
Ibn Haukal following the travellers makes it three stages. The
city, built on the skirt of a wall-like mountain, has a watergate
and a landgate known as Bab al-S kayn. But 'Adan L 'ah (the
modest, the timid, the less known as opposed to Abyan, the better
known?) is a city in the mountains of Sabir, Al-Yaman, whence
issued the supporters of the Fatimite Caliphs of Egypt." 'Adan
etymologically means in Arab. and Heb. pleasure ({Greek
letters}), Eden (the garden), the Heaven in which spirits will
see Allah and our "Coal-hole of the East," which we can hardly
believe ever to have been an Eden. Mr. Badger who supplied me
with this note described the two Adens in a paper in Ocean
Highways, which he cannot now find. In the 'Aj ib al-Makhl£k t,
Al-Kazwini (ob. A.D. 1275) derives the name from Ibn Sin n bin
Ibrahim; and is inclined there to place the Bir al-Mu'attal
(abandoned well) and the Kasr alMashid (lofty palace) of Koran
xxii. 44; and he adds "Kasr al-Misyad" to those mentioned in the
tale of Sayf al-Mul£k and Badi'a al-Jam l.

[FN#362] Meaning that she had been carried to the Westward of
Meccah.

[FN#363] Arab. "Zahrawiyah" which contains a kind of double
entendre. F timah the Prophet's only daughter is entitled
Al-Zahr the "bright-blooming"; and this is also an epithet of
Zohrah the planet Venus. For Fatimah see vol. vi. 145. Of her
Mohammed said, "Love your daughters, for I too am a father of
daughters" and, "Love them, they are the comforters, the
dearlings." The Lady appears in Moslem history a dreary young
woman (died aet. 28) who made this world, like Honorius, a hell
in order to win a next-world heaven. Her titles are Zahr and
Bat£l (Pilgrimage ii. 90) both signifying virgin. Burckhardt
translates Zahr by "bright blooming" (the etymological sense):
it denotes literally a girl who has not menstruated, in which
state of purity the Prophet's daughter is said to have lived and
died. "Bat£l" has the sense of a "clean maid" and is the title
given by Eastern Christians to the Virgin Mary. The perpetual
virginity of Fatimah even after motherhood (Hasan and Husayn) is
a point of orthodoxy in Al-Islam as Juno's with the Romans and
Um 's with the Hind£ worshippers of Shiva. During her life
Mohammed would not allow Ali a second wife, and he held her one
of the four perfects, the other three being Asia wife of
"Pharaoh," the Virgin Mary and Khadijah his own wife. She caused
much scandal after his death by declaring that he had left her
the Fadak estate (Abulfeda I, 133, 273) a castle with a fine
palmorchard near Khaybar. Abu Bakr dismissed the claim quoting
the Apostle's Hadis, "We prophets are folk who will away nothing:
what we leave is alms-gift to the poor," and Shi'ahs greatly
resent his decision. (See Dabistan iii. 51 52 for a different
rendering of the words.) I have given the popular version of the
Lady Fatimah's death and burial (Pilgrimage ii. 315) and have
remarked that Moslem historians delight in the obscurity which
hangs over her last resting-place, as if it were an honour even
for the receptacle of her ashes to be concealed from the eyes of
men. Her repute is a curious comment on Tom Hood's

"Where woman has never a soul to save."

[FN#364] For Sharif and Sayyid, descendants of Mohammed, see
vol. iv. 170.

[FN#365] These lines have occurred with variants in vol. iii.
257, and iv. 50.

[FN#366] Arab. "Hazrat," esp. used in India and corresponding
with our mediaeval "praesentia vostra."

[FN#367] This wholesale slaughter by the tale-teller of
worshipful and reverend men would bring down the gallery like a
Spanish tragedy in which all the actors are killed.

[FN#368] They are called indifferently "Ruhb n"=monks or
"Bat rikah"=patriarchs. See vol. ii. 89.

[FN#369] Arab. "Khil l." The toothpick, more esteemed by the
Arabs than by us, is, I have said, often used by the poets as an
emblem of attenuation without offending good taste. Nizami (Layla
u Majn£n) describes a lover as "thin as a toothpick." The
"elegant" Hariri (Ass. of Barkaid) describes a toothpick with
feminine attributes, "shapely of shape, attractive, provocative
of appetite, delicate as the leanest of lovers, polished as a
poinard and bending as a green bough."

