1001 Nights Vol 08 by Burton, Richard - Chapter 5

ALI NUR AL-DIN AND MIRIAM THE
GIRDLE-GIRL[FN#377]



There was once in days of yore and in ages and times long gone
before in the parts of Cairo, a merchant named Táj al-Dín who was
of the most considerable of the merchants and of the chiefs of
the freeborn. But he was given to travelling everywhere and loved
to fare over wild and wold, waterless lowland and stony waste,
and to journey to the isles of the seas, in quest of dirhams and
dinars: wherefore he had in his time encountered dangers and
suffered duresse of the way such as would grizzle little children
and turn their black hair grey. He was possessed of black slaves
and Mamelukes, eunuchs and concubines, and was the wealthiest of
the merchants of his time and the goodliest of them in speech,
owning horses and mules and Bactrian camels and dromedaries;
sacks great and small of size; goods and merchandise and stuffs
such as muslins of Hums, silks and brocades of Ba'allak, cotton
of Mery, stuffs of India, gauzes of Baghdad, burnouses of
Moorland and Turkish white slaves and Abyssinian castratos and
Grecian girls and Egyptian boys; and the coverings of his bales
were silk with gold purfled fair, for he was wealthy beyond
compare. Furthermore he was rare of comeliness, accomplished in
goodliness, and gracious in his kindliness, even as one of his
describers doth thus express,

"A merchant I spied whose lovers * Were fighting in furious
guise:
Quoth he, 'Why this turmoil of people?' * Quoth I, 'Trader, for
those fine eyes!'"

And saith another in his praise and saith well enough to
accomplish the wish of him,

"Came a merchant to pay us a visit * Whose glance did my heart
surprise:
Quoth he, 'What surprised thee so?' * Quoth I, 'Trader, 'twas
those fine eyes.'"

Now that merchant had a son called Ali Nur al-Din, as he were the
full moon whenas it meeteth the sight on its fourteenth night, a
marvel of beauty and loveliness, a model of form and symmetrical
grace, who was sitting one day as was his wont, in his father's
shop, selling and buying, giving and taking, when the sons of the
merchants girt him around and he was amongst them as moon among
stars, with brow flower-white and cheeks of rosy light in down
the tenderest dight, and body like alabaster-bright even as saith
of him the poet,

"'Describe me!' a fair one said. * Said I, 'Thou art Beauty's
queen.'
And, speaking briefest speech, * 'All charms in thee are seen.'"

And as saith of him one of his describers,

"His mole upon plain of cheek is like * Ambergrís-crumb on marble
plate,
And his glances likest the sword proclaim * To all Love's rebels
'The Lord is Great!'"[FN#378]

The young merchants invited him saying, "O my lord Nur al-Din, we
wish thee to go this day a-pleasuring with us in such a garden."
And he answered, "Wait till I consult my parent, for I cannot go
without his consent." As they were talking, behold, up came Taj
al-Din, and his son looked at him and said, "O father mine, the
sons of the merchants have invited me to wend a-pleasuring with
them in such a garden. Dost thou grant me leave to go?" His
father replied, "Yes, O my son, fare with them;" and gave him
somewhat of money. So the young men mounted their mules and asses
and Nur al-Din mounted a she-mule and rode with them to a garden,
wherein was all that sould desireth and that eye charmeth. It was
high of walls which from broad base were seen to rise; and it had
a gateway vault-wise with a portico like a saloon and a door
azure as the skies, as it were one of the gates of Paradise: the
name of the door-keeper was Rizwán,[FN#379] and over the gate
were trained an hundred trellises which grapes overran; and these
were of various dyes, the red like coralline, the black like the
snouts of Súdán[FN#380]-men and the white like egg of the
pigeon-hen. And in it peach and pomegranate were shown and pear,
apricot and pomegranate were grown and fruits with and without
stone hanging in clusters or alone,--And Shahrazad perceived the
dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-fourth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
the sons of the merchants entered the vergier, they found therein
all that soul desireth or eye charmeth, grapes of many hues
grown, hanging in bunches or alone, even as saith of them the
poet,

"Grapes tasting with the taste of wine * Whose coats like
blackest Raven's shine:
Their sheen, amid the leafage shows, * Like women's fingers
henna'd fine."

And as saith another on the same theme,

"Grape-bunches likest as they sway * A-stalk, my body frail and
snell:
Honey and water thus in jar, * When sourness past, make
Hydromel."

Then they entered the arbour of the garden and say there Rizwan
the gate-keeper sitting, as he were Rizwan the Paradise-guardian,
and on the door were written these lines,

"Garth Heaven-watered wherein clusters waved * On boughs which
full of sap to bend were fain:
And, when the branches danced on Zephyr's palm, * The Pleiads
shower'd as gifts[FN#381] fresh pearls for rain."

And within the arbour were written these two couplets,

"Come with us, friend, and enter thou * This garth that cleanses
rust of grief:
Over their skits the Zephyrs trip[FN#382] * And flowers in sleeve
to laugh are lief."[FN#383]

So they entered and found all manner fruits in view and birds of
every kind and hue, such as ringdove, nightingale and curlew; and
the turtle and the cushat sang their love lays on the sprays.
Therein were rills that ran with limpid wave and flowers suave;
and bloom for whose perfume we crave and it was even as saith of
it the poet in these two couplets,

"The Zephyr breatheth o'er its branches, like * Fair girls that
trip as in fair skirts they pace:
Its rills resemble swords in hands of knights * Drawn from the
scabbard and containing-case."[FN#384]

And again as singeth the songster,

"The streamlet swings by branchy wood and aye * Joys in its
breast those beauties to display;
And Zephyr noting this, for jealousy * Hastens and bends the
branches other way."

On the trees of the garden were all manner fruits, each in two
sorts, amongst them the pomegranate, as it were a ball of
silver-dross,[FN#385] whereof saith the poet and saith right
well,

"Granados of finest skin, like the breasts * Of maid
firm-standing in sight of male;
When I strip the skin, they at once display * The rubies
compelling all sense to quail."

And even as quoth another bard,

"Close prest appear to him who views th' inside * Red rubies in
brocaded skirts bedight:
Granado I compare with marble dome * Or virgin's breasts
delighting every sight:
Therein is cure for every ill as e'en * Left an Hadís the Prophet
pure of sprite;
And Allah (glorify His name) eke deigned * A noble say in Holy
Book indite.[FN#386]

The apples were the sugared and the musky and the Dámáni, amazing
the beholder, whereof saith Hassan the poet,

"Apple which joins hues twain, and brings to mind * The cheek of
lover and beloved combined:
Two wondrous opposites on branch they show * This dark[FN#387]
and that with hue incarnadined
The twain embraced when spied the spy and turned * This red, that
yellow for the shame designed."[FN#388]

There also were apricots of various kinds, almond and camphor and
Jíláni and 'Antábi,[FN#389] wereof saith the poet,

"And Almond-apricot suggesting swain * Whose lover's visit all
his wits hath ta'en.
Enough of love-sick lovers' plight it shows * Of face deep yellow
and heart torn in twain."[FN#390]

And saith another and saith well,

"Look at that Apricot whose bloom contains * Gardens with
brightness gladding all men's eyne:
Like stars the blossoms sparkle when the boughs * Are clad in
foliage dight with sheen and shine."

There likewise were plums and cherries and grapes, that the sick
of all diseases assain and do away giddiness and yellow choler
from the brain; and figs the branches between, varicoloured red
and green, amazing sight and sense, even as saith the poet,

"'Tis as the Figs with clear white skins outthrown * By foliaged
trees, athwart whose green they peep,
Were sons of Roum that guard the palace-roof * When shades close
in and night-long ward they keep."[FN#391]

And saith another and saith well,

"Welcome[FN#392] the Fig! To us it comes * Ordered in handsome
plates they bring:
Likest a Surfah[FN#393]-cloth we draw * To shape of bag without a
ring."

And how well saith a third,

"Give me the Fig sweet-flavoured, beauty-clad, * Whose inner
beauties rival outer sheen:
And when it fruits thou tastest it to find * Chamomile's scent
and Sugar's saccharine:
And eke it favoureth on platters poured * Puff-balls of silken
thread and sendal green."

And how excellent is the saying of one of them,

"Quoth they (and I had trained my taste thereto * Nor cared for
other fruits whereby they swore),
'Why lovest so the Fig?' whereto quoth I * 'Some men love Fig and
others Sycamore.[FN#394]'"

And are yet goodlier those of another,

"Pleaseth me more the fig than every fruit * When ripe and
hanging from the sheeny bough;
Like Devotee who, when the clouds pour rain, * Sheds tears and
Allah's power doth avow."

And in that garth were also pears of various kinds
Sinaïtic,[FN#395] Aleppine and Grecian growing in clusters and
alone, parcel green and parcel golden.--And Shahrazad perceived
the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-fifth Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
merchants' sons went down into the garth they saw therein all the
fruits we mentioned and found pears Sinaïtic, Aleppine and
Grecian of every hue, which here clustering there single grew,
parcel green and parcel yellow to the gazer a marvel-view, as
saith of them the poet,


"With thee that Pear agree, whose hue a-morn * Is hue of hapless
lover yellow pale;
Like virgin cloistered strait in strong Harím * Whose face like
racing steed outstrips the veil."

And Sultani[FN#396] peaches of shades varied, yellow and red,
whereof saith the poet,

"Like Peach in vergier growing * And sheen of Andam[FN#397]
showing:
Whose balls of yellow gold * Are dyed with blood-gouts flowing."

There were also green almonds of passing sweetness, resembling
the cabbage[FN#398] of the palm-tree, with their kernels within
three tunics lurking of the Munificent King's handiworking, even
as is said of them,

"Three coats yon freshest form endue * God's work of varied shape
and hue:
Hardness surrounds it night and day; * Prisoning without a sin to
rue."

And as well saith another,

"Seest not that Almond plucked by hand * Of man from bough where
wont to dwell:
Peeling it shows the heart within * As union-pearl in oyster-
shell."

And as saith a third better than he,

"How good is Almond green I view! * The smallest fills the hand
of you:
Its nap is as the down upon * The cheeks where yet no beardlet
grew:
Its kernels in the shell are seen, * Or bachelors or married two,
As pearls they were of lucent white * Casèd and lapped in
Jasper's hue."

And as saith yet another and saith well,

"Mine eyes ne'er looked on aught the Almond like * For charms,
when blossoms[FN#399] in the Prime show bright:
Its head to hoariness of age inclines * The while its cheek by
youth's fresh down is dight."

And jujube-plums of various colours, grown in clusters and alone
whereof saith one, describing them,

"Look at the Lote-tree, note on boughs arrayed * Like goodly
apricots on reed-strown floor,[FN#400]
Their morning-hue to viewer's eye is like * Cascavels[FN#401]
cast of purest golden ore."

And as saith another and saith right well,

"The Jujube-tree each Day * Robeth in bright array.
As though each pome thereon * Would self to sight display.
Like falcon-bell of gold * Swinging from every spray."

And in that garth grew blood oranges, as they were the
Khaulanján,[FN#402] whereof quoth the enamoured poet,[FN#403]

"Red fruits that fill the hand, and shine with sheen * Of fire,
albe the scarf-skin's white as snow.
'Tis marvel snow on fire doth never melt * And, stranger still,
ne'er burns this living lowe!"

And quoth another and quoth well,

"And trees of Orange fruiting ferly fair * To those who straitest
have their charms surveyed;
Like cheeks of women who their forms have decked * For holiday in
robes of gold brocade."

And yet another as well,

"Like are the Orange-hills[FN#404] when Zephyr breathes * Swaying
the boughs and spray with airy grace,
Her cheeks that glow with lovely light when met * At greeting-
tide by cheeks of other face."

And a fourth as fairly,

"And fairest Fawn, we said to him 'Portray * This garth and
oranges thine eyes survey:'
And he, 'Your garden favoureth my face * Who gathereth orange
gathereth fire alway.'"

In that garden too grew citrons, in colour as virgin gold,
hanging down from on high and dangling among the branches, as
they were ingots of growing gold;[FN#405] and saith thereof the
'namoured poet,

"Hast seen a Citron-copse so weighed adown * Thou fearest bending
roll their fruit on mould;
And seemed, when Zephyr passed athwart the tree * Its branches
hung with bells of purest gold?"

And shaddocks,[FN#406] that among their boughs hung laden as
though each were the breast of a gazelle-like maiden, contenting
the most longing wight, as saith of them the poet and saith
aright,

"And Shaddock mid the garden-paths, on bough * Freshest like
fairest damsel met my sight;
And to the blowing of the breeze it bent * Like golden ball to
bat of chrysolite."

And the lime sweet of scent, which resembleth a hen's egg, but
its yellowness ornamenteth its ripe fruit, and its fragrance
hearteneth him who plucketh it, as saith the poet who singeth it,

"Seest not the Lemon, when it taketh form, * Catch rays of light
and all to gaze constrain;
Like egg of pullet which the huckster's hand * Adorneth dyeing
with the saffron-stain?"

Moreover in this garden were all manner of other fruits and
sweet-scented herbs and plants and fragrant flowers, such as
jessamine and henna and water-lilies[FN#407] and
spikenard[FN#408] and roses of every kind and plantain[FN#409]
and myrtle and so forth; and indeed it was without compare,
seeming as it were a piece of Paradise to whoso beheld it. If a
sick man entered it, he came forth from it like a raging lion,
and tongue availeth not to its description, by reason of that
which was therein of wonders and rarities which are not found but
in Heaven: and how should it be otherwise when its doorkeeper's
name was Rizman? Though widely different were the stations of
those twain! Now when the sons of the merchants had walked about
gazing at the garden after taking their pleasure therein, they
say down in one of its pavilions and seated Nur al-Din in their
midst.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say
her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-sixth Night,

She resume, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
sons of the merchants sat down in the pavilion they seated Nur
al-Din in their midst on a rug of gold-purfled leather of
Al-Táif,[FN#410] leaning on a pillow[FN#411] of minever, stuffed
with ostrich down. And they gave him a fan of ostrich feathers,
whereon were written these two couplets,

"A fan whose breath is fraught with fragrant scent; * Minding of
happy days and times forspent,
Wafting at every time its perfumed air * O'er face of noble youth
on honour bent."

Then they laid by their turbands and outer clothes and sat
talking and chatting and inducing one another to discourse, while
they all kept their eyes fixed on Nur al-Din and gazed on his
beauteous form. After the sitting had lasted an hour or so, up
came a slave with a tray on his head, wherein were platters of
china and crystal containing viands of all sorts (for one of the
youths had so charged his people before coming to the garden);
and the meats were of whatever walketh earth or wingeth air or
swimmeth waters, such as Katá-grouse and fat quails and
pigeon-poults and mutton and chickens and the delicatest fish.
So, the tray being sat before them, they fell to and ate their
fill; and when they had made an end of eating, they rose from
meat and washed their hands with pure water and musk-scented
soap, and dried them with napery embroidered in silk and bugles;
but to Nur al-Din they brought a napkin laced with red gold
whereon he wiped his hands. Then coffee[FN#412] was served up and
each drank what he would, after which they sat talking, till
presently the garden-keeper who was young went away and returning
with a basket full of roses, said to them, "What say ye, O my
masters, to flowers?" Quoth one of them, "There is no harm in
them,[FN#413] especially roses, which are not to be resisted."
Answered the gardener, "'Tis well, but it is of our wont not to
give roses but in exchange for pleasant converse; so whoever
would take aught thereof, let him recite some verses suitable to
the situation." Now they were ten sons of merchants of whom one
said, "Agreed: give me thereof and I will recite thee somewhat of
verse apt to the case." Accordingly the gardener gave him a bunch
of roses[FN#414] which he took and at once improvised these three
couplets,

"The Rose in highest stead I rate * For that her charms ne'er
satiate;
All fragrant flow'rs be troops to her * Their general of high
estate:
Where she is not they boast and vaunt; * But, when she comes,
they stint their prate."