[FN#370] From Bresl. Edit. x. 194.

[FN#371] Tr‚butien (vol. ii. 344 et seq.) makes the seven monks
sing as many anthems, viz. (1) Congregamini; (2) Vias tuas
demonstra mihi; (3) Dominus illuminatis; (4) Custodi linguam; (5)
Unam petii a Domino; (6) Nec adspiciat me visus, and (7) Turbatus
est a furore oculus meus. D nis the Abbot chaunts Anima mea
turbata est valdŠ.

[FN#372] A neat and characteristic touch: the wilful beauty eats
and drinks before she thinks of her lover. Alas for Masrur
married.

[FN#373] The unfortunate Jew, who seems to have been a model
husband (Orientally speaking), would find no pity with a
coffee-house audience because he had been guilty of marrying a
Moslemah. The union was null and void therefore the deliberate
murder was neither high nor petty treason. But, The Nights,
though their object is to adorn a tale, never deliberately
attempt to point a moral and this is one of their many charms.

[FN#374] These lines have repeatedly occurred. I quote Mr.
Payne.

[FN#375] i.e. by the usual expiation. See vol. iii. 136.

[FN#376] Arab. "Shammiri"=up and ready!

[FN#377] I borrow the title from the Bresl. Edit. x. 204. Mr.
Payne prefers "Ali Noureddin and the Frank King's Daughter." Lane
omits also this tale because it resembles Ali Shar and Zumurrud
(vol. iv. 187) and Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat (vol. iv. 29),
"neither of which is among the text of the collection." But he
has unconsciously omitted one of the highest interest. Dr. Bacher
(Germ. Orient. Soc.) finds the original in Charlemagne's daughter
Emma and his secretary Eginhardt as given in Grimm's Deutsche
Sagen. I shall note the points of resemblance as the tale
proceeds. The correspondence with the King of France may be a
garbled account of the letters which passed between Harun
al-Rashid and Nicephorus, "the Roman dog."

[FN#378] Arab. "Allaho Akbar," the Moslem slogan or war-cry. See
vol. ii. 89.

[FN#379] The gate-keeper of Paradise. See vol. iii. 15, 20.

[FN#380] Negroes. Vol. iii. 75.

[FN#381] Arab. "Nakat," with the double meaning of to spot and
to handsel especially dancing and singing women; and, as Mr.
Payne notes in this acceptation it is practically equivalent to
the English phrase "to mark (or cross) the palm with silver." I
have translated "Anwa" by Pleiads; but it means the setting of
one star and simultaneous rising of another foreshowing rain.
There are seven Anwa (plur. of nawa) in the Solar year viz.
Al-Badri (Sept.-Oct.); Al-Wasmiyy (late autumn and December);
Al-Waliyy (to April); Al-Ghamir (June); Al-Busriyy (July); Barih
al-Kayz (August) and Ahrak al-Hawa extending to September 8.
These are tokens of approaching rain, metaphorically used by the
poets to express "bounty". See Preston's Hariri (p. 43) and
Chenery upon the Ass. of the Banu Haram.

[FN#382] i.e. They trip and stumble in their hurry to get there.

[FN#383] Arab. "Kumm" = sleeve or petal. See vol. v. 32.

[FN#384] Arab. "Kirab" = sword-case of wood, the sheath being of
leather.

[FN#385] Arab. "Akr kayrawan," both rare words.

[FN#386] A doubtful tradition in the Mishkat al-Masabih declares
that every pomegranate contains a grain from Paradise. See vol.
i. 134. The Koranic reference is to vi. 99.

[FN#387] Arab. "Aswad," lit. black but used for any dark colour,
here green as opposed to the lighter yellow.

[FN#388] The idea has occurred in vol. i. 158.

[FN#389] So called from the places where they grow.

[FN#390] See vol. vii. for the almond-apricot whose stone is
cracked to get at the kernel.

[FN#391] For Roum see vol. iv. 100: in Morocco "Roumi" means
simply a European. The tetrastich alludes to the beauty of the
Greek slaves.

[FN#392] Arab. "Ahlan" in adverb form lit. = "as one of the
household": so in the greeting "Ahlan wa Sahlan" (and at thine
ease), wa Marhaba (having a wide free place).