Then the gardener gave a bunch to another and he recited these
two couplets,

"Take, O my lord, to thee the Rose * Recalling scent by mush be
shed.
Like virginette by lover eyed * Who with her sleeves[FN#415]
enveileth head."

Then he gave a bunch to a third who recited these two couplets,

"Choice Rose that gladdens heart to see her sight; * Of Nadd
recalling fragrance exquisite.
The branchlets clip her in her leaves for joy, * Like kiss of
lips that never spake in spite."

Then he gave a bunch to a fourth and he recited these two
couplets,

"Seest not that rosery where Rose a-flowering displays * Mounted
upon her steed of stalk those marvels manifold?
As though the bud were ruby-stone and girded all around * With
chrysolite and held within a little hoard of gold."

Then he gave a posy to a fifth and he recited these two couplets,

"Wands of green chrysolite bare issue, which * Were fruits like
ingots of the growing gold.[FN#416]
And drops, a dropping from its leaves, were like * The tears my
languorous eyelids railed and rolled."

Then he gave a sixth a bunch and he recited these two couplets,

"O Rose, thou rare of charms that dost contain * All gifts and
Allah's secrets singular,
Thou'rt like the loved one's cheek where lover fond * And fain of
Union sticks the gold dinar."[FN#417]

Then he gave a bunch to a seventh and he recited these two
couplets,

"To Rose quoth I, 'What gars thy thorns to be put forth * For all
who touch thee cruellest injury?'
Quoth she, 'These flowery troops are troops of me * Who be their
lord with spines for armoury.'"

And he gave an eighth a bunch and he recited these two couplets,

"Allah save the Rose which yellows a-morn * Florid, vivid and
likest the nugget-ore;
And bless the fair sprays that displayed such fowers * And mimic
suns gold-begilded bore."

Then he gave a bunch to a ninth and he recited these two
couplets,

"The bushes of golden-hued Rose excite * In the love-sick lover
joys manifold:
'Tis a marvel shrub watered every day * With silvern lymph and it
fruiteth gold."

Then he gave a bunch of roses to the tenth and last and he
recited these two couplets,

"Seest not how the hosts of the Rose display * Red hues and
yellow in rosy field?
I compare the Rose and her arming thorn * To emerald lance
piercing golden shield."

And whilst each one hent bunch in hand, the gardener brought the
wine-service and setting it before them, on a tray of porcelain
arabesqued with red gold, recited these two couplets,

"Dawn heralds day-light: so wine pass round, * Old wine, fooling
sage till his wits he tyne:
Wot I not for its purest clarity * An 'tis wine in cup or 'tis
cup in wine."[FN#418]

Then the gardener filled and drank and the cup went round, till
it came to Nur al-Din's turn, whereupon the man filled and handed
it to him; but he said, "This thing I wot it not nor have I ever
drunken thereof, for therein is great offence and the Lord of
All-might hath forbidden it in His Book." Answered the gardener,
"O my Lord Nur al-Din, an thou forbear to drink only by reason of
the sin, verily Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) is bountiful,
of sufferance great, forgiving and compassionate and pardoneth
the mortalest sins: His mercy embraceth all things, Allah's ruth
be upon the poet who saith,

'Be as thou, wilt, for Allah is bountiful * And when thou sinnest
feel thou naught alarm:
But 'ware of twofold sins nor ever dare * To give God partner or
mankind to harm.'"

Then quoth one of the sons of the merchants, "My life on thee, O
my lord Nur al-Din, drink of this cup!" And another conjured him
by the oath of divorce and yet another stood up persistently
before him, till he was ashamed and taking the cup from the
gardener, drank a draught, but spat it out again, crying, "'Tis
bitter." Said the young gardener, "O my lord Nur al-Din, knowest
thou not that sweets taken by way of medicine are bitter? Were
this not bitter, 'twould lack of the manifold virtues it
possesseth; amongst which are that it digesteth food and
disperseth cark and care and dispelleth flatulence and clarifieth
the blood and cleareth the complexion and quickeneth the body and
hearteneth the hen-hearted and fortifieth the sexual power in
man; but to name all its virtues would be tedious. Quoth one of
the poets,

'We'll drink and Allah pardon sinners all * And cure of ills by
sucking cups I'll find:
Nor aught the sin deceives me; yet said He * 'In it there be
advantage[FN#419] to mankind.'"

Then he sprang up without stay or delay and opened one of the
cupboards in the pavilion and taking out a loaf of refined sugar,
broke off a great slice which he put into Nur al-Din's cup,
saying, "O my lord, an thou fear to drink wine, because of its
bitterness, drink now, for 'tis sweet." So he took the cup and
emptied it: whereupon one of his comrades filled him another,
saying, "O my lord Nur al-Din, I am thy slave," and another did
the like, saying, "I am one of thy servants," and a third said,
"For my sake!" and a fourth, "Allah upon thee, O my lord Nur
al-Din, heal my heart!" And so they ceased not plying him with
wine, each and every of the ten sons of merchants till they had
made him drink a total of ten cups. Now Nur al-Din's body was
virgin of wine-bibbing, or never in all his life had he drunken
vine-juice till that hour, wherefore its fumes wrought in his
brain and drunkenness was stark upon him and he stood up (and
indeed his tongue was thick and his speech stammering) and said,
"O company, by Allah, ye are fair and your speech is goodly and
your place pleasant; but there needeth hearing of sweet music;
for drink without melody lacks the chief of its essentiality,
even as saith the poet,

'Pass round the cup to the old and the young man, too, And take
the bowl from the hand of the shining moon,[FN#420]
But without music, I charge you, forbear to drink; I see even
horses drink to a whistled tune.'"[FN#421]


Therewith up sprang the gardener lad and mounting one of the
young men's mules, was absent awhile, after which he returned
with a Cairene girl, as she were a sheep's tail, fat and
delicate, or an ingot of pure silvern ore or a dinar on a
porcelain plate or a gazelle in the wold forlore. She had a face
that put to shame the shining sun and eyes Babylonian[FN#422] and
brows like bows bended and cheeks rose-painted and teeth
pearly-hued and lips sugared and glances languishing and breast
ivory white and body slender and slight, full of folds and with
dimples dight and hips like pillows stuffed and thighs like
columns of Syrian stone, and between them what was something like
a sachet of spices in wrapper swathed. Quoth the poet of her in
these couplets,

"Had she shown her shape to idolaters' sight, * They would gaze
on her face and their gods detest:
And if in the East to a monk she'd show'd, * He'd quit Eastern
posture and bow to West.[FN#423]
An she crached in the sea and the briniest sea * Her lips would
give it the sweetest zest."

And quoth another in these couplets,

"Brighter than Moon at full with kohl'd eyes she came * Like Doe,
on chasing whelps of Lioness intent:
Her night of murky locks lets fall a tent on her * A tent of
hair[FN#424] that lacks no pegs to hold the tent;
And roses lighting up her roseate cheeks are fed * By hearts and
livers flowing fire for languishment:
An 'spied her all the Age's Fair to her they'd rise *
Humbly,[FN#425] and cry 'The meed belongs to precedent!'"

And how well saith a third bard,[FN#426]

"Three things for ever hinder her to visit us, for fear Of the
intriguing spy and eke the rancorous envier;
Her forehead's lustre and the sound of all her ornaments And the
sweet scent her creases hold of ambergris and myrth.
Grant with the border of her sleeve she hide her brow and doff
Her ornaments, how shall she do her scent away from her?"

She was like the moon when at fullest on its fourteenth night,
and was clad in a garment of blue, with a veil of green,
overbrown flower-white that all wits amazed and those of
understanding amated.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day
and ceased saying his permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the
gardener brought a girl whom we have described, possessed of the
utmost beauty and loveliness and fine stature and symmetrical
grace as it were she the poet signified when he said,[FN#427]

"She came apparelled in a vest of blue,
That mocked the skies and shamed their azure hue;
I thought thus clad she burst upon my sight,
Like summer moonshine on a wintry night."