[FN#393] For the Sufrah table-cloth see vol. i. 178.

[FN#394] See vol. iii. 302, for the unclean allusion in fig and
sycamore.

[FN#395] In the text "of Tor": see vol. ii. 242. The pear is
mentioned by Homer and grows wild in South Europe. Dr. Victor
Hehn (The Wanderings of Plants, etc.) comparing the Gr. {Greek
letters} with the Lat. Pyrus, suggests that the latter passed
over to the Kelts and Germans amongst whom the fruit was not
indigenous. Our fine pears are mostly from the East. e.g. the
"bergamot" is the Beg Armud, Prince of Pears, from Angora.

[FN#396] i.e. "Royal," it may or may not come from Sultaniyah, a
town near Baghdad. See vol. i. 83; where it applies to oranges
and citrons.

[FN#397] 'Andam = Dragon's blood: see vol. iii. 263.

[FN#398] Arab. "Jamar," the palm-pith and cabbage, both eaten by
Arabs with sugar.

[FN#399] Arab. "Anwar" = lights, flowers (mostly yellow): hence
the Moroccan "N'war," with its usual abuse of Wakf or quiescence.

[FN#400] Mr. Payne quotes Eugene Fromentin, "Un Ete dans le
Sahara," Paris, 1857, p. 194. Apricot drying can be seen upon all
the roofs at Damascus where, however, the season for each fruit
is unpleasantly short, ending almost as soon as it begins.

[FN#401] Arab. "Jalajal" = small bells for falcons: in Port.
cascaveis, whence our word.

[FN#402] Khulanjan. Sic all editions; but Khalanj, or Khaulanj
adj. Khalanji, a tree with a strong-smelling wood which held in
hand as a chaplet acts as perfume, as is probably intended. In
Span. Arabic it is the Erica-wood. The "Muhit" tells us that is a
tree parcel yellow and red growing in parts of India and China,
its leaf is that of the Tamarisk (Tarfa); its flower is coloured
red, yellow and white; it bears a grain like mustard-seed
(Khardal) and of its wood they make porringers. Hence the poet
sings,

"Yut 'amu 'l-shahdu fi 'l-jifani, wa yuska * Labanu 'l-Bukhti fi
Kusa'i 'l-Khalanji:
Honey's served to them in platters for food; * Camels' milk in
bowls of the Khalanj wood."

The pl. Khalanij is used by Himyan bin Kahafah in this "bayt",

"Hatta iza ma qazati 'l-Hawaija * Wa malaat Halaba-ha
'l-Khalanija:
Until she had done every work of hers * And with sweet milk had
filled the porringers."

[FN#403] In text Al-Sha'ir Al-Walahan, vol. iii. 226.

[FN#404] The orange I have said is the growth of India and the
golden apples of the Hesperides were not oranges but probably
golden nuggets. Captain Rolleston (Globe, Feb. 5, '84, on
"Morocco-Lixus") identifies the Garden with the mouth of the
Lixus River while M. Antichan would transfer it to the hideous
and unwholesome Bissagos Archipelago.

[FN#405] Arab. "Ikyan," the living gold which is supposed to
grow in the ground.

[FN#406] For the Kubbad or Captain Shaddock's fruit see vol. ii.
310, where it is misprinted Kubad.

[FN#407] Full or Fill in Bresl. Edit. = Arabian jessamine or
cork-tree ({Greek letters}). The Bul. and Mac. Edits. read
"filfil" = pepper or palm-fibre.

[FN#408] Arab. "Sumbul al-'Anbari"; the former word having been
introduced into England by patent medicines. "Sumbul" in Arab.
and Pers. means the hyacinth, the spikenard or the Sign Virgo.

[FN#409] Arab. "Lisan al-Hamal" lit. = Lamb's tongue.

[FN#410] See in Bresl. Edit. X, 221. Taif, a well-known town in
the mountain region East of Meccah, and not in the Holy Land, was
once famous for scented goat's leather. It is considered to be a
"fragment of Syria" (Pilgrimage ii. 207) and derives its name =
the circumambulator from its having circuited pilgrim-like round
Ka'abah (Ibid.).