And how goodly is the saying of another and how excellent,

"She came thick veiled, and cried I, 'O display * That face like
full moon bright with pure-white ray.'
Quoth she, 'I fear disgrace,' quoth I, 'Cut short * This talk, no
shift of days thy thoughts affray.'
Whereat she raised her veil from fairest face * And crystal spray
on gems began to stray:
And I forsooth was fain to kiss her cheek, * Lest she complain of
me on Judgment-Day.
And at such tide before the Lord on High * We first of lovers
were redress to pray:
So 'Lord, prolong this reckoning and review' * (Prayed I) 'that
longer I may sight my may.'"

Then said the young gardener to her, "Know thou, O lady of the
fair, brighter than any constellation which illumineth air we
sought, in bringing thee hither naught but that thou shouldst
entertain with converse this comely youth, my lord Nur al-Din,
for he hath come to this place only this day." And the girl
replied, "Would thou hadst told me, that I might have brought
what I have with me!" Rejoined the gardener, "O my lady, I will
go and fetch it to thee." "As thou wilt," said she: and he, "Give
me a token." So she gave him a kerchief and he fared forth in
haste and returned after awhile, bearing a green satin bag with
slings of gold. The girl took the bag from him and opening it
shook it, whereupon there fell thereout two-and-thirty pieces of
wood, which she fitted one into other, male into female and
female into male[FN#428] till they became a polished lute of
Indian workmanship. Then she uncovered her wrists and laying the
lute in her lap, bent over it with the bending of mother over
babe, and swept the strings with her finger-tips; whereupon it
moaned and resounded and after its olden home yearned; and it
remembered the waters that gave it drink and the earth whence it
sprang and wherein it grew and it minded the carpenters who made
it their merchandise and the ships that shipped it; and it cried
and called aloud and moaned and groaned; and it was as if she
asked it of all these things and it answered her with the tongue
of the case, reciting these couplets,[FN#429]

"A tree whilere was I the Bulbul's home * To whom for love I
bowed my grass-green head:
They moaned on me, and I their moaning learnt * And in that moan
my secret all men read:
The woodman fell me falling sans offence, * And slender lute of
me (as view ye) made:
But, when the fingers smite my strings, they tell * How man
despite my patience did me dead;
Hence boon-companions when they hear my moan * Distracted wax as
though by wine misled:
And the Lord softens every heart of me, * And I am hurried to the
highmost stead:
All who in charms excel fain clasp my waist; * Gazelles of
languid eyne and Houri maid:
Allah ne'er part fond lover from his joy * Nor live the loved one
who unkindly fled."

Then the girl was silent awhile, but presently taking the lute in
lap, again bent over it, as mother bendeth over child, and
preluded in many different modes; then, returning to the first,
she sang these couplets,

"Would they [FN#430] the lover seek without ado, * He to his
heavy grief had bid adieu:
With him had vied the Nightingale[FN#431] on bough * As one far
parted from his lover's view:
Rouse thee! awake! The Moon lights Union-night * As tho' such
Union woke the Morn anew.
This day the blamers take of us no heed * And lute-strings bid us
all our joys ensue.
Seest not how four-fold things conjoin in one * Rose, myrtle,
scents and blooms of golden hue.[FN#432]
Yea, here this day the four chief joys unite * Drink and dinars,
beloved and lover true:
So win thy worldly joy, for joys go past * And naught but storied
tales and legends last."

When Nur al-Din heard the girl sing these lines he looked on her
with eyes of love and could scarce contain himself for the
violence of his inclination to her; and on like wise was it with
her, because she glanced at the company who were present of the
sons of the merchants and she saw that Nur al-Din was amongst the
rest as moon among stars; for that he was sweet of speech and
replete with amorous grace, perfect in stature and symmetry,
brightness and loveliness, pure of all defect, than the breeze of
morn softer, than Tasnim blander, as saith of him the
poet,[FN#433]

"By his cheeks' unfading damask and his smiling teeth I swear, By
the arros that he feathers with the witchery of his air,
By his sides so soft and tender and his glances bright and keen,
By the whiteness of his forehead and the blackness of his
hair,
By his arched imperious eyebrows, chasing slumber from my lids
With their yeas and noes that hold me 'twixt rejoicing and
despair,
By the Scorpions that he launches from his ringlet-clustered
brows, Seeking still to slay his lovers with his rigours
unaware,
By the myrtle of his whiskers and the roses of his cheek, By his
lips' incarnate rubies and his teeth's fine pearls and rare,
By the straight and tender sapling of his shape, which for its
fruit Doth the twin pomegranates, shining in his snowy
bosom, wear,
By his heavy hips that tremble, both in motion and repose, And
the slender waist above them, all too slight their weight to
bear,
By the silk of his apparel and his quick and sprightly wit, By
all attributes of beauty that are fallen to his share;
Lo, the musk exhales its fragrance from his breath, and eke the
breeze From his scent the perfume borrows, that it scatters
everywhere.
Yea, the sun in all his splendour cannot with his brightness vie
And the crescent moon's a fragment that he from his nails
doth pare."

--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-eighth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Nur
al-Din was delighted with the girl's verses and he swayed from
side to side for drunkenness and fell a-praising her and saying,

"A lutanist to us inclined * And stole our wits bemused with
wine:
And said to us her lute, 'The Lord * Bade us discourse by voice
divine.'"

When she heard him thus improvise the girl gazed at him with
loving eyes and redoubled in passion and desire for him increased
upon her, and indeed she marvelled at his beauty and loveliness,
symmetry and grace, so that she could not contain herself, but
took the lute in lap again and sang these couplets,

"He blames me for casting on him my sight * And parts fro' me
bearing my life and sprite:
He repels me but kens what my heart endures * As though Allah
himself had inspired the wight:
I portrayed his portrait in palm of hand * And cried to mine
eyes, 'Weep your doleful plight.'
For neither shall eyes of me spy his like * Nor my heart have
patience to bear its blight:
Wherefore, will I tear thee from breast, O Heart * As one who
regards him with jealous spite.
And when say I, 'O heart be consoled for pine,' * 'Tis that heart
to none other shall e'er incline:"

Nur al-Din wondered at the charms of her verse and the elegance
of her expression and the sweetness of her voice and the
eloquence of her speech and his wit fled for stress of love and
longing, and ecstasy and distraction, so that he could not
refrain from her a single moment, but bent to her and strained
her to his bosom: and she in like manner bowed her form over his
and abandoned herself to his embrace and bussed him between the
eyes. Then he kissed her on the mouth and played with her at
kisses, after the manner of the billing of doves; and she met him
with like warmth and did with him as she was done by till the
others were distracted and rose to their feet; whereupon Nur
al-Din was ashamed and held his hand from her. Then she took her
lute and, preluding thereon in manifold modes, lastly returned to
the first and sang these couplets,

"A Moon, when he bends him those eyes lay bare * A brand that
gars gazing gazelle despair:
A King, rarest charms are the host of him * And his lance-like
shape men with cane compare:
Were his softness of sides to his heart transferred * His friend
had not suffered such cark and care:
Ah for hardest heart and for softest sides! * Why not that to
these alter, make here go there?
O thou who accusest my love excuse: * Take eternal and leave me
the transient share."[FN#434]

When Nur al-Din heard the sweetness of her voice and the rareness
of her verse, he inclined to her for delight and could not
contain himself for excess of wonderment; so he recited these
couplets.

"Methought she was the forenoon sun until she donned the veil *
But lit she fire in vitals mine still flaring fierce and
high,
How had it hurt her an she deigned return my poor salám * With
fingertips or e'en vouchsafed one little wink of eye?
The cavalier who spied her face was wholly stupefied * By charms
that glorify the place and every charm outvie.
'Be this the Fair who makes thee pine and long for love liesse? *
Indeed thou art excused!' 'This is my fairest she;'(quoth I)
Who shot me with the shaft of looks nor deigns to rue my woes *
Of strangerhood and broken heart and love I must aby:
I rose a-morn with vanquished heart, to longing love a prey * And
weep I through the live long day and all the night I cry."

The girl marvelled at his eloquence and elegance and taking her
lute, smote thereon with the goodliest of performance, repeating
all the melodies, and sang these couplets,

"By the life o' thy face, O thou life o' my sprite! * I'll ne'er
leave thy love for despair or delight:
When art cruel thy vision stands hard by my side * And the
thought of thee haunts me when far from sight:
O who saddenest my glance albe weeting that I * No love but thy
love will for ever requite?
Thy cheeks are of Rose and thy lips-dews are wine; * Say, wilt
grudge them to us in this charming site?"

Hereat Nur al-Din was gladdened with extreme gladness and
wondered with the utmost wonder, so he answered her verse with
these couplets,

"The sun yellowed not in the murk gloom li'en * But lay pearl
enveiled 'neath horizon-chine;
Nor showed its crest to the eyes of Morn * But took refuge from
parting with Morning-shine.[FN#435]
Take my tear-drops that trickle as chain on chain * And they'll
tell my case with the clearest sign.
An my tears be likened to Nile-flood, like * Malak's[FN#436]
flooded flat be this love o'mine.
Quoth she, 'Bring thy riches!' Quoth I, 'Come, take!' * 'And thy
sleep?' 'Yes, take it from lids of eyne!'"

When the girl heard Nur al-Din's words and noted the beauty of
his eloquence her senses fled and her wit was dazed and love of
him gat hold upon her whole heart. So she pressed him to her
bosom and fell to kissing him like the billing of doves, whilst
he returned her caresses with successive kisses; but preeminence
appertaineth to precedence.[FN#437] When she had made an end of
kissing, she took the lute and recited these couplets,

"Alas, alack and well-away for blamer's calumny! * Whether or not
I make my moan or plead or show no plea:
O spurner of my love I ne'er of thee so hard would deem * That I
of thee should be despised, of thee my property.
I wont at lovers' love to rail and for their passion chide, * But
now I fain debase myself to all who rail at thee:
Yea, only yesterday I wont all amourists to blame * But now I
pardon hearts that pine for passion's ecstasy;
And of my stress of parting-stowre on me so heavy weighs * At
morning prayer to Him I'll cry, 'In thy name, O Ali!'"

And also these two couplets,

"His lovers said, 'Unless he deign to give us all a drink * Of
wine, of fine old wine his lips deal in their purity;
We to the Lord of Threefold Worlds will pray to grant our prayer'
* And all exclaim with single cry 'In thy name, O Ali!'"

Nur al-Din, hearing these lines and their rhyme, marvelled at the
fluency of her tongue and thanked her, praising her grace and
passing seductiveness; and the damsel, delighted at his praise,
arose without stay or delay and doffing that was upon her of
outer dress and trinkets till she was free of all encumbrance sat
down on his knees and kissed him between the eyes and on his
cheek-mole. Then she gave him all she had put off.--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-ninth Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the girl
gave to Nur al-Din all she had doffed, saying, "O beloved of my
heart, in very sooth the gift is after the measure of the giver."
So he accepted this from her and gave it back to her and kissed
her on the mouth and cheeks and eyes. When this was ended and
done, for naught is durable save the Living, the Eternal,
Provider of the peacock and the owl,[FN#438] Nur al-Din rose from
the séance and stood upon his feet, because the darkness was now
fallen and the stars shone out; whereupon quoth the damsel to
him, "Whither away, O my lord?"; and quoth he, "To my father's
home." Then the sons of the merchants conjured him to night with
them, but he refused and mounting his shemule, rode, without
stopping, till he reached his parent's house, where his mother
met him and said to him, "O my son, what hath kept thee away till
this hour? By Allah, thou hast troubled myself and thy sire by
thine absence from us, and our hearts have been occupied with
thee." Then she came up to him, to kiss him on his mouth, and
smelling the fumes of the wine, said, "O my wine-bibber and a
rebel against Him to whom belong creation and commandment?" But
Nur al-Din threw himself down on the bed and lay there. Presently
in came his sire and said, "What aileth Nur al-Din to lie thus?";
and his mother answered, "'Twould seem his head acheth for the
air of the garden." So Taj al-Din went up to his son, to ask him
of his ailment, and salute him, and smelt the reek of
wine.[FN#439] Now the merchant loved not wine-drinkers; so he
said to Nur al-Din, "Woe to thee, O my son! Is folly come to such
a pass with thee, that thou drinkest wine?" When Nur al-Din heard
his sire say this, he raised his hand, being yet in his
drunkenness, and dealt him a buffet, when by decree of the
Decreer the blow lit on his father's right eye which rolled down
on his cheek; whereupon he fell a-swoon and lay therein awhile.
They sprinkled rose-water on him till he recovered, when he would
have beaten his son; but the mother withheld him, and he swore,
by the oath of divorce from his wife that, as soon as morning
morrowed, he would assuredly cut off his son's right
hand.[FN#440] When she heard her husband's words, her breast was
straitened and she feared for he son and ceased not to soothe and
appease his sire, till sleep overcame him. Then she waited till
moon-rise, when she went in to her son, whose drunkenness had now
departed from him, and said to him, "O Nur al-Din, what is this
foul deed thou diddest with thy sire?" He asked, "And what did I
with him?"; and answered she, "Thou dealtest him a buffet on the
right eye and struckest it out so that it rolled down his cheek;
and he hath sworn by the divorce-oath that, as soon as morning
shall morrow he will without fail cut off thy right hand." Nur
al-Din repented him of that he had done, whenas repentance
profited him naught, and his mother sait to him, "O my son, this
penitence will not profit thee; nor will aught avail thee but
that thou arise forthwith and seek safety in flight: go forth the
house privily and take refuge with one of thy friends and there
what Allah shall do await, for he changeth case after case and
state upon state." Then she opened a chest and taking out a purse
of an hundred dinars said, "O my son, take these dinars and
provide thy wants therewith, and when they are at an end, O my
son, send and let me know thereof, that I may send thee other
than these, and at the same time covey to me news of thyself
privily: haply Allah will decree thee relief and thou shalt
return to thy home. And she farewelled him and wept passing sore,
nought could be more. Thereupon Nur al-Din took the purse of gold
and was about to go forth, when he espied a great purse
containing a thousand dinars, which his mother had forgotten by
the side of the chest. So he took this also and binding the two
purses about his middle,[FN#441] set out before dawn threading
the streets in the direction of Búlák, where he arrived when day
broke and all creatures arose, attesting the unity of Allah the
Opener and went forth each of them upon his several business, to
win that which Allah had unto him allotted. Reaching Bulak he
walked on along the riverbank till he sighted a ship with her
gangway out and her four anchors made fast to the land. The folk
were going up into her and coming down from her, and Nur al-Din,
seeing some sailors there standing, asked them whither they were
bound, and they answered, "To Rosetta-city." Quoth he, "Take me
with you;" and quoth they, "Well come, and welcome to thee, to
thee, O goodly one!" So he betook himself forthright to the
market and buying what he needed of vivers and bedding and
covering, returned to the port and went on board the ship, which
was ready to sail and tarried with him but a little while before
she weighed anchor and fared on, without stopping, till she
reached Rosetta,[FN#442] where Nur al-Din saw a small boat going
to Alexandria. So he embarked in it and traversing the sea-arm of
Rosetta fared on till he came to a bridge called Al-Jámí, where
he landed and entered Alexandria by the gate called the Gate of
the Lote-tree. Allah protected him, so that none of those who
stood on guard at the gate saw him, and he walked on till he
entered the city.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and
ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventieth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Nur
al-Din entered Alexandria he found it a city goodly of
pleasaunces, delightful to its inhabitants and inviting to
inhabit therein. Winter had fared from it with his cold and Prime
was come to it with his roses: its flowers were kindly ripe and
welled forth its rills. Indeed, it was a city goodly of ordinance
and disposition; its folk were of the best of men, and when the
gates thereof were shut, its folk were safe.[FN#443] And it was
even as is said of it in these couplets,

"Quoth I to a comrade one day, * A man of good speech and rare,
'Describe Alexandria.' * Quoth he, 'Tis a march-town fair.'
Quoth I, 'Is there living therein?' * And he, 'An the wind blow
there.'"

Or as saith one of the poets,

"Alexandria's a frontier;[FN#444] Whose dews of lips are sweet
and clear;
How fair the coming to it is, * So one therein no raven speer!"


Nur al-Din walked about the city and ceased not walking till her
came to the merchants' bazar, whence he passed on to the mart of
the money-changers and so on in turn to the markets of the
confectioners and fruiterers and druggists, marvelling, as he
went, at the city, for that the nature of its qualities accorded
with its name.[FN#445] As he walked in the druggists' bazar,
behold, an old man came down from his shop and saluting him, took
him by the hand and carried him to his home. And Nur al-Din saw a
fair bystreet, swept and sprinkled, whereon the zephyr blew and
made pleasantness pervade it and the leaves of the trees
overshaded it. Therein stood three houses and at the upper end a
mansion, whose foundations were firm sunk in the water and its
walls towered to the confines of the sky. They had swept the
space before it and they had sprinkled it freshly; so it exhaled
the fragrance of flowers, borne on the zephyr which breathed upon
the place; and the scent met there who approached it on such wise
as it were one of the gardens of Paradise. And, as they had
cleaned and cooed the by-street's head, so was the end of it with
marble spread. The Shaykh carried Nur al-Din into the house and
setting somewhat of food before him ate with his guest. When they
had made an end of eating, the druggist said to him, "When camest
thou hither from Cairo?"; and Nur al-Din replied, "This very
night, O my father." Quoth the old man, "What is thy name?"; and
quoth he, "Ali Nur al-Din." Said the druggist, "O my son, O Nur
al-Din, be the triple divorce incumbent on me, an thou leave me
so long as thou abidest in this city; and I will set thee apart a
place wherein thou mayst dwell." Nur al-Din asked, "O my lord the
Shaykh, let me know more of thee"; and the other answered, "Know,
O my son, that some years ago I went to Cairo with merchandise,
which I sold there and bought other, and I had occasion for a
thousand dinars. So thy sire Taj al-Din weighed them out[FN#446]
for me, all unknowing me, and would take no written word of me,
but had patience with me till I returned hither and sent him the
amount by one of my servants, together with a gift. I saw thee,
whilst thou wast little; and, if it please Allah the Most High, I
will repay thee somewhat of the kindness thy father did me." When
Nur al-Din heard the old man's story, he showed joy and pulling
out with a smile the purse of a thousand dinars, gave it to his
host the Shaykh and said to him, "Take charge of this deposit for
me, against I buy me somewhat of merchandise whereon to trade."
Then he abode some time in Alexandria city taking his pleasure
every day in its thoroughfares, eating and drinking ad indulging
himself with mirth and merriment till he had made an end of the
hundred dinars he had kept by way of spending-money; whereupon he
repaired to the old druggist, to take of him somewhat of the
thousand dinars to spend, but found him not in his shop and took
a seat therein to await his return. He sat there gazing right and
left and amusing himself with watching the merchants and
passers-by, and as he was thus engaged behold, there came into
the bazar a Persian riding on a she-mule and carrying behind him
a damsel; as she were argent of alloy free or a fish
Balti[FN#447] in mimic sea or a doe-gazelle on desert lea. Her
face outshone the sun in shine and she had witching eyne and
breasts of ivory white, teeth of marguerite, slender waist and
sides dimpled deep and calves like tails of fat sheep;[FN#448]
and indeed she was perfect in beauty and loveliness, elegant
stature and symmetrical grace, even as saith one, describing
her,[FN#449]

"'Twas as by will of her she was create * Nor short nor long, but
Beauty's mould and mate:
Rose blushes reddest when she sees those cheeks * And fruits the
bough those marvel charms amate:
Moon is her favour, Musk the scent of her * Branch is her shape:–
she passeth man's estate:
'Tis e'en as were she cast in freshest pearl * And every limblet
shows a moon innate."

Presently the Persian lighted down from his she-mule and, making
the damsel also dismount, loudly summoned the broker and said to
him as soon as he came, "Take this damsel and cry her for sale in
the market." So he took her and leading her to the middlemost of
the bazar disappeared for a while and presently he returned with
a stool of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and setting it upon the
ground, seated her thereon. Then he raised her veil and
discovered a face as it were a Median targe[FN#450] or a cluster
of pearls:[FN#451] and indeed she was like the full moon, when it
filleth on its fourteenth night, accomplished in brilliant
beauty. As saith the poet,

"Vied the full moon for folly with her face, * But was
eclipsed[FN#452] and split for rage full sore;
And if the spiring Bán with her contend * Perish her hands who
load of fuel bore!"[FN#453]

And how well saith another,

"Say to the fair in the wroughten veil * How hast made that
monk-like worshipper ail?
Light of veil and light of face under it * Made the hosts of
darkness to fly from bale;
And, when came my glance to steal look at cheek. * With a
meteor-shaft the Guard made me quail."[FN#454]

Then said the broker to the merchants,[FN#455] "How much do ye
bid for the union-pearl of the diver and prize-quarry of the
fowler?" Quoth one, "She is mine for an hundred dinars." And
another said, "Two hundred," and a third, "Three hundred"; and
they ceased not to bid, one against other, till they made her
price nine hundred and fifty dinars, and there the biddings
stopped awaiting acceptance and consent.[FN#456]--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-first Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the
merchants bid one against other till they made the price of the
girl nine hundred and fifty dinars. Then the broker went up to
her Persian master and said to him, "The biddings for this thy
slavegirl have reached nine hundred and fifty dinars: so say me,
wilt thou sell her at that price and take the money?" Asked the
Persian, "Doth she consent to this? I desire to fall in with her
wishes, for I sickened on my journey hither and this handmaid
tended me with all possible tenderness, wherefore I sware not to
sell her but to him whom she should like and approve, and I have
put her sale in her own hand. So do thou consult her and if she
say, 'I consent,' sell her to whom thou wilt: but an she say,
'No,' sell her not." So the broker went up to her and asked her,
"O Princess of fair ones, know that thy master putteth thy sale
in thine own hands, and thy price hath reached nine hundred and
fifty dinars; dost thou give me leave to sell thee?" She
answered, "Show me him who is minded to buy me before clinching
the bargain." So he brought her up to one of the merchants a man
stricken with years and decrepit; and she looked at him a long
while, then turned to the broker and said to him, "O broker, art
thou Jinn-mad or afflicted in thy wit?" Replied he, "Why dost
thou ask me this, O Princess of fair ones?"; and said she, "Is it
permitted thee of Allah to sell the like of me to yonder decrepit
old man, who saith of his wife's case these couplets,

'Quoth she to me,--and sore enraged for wounded pride was she, *
For she in sooth had bidden me to that which might not be,--
'An if thou swive me not forthright, as one should swive his
wife, * Thou be made a cuckold straight, reproach it not to
me.
Meseems thy yard is made of wax, for very flaccidness; * For when
I rub it with my hand, it softens instantly.'[FN#457]

And said he likewise of his yard,

'I have a yard that sleeps in base and shameful way * When grants
my lover boon for which I sue and pray:
But when I wake o' mornings[FN#458] all alone in bed, * 'Tis fain
o' foin and fence and fierce for futter-play.'

And again quoth he thereof of his yard,

'I have a froward yard of temper ill * Dishonoring him who shows
it most regard:
It stands when sleep I, when I stand it sleeps * Heaven pity not
who pitieth that yard!'"

When the old merchant heard this ill flouting from the damsel, he
was wroth with wrath exceeding beyond which was no proceeding and
said to the broker, "O most ill-omened of brokers, thou hast not
brought into the market this ill-conditioned wench but to gibe me
and make mock of me before the merchants." Then the broker took
her aside and said to her, "O my lady, be not wanting in
self-respect. The Shaykh at whom thou didst mock is the Syndic of
the bazar and Inspector[FN#459] thereof and a committee-man of
the council of the merchants." But she laughed and improvised
these two couplets,

"It behoveth folk who rule in our time, * And 'tis one of the
duties of magistrateship,
To hand up the Wali above his door * And beat with a whip the
Mohtasib!"

Adding, "By Allah, O my lord, I will not be sold to yonder old
man; so sell me to other than him, for haply he will be abashed
at me and vend me again and I shall become a mere servant[FN#460]
and it beseemeth not that I sully myself with menial service; and
indeed thou knowest that the matter of my sale is committed to
myself." He replied, "I hear and I obey," and carried her to a
man which was one of the chief merchants. And when standing hard
by him the broker asked, "How sayst thou, O my lady? Shall I sell
thee to my lord Sharíf al-Dín here for nine hundred and fifty
gold pieces?" She looked at him and, seeing him to be an old man
with a dyed beard, said to the broker, "Art thou silly, that thou
wouldst sell me to this worn out Father Antic? Am I cotton refuse
or threadbare rags that thou marchest me about from greybeard to
greybeard, each like a wall ready to fall or an Ifrit smitten
down of a fire-ball? As for the first, the poet had him in mind
when he said,[FN#461]

'I sought of a fair maid to kiss her lips of coral red, But, 'No,
by Him who fashioned things from nothingness!' she said.
Unto the white of hoary hairs I never had a mind, And shall my
mouth be stuffed, forsooth, with cotton, ere I'm dead?'

And how goodly is the saying of the poet,

'The wise have said that white of hair is light that shines and
robes * The face of man with majesty and light that awes the
sight;
Yet until hoary seal shall stamp my parting-place of hair * I
hope and pray that same may be black as the blackest night.
Albe Time-whitened beard of man be like the book he bears[FN#462]
* When to his Lord he must return, I'd rather 'twere not
white,'

And yet goodlier is the saying of another,

'A guest hath stolen on my head and honour may he lack! * The
sword a milder deed hath done that dared these locks to
hack.
Avaunt, O Whiteness,[FN#463] wherein naught of brightness
gladdens sight * Thou 'rt blacker in the eyes of me than
very blackest black!'

As for the other, he is a model of wantonness and scurrilousness
and a blackener of the face of hoariness; his dye acteth the
foulest of lies: and the tongue of his case reciteth these
lines,[FN#464]


'Quoth she to me, 'I see thou dy'st thy hoariness;' and I, 'I do
but hide it from thy sight, O thou mine ear and eye!'
She laughed out mockingly and said, 'A wonder 'tis indeed! Thou
so aboundest in deceit that even thy hair's a lie.'

And how excellent is the saying of the poet,

'O thou who dyest hoariness with black, * That youth wi' thee
abide, at least in show;
Look ye, my lot was dyèd black whilome * And (take my word!) none
other hue 'twill grow.'"

When the old man with dyed beard heard such words from the
slave-girl, he raged with exceeding rage in fury's last stage and
said to the broker, "O most ill-omened of brokers, this day thou
hast brought to our market naught save this gibing baggage to
flout at all who are therein, one after other, and fleer at them
with flyting verse and idle jest?" And he came down from his shop
and smote on the face the broker, who took her an angered and
carried her away, saying to her, "By Allah, never in my life saw
I a more shameless wench than thyself![FN#465] Thou hast cut off
my daily bread and thine own this day and all the merchants will
bear me a grudge on thine account." Then they saw on the way a
merchant called Shihab al-Din who bid ten dinars more for her,
and the broker asked her leave to sell her to him. Quoth she,
"Trot him out that I may see him and question him of a certain
thing, which if he have in his house, I will be sold to him; and
if not, then not." So the broker left her standing there and
going up to Shihab al-Din, said to him, "O my lord, know that
yonder damsel tells me she hath a mind to ask thee somewhat,
which an thou have, she will be sold to thee. Now thou hast heard
what she said to thy fellows, the merchants,"--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-second Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the
broker said to the merchant, "Thou hast heard what this handmaid
said to thy fellows, the traders, and by Allah, I fear to bring
her to thee, lest she do with thee like as she did with thy
neighbours and so I fall into disgrace with thee: but, an thou
bid me bring her to thee, I will bring her." Quoth the merchant,
"Hither with her to me." "Hearing and obeying," answered the
broker and fetched for the purchaser the damsel, who looked at
him and said, "O my lord, Shihab al-Din, hast thou in thy house
round cushions stuffed with ermine strips?" Replied Shihab
al-Din, "Yes, O Princess of fair ones, I have at home half a
score such cushions; but I conjure thee by Allah, tell me, what
will thou do with them?" Quoth she, "I will bear with thee till
thou be asleep, when I will lay them on thy mouth and nose and
press them down till thou die." Then she turned to the broker and
said to him, "O thou refuse of brokers, meseemeth thou art mad,
in that thou showest me this hour past, first to a pair of
greybeards, in each of whom are two faults, and then thou
proferrest me to my lord Shihab al-Din wherein be three defects;
and thirdly, he is dwarfish, secondly, he hath a nose which is
big, and thirdly, he hath a beard which is long. Of him quoth one
of the poets,

'We never heard of wight nor yet espied * Who amid men three
gifts hath unified:
To wit, a beard one cubit long, a snout * Span-long and figure
tall a finger wide:'

And quoth another poet,

'From the plain of his face springs a minaret * Like a bezel of
ring on his finger set:
Did creation enter that vasty nose * No created thing would
elsewhere be met.'"

When Shihab al-Din heard this, he came down from his shop and
seized the broker by the collar, saying, "O scurviest of brokers,
what aileth thee to bring us a damsel to flout and make mock of
us, one after other, with her verses and talk that a curse is?"
So the broker took her and carried her away from before him and
fared, saying, "By Allah, all my life long, since I have plied
this profession never set I eyes on the like of thee for
unmannerliness nor aught more curst to me than thy star, for thou
hast cut off my livelihood this day and I have gained no profit
by thee save cuffs on the neck-nape and catching by the collar!"
Then he brought her to the shop of another merchant, owner of
negro slaves and white servants, and stationing her before him,
said to her, "Wilt thou be sold to this my lord 'Alá al-Dín?" She
looked at him and seeing him hump-backed, said, "This is a Gobbo,
and quoth the poet of him,

'Drawn in thy shoulders are and spine thrust out, * As seeking
star which Satan gave the lout;[FN#466]
Or as he tasted had first smack of scourge * And looked in marvel
for a second bout.'

And saith another on the same theme,

'As one of you who mounted mule, * A sight for me to ridicule:
Is 't not a farce? Who feels surprise * An start and bolt with
him the mule?'

And another on a similar subject,

'Oft hunchback addeth to his bunchy back * Faults which gar folk
upon his front look black:
Like branch distort and dried by length of days * With citrons
hanging from it loose and slack.'"

With this the broker hurried up to her and, carrying her to
another merchant, said to her, "Wilt thou be sold to this one?"
She looked at him and said, "In very sooth this man is
blue-eyed;[FN#467] how wilt thou sell me to him?" Quoth one of
the poets,

'His eyelids sore and bleared * Weakness of frame denote:
Arise, ye folk and see * Within his eyes the mote!'"

Then the broker carried her to another and she looked at him and
seeing that he had a long beard, said to the broker, "Fie upon
thee! This is a ram, whose tail hath sprouted from his gullet.
Wilt thou sell me to him, O unluckiest of brokers? Hast thou not
heard say: 'All long of beard are little of wits? Indeed, after
the measure of the length of the beard is the lack of sense; and
this is a well-known thing among men of understanding.' As saith
one of the poets,

'Ne'er was a man with beard grown overlong, * Tho' be he therefor
reverenced and fear'd,
But who the shortness noted in his wits * Added to longness noted
in his beard.'

And quoth another,[FN#468]

'I have a friend with a beard which God hath made to grow to a
useless length,
It is like unto one of the nights of winter long and dark and
cold.'"

With this the broker took her and turned away with her, and she
asked, "Whither goest thou with me?" He answered, "Back to thy
master the Persian; it sufficeth me what hath befallen me because
of thee this day; for thou hast been the means of spoiling both
my trade and his by thine ill manners." Then she looked about the
market right and left, front and rear till, by the decree of the
Decreer her eyes fell on Ali Nur al-Din the Cairene. So she gazed
at him and saw him[FN#469] to be a comely youth of straight slim
form and smooth of face, fourteen years old, rare in beauty and
loveliness and elegance and amorous grace like the full moon on
the fourteenth night with forehead flower-white, and cheeks rosy
red, neck like alabaster and teeth than jewels and dews of lips
sweeter than sugar, even as saith of him one of his describers,

"Came to match him in beauty and loveliness rare * Full moons and
gazelles but quoth I, 'Soft fare!
Fare softly, gazelles, nor yourselves compare * With him and, O
Moons, all your pains forbear!'"

And how well saith another bard,

"Slim-waisted loveling, from his hair and brow * Men wake a-morn
in night and light renewed.
Blame not the mole that dwelleth on his cheek * For Nu'uman's
bloom aye shows spot negro-hued."

When the slave-girl beheld Nur al-Din he interposed between her
and her wits; she fell in love to him with a great and sudden
fall and her heart was taken with affection for him;--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-third Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
slave-girl beheld Nur al-Din, her heart was taken with affection
for him; so she turned to the broker and said to him, "Will not
yonder young merchant, who is sitting among the traders in the
gown of striped broadcloth, bid somewhat more for me?" The broker
replied, "O lady of fair ones, yonder young man is a stranger
from Cairo, where his father is chief of the trader-guild and
surpasseth all the merchants and notables of the place. He is but
lately come to this our city and lodgeth with one of his father's
friends; but he hath made no bid for thee nor more nor less."
When the girl heard the broker's words, she drew from her finger
a costly signet-ring of ruby and said to the man, "Carry me to
yonder youth, and if he buy me, this ring shall be thine, in
requital of thy travail with me this day." The broker rejoiced at
this and brought her up to Nur al-Din, and she considered him
straitly and found him like the full moon, perfect in loveliness
and a model of fine stature and symmetric grace, even as saith of
him one of his describers.

"Waters of beauty o'er his cheeks flow bright, * And rain his
glances shafts that sorely smite:
Choked are his lovers an he deal disdain's * Bitterest draught
denaying love-delight.
His forehead and his stature and my love * Are perfect perfected
perfection-dight;
His raiment folds enfold a lovely neck * As crescent moon in
collar buttoned tight:
His eyne and twinnèd moles and tears of me * Are night that
nighteth to the nightliest night.
His eyebrows and his features and my frame[FN#470] * Crescents on
crescents are as crescents slight:
His pupils pass the wine-cup to his friends * Which, albe sweet,
tastes bitter to my sprite;
And to my thirsty throat pure drink he dealt * From smiling lips
what day we were unite:
Then is my blood to him, my death to him * His right and rightful
and most righteous right."

The girl gazed at Nur al-Din and said, "O my lord, Allah upon
thee, am I not beautiful?"; and he replied, "O Princess of fair
ones, is there in the world a comelier than thou?" She rejoined,
"Then why seest thou all the other merchants bid high for me and
art silent nor sayest a word neither addest one dinar to my
price? 'Twould seem I please thee not, O my lord!" Quoth he, "O
my lady, were I in my own land, I had bought thee with all that
my hand possesseth of monies;" and quoth she, "O my lord, I said
not, 'Buy me against thy will,' yet, didst thou but add somewhat
to my price, it would hearten my heart, though thou buy me not,
so the merchants may say, 'Were not this girl handsome, yonder
merchant of Cairo had not bidden for her, for the Cairenes are
connoisseurs in slave-girls.'" These words abashed Nur al-Din and
he blushed and said to the broker, "How high are the biddings for
her?" He replied, "Her price hath reached nine hundred and sixty
dinars,[FN#471] besides brokerage, as for the Sultan's dues, they
fall on the seller." Quoth Nur al-Din, "Let me have her for a
thousand dinars, brokerage and price." And the damsel hastening
to the fore and leaving the broker, said "I sell myself to this
handsome young man for a thousand dinars." But Nur al-Din held
his peace. Quoth one, "We sell to him;" and another, "He
deserveth her;" and a third, "Accursed, son of accursed, is he
who biddeth and doth not buy!"; and a fourth, "By Allah, they
befit each other!" Then, before Nur al-Din could think, the
broker fetched Kazis and witnesses, who wrote out a contract of
sale and purchase; and the broker handed the paper to Nur al-Din,
saying, "Take thy slave-girl and Allah bless thee in her for she
beseemeth none but thee and none but thou beseemeth her." And he
recited these two couplets,

"Boom Fortune sought him in humblest way[FN#472] * And came to
him draggle-tailed, all a-stir:
And none is fittest for him but she * And none is fittest but he
for her."

Hereat Nur al-Din was abashed before the merchants; so he arose
without stay or delay and weighed out the thousand dinars which
he had left as a deposit with his father's friend the druggist,
and taking the girl, carried her to the house wherein the Shaykh
had lodged him. When she entered and saw nothing but ragged
patched carpets and worn out rugs, she said to him, "O my lord,
have I no value to thee and am I not worthy that thou shouldst
bear me to thine own house and home wherein are thy goods, that
thou bringest me into thy servant's lodging? Why dost thou not
carry me to thy father's dwelling?" He replied, "By Allah, O
Princess of fair ones, this is my house wherein I dwell; but it
belongeth to an old man, a druggist of this city, who hath set it
apart for me and lodged me therein. I told thee that I was a
stranger and that I am of the sons of Cairo city." She rejoined,
"O my lord, the least of houses sufficeth till thy return to thy
native place; but, Allah upon thee, O my lord, go now and fetch
us somewhat of roast meat and wine and dried fruit and dessert."
Quoth Nur al-Din, "By Allah, O Princess of fair ones, I had no
money with me but the thousand dinars I paid down to thy price
nor possess I any other good. The few dirhams I owned were spent
by me yesterday." Quoth she, "Hast thou no friend in the town, of
whom thou mayst borrow fifty dirhams and bring them to me, that I
may tell thee what thou shalt do therewith?" And he said, "I have
no intimate but the druggist." Then he betook himself forthright
to the druggist and said to him, "Peace be with thee, O uncle!"
He returned his salam and said to him, "O my son, what hast thou
bought for a thousand dinars this day?" Nur al-Din replied, "I
have bought a slave-girl;" and the oldster rejoined, "O my son,
art thou mad that thou givest a thousand dinars for one
slave-girl? Would I knew what kind of slave-girl she is?" Said
Nur al-Din, "She is a damsel of the children of the Franks;"--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-fourth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Nur
al-Din said to the ancient druggist, "The damsel is of the
children of the Franks;" and the Shaykh said, "O my son, the best
of the girls of the Franks are to be had in this our town for an
hundred dinars, and by Allah, O my son, they have cheated thee in
the matter of this damsel! However, an thou have taken a fancy to
her, lie with her this night and do thy will of her and to-morrow
morning go down with her to the market and sell her, though thou
lose by her two hundred dinars, and reckon that thou hast lost
them by shipwreck or hast been robbed of them on the road." Nur
al-Din replied, "Right is thy rede, O uncle, but thou knowest
that I had but the thousand dinars wherewith I purchased the
damsel, and now I have not a single dirham left to spend; so I
desire of thy favour and bounty that thou lend me fifty dirhams,
to provide me withal, till to-morrow, when I will sell her and
repay thee out of her price." Said the old man, "Willingly, O my
son," and counted out to him the fifty dirhams. Then he said to
him, "O my son, thou art but young in years and the damsel is
fair, so belike thy heart will be taken with her and it will be
grievous to thee to vend her. Now thou hast nothing to live on
and these fifty dirhams will readily be spent and thou wilt come
to me and I shall lend thee once and twice and thrice, and so on
up to ten times; but, an thou come to me after this, I will not
return thy salam[FN#473] and our friendship with thy father will
end ill." Nur al-Din took the fifty dirhams and returned with
them to the damsel, who said to him, "O my lord, wend thee at
once to the market and fetch me twenty dirhams' worth of stained
silk of five colours and with the other thirty buy meat and bread
and fruit and wine and flowers." So he went to the market and
purchasing for her all she sought, brought it to her, whereupon
she rose and tucking up her sleeves, cooked food after the most
skilful fashion, and