[FN#411] Arab. "Mikhaddah" = cheek-pillow: Ital. guanciale. In
Bresl. Edit. Mudawwarah (a round cushion) Sinjabiyah (of Ermine).
For "Mudawwarah" see vol. iv. 135.

[FN#412] "Coffee" is here evidently an anachronism and was
probably inserted by the copyist. See vol. v. 169, for its first
metnion. But "Kahwah" may have preserved its original meaning =
strong old wine (vol. ii. 261); and the amount of wine-drinking
and drunkenness proves that the coffee movement had not set in.

[FN#413] i.e. they are welcome. In Marocco "La baas" means, "I
am pretty well" (in health).

[FN#414] The Rose (Ward) in Arab. is masculine, sounding to us
most uncouth. But there is a fem. form Wardah = a single rose.

[FN#415] Arab. "Akmam," pl. of Kumm, a sleeve, a petal. See vol.
iv. 107 and supra p. 267. The Moslem woman will show any part of
her person rather than her face, instinctively knowing that the
latter may be recognised whereas the former cannot. The traveller
in the outer East will see ludicrous situations in which the
modest one runs away with hind parts bare and head and face
carefully covered.

[FN#416] Arab. "Ikyan" which Mr. Payne translates "vegetable
gold" very picturesquely but not quite preserving the idea. See
supra p. 272.

[FN#417] It is the custom for fast youths, in Egypt, Syria, and
elsewhere to stick small gold pieces, mere spangles of metal on
the brows, cheeks and lips of the singing and dancing girls and
the perspiration and mask of cosmetics make them adhere for a
time till fresh movement shakes them off.

[FN#418] See the same idea in vol. i. 132, and 349.

[FN#419] "They will ask thee concerning wine and casting of
lots; say: 'In both are great sin and great advantages to
mankind; but the sin of them both is greater than their
advantage.'" See Koran ii. 216. Mohammed seems to have made up
his mind about drinking by slow degrees; and the Koranic law is
by no means so strict as the Mullahs have made it. The
prohibitions, revealed at widely different periods and varying in
import and distinction, have been discussed by Al-Bayzawi in his
commentary on the above chapter. He says that the first
revelation was in chapt. xvi. 69 but, as the passage was
disregarded, Omar and others consulted the Apostle who replied to
them in chapt. ii. 216. Then, as this also was unnoticed, came
the final decision in chapt. v. 92, making wine and lots the work
of Satan. Yet excuses are never wanting to the Moslem, he can
drink Champagne and Cognac, both unknown in Mohammed's day and he
can use wine and spirits medicinally, like sundry of ourselves,
who turn up the nose of contempt at the idea of drinking for
pleasure.

[FN#420] i.e. a fair-faced cup-bearer. The lines have occurred
before: so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#421] It is the custom of the Arabs to call their cattle to
water by whistling; not to whistle to them, as Europeans do,
whilst making water.

[FN#422] i.e. bewitching. See vol. i. 85. These incompatible
metaphors are brought together by the Saj'a (prose rhyme)
in--"iyah."

[FN#423] Mesopotamian Christians, who still turn towards
Jerusalem, face the West, instead of the East, as with Europeans:
here the monk is so dazed that he does not know what to do.

[FN#424] Arab. "Bayt Sha'ar" = a house of hair (tent) or a
couplet of verse. Watad (a tentpeg) also is prosodical, a foot
when the two first letters are "moved" (vowelled) and the last is
jazmated (quiescent), e.g. Lakad. It is termed Majmu'a (united),
as opposed to "Mafruk" (separated), e.g. Kabla, when the "moved"
consonants are disjoined by a quiescent.

[FN#425] Lit. standing on their heads, which sounds ludicrous
enough in English, not in Arabic.

[FN#426] These lines are in vol. iii. 251. I quote Mr. Payne who
notes "The bodies of Eastern women of the higher classes by dint
of continual maceration, Esther-fashion, in aromatic oils and
essences, would naturally become impregnated with the sweet
scents of the cosmetics used."

[FN#427] These lines occur in vol. i. 218: I quote Torrens for
variety.

[FN#428] So we speak of a "female screw." The allusion is to the
dove-tailing of the pieces. This personification of the lute has
occurred before: but I solicit the reader's attention to it; it
has a fulness of Oriental flavour all its own.

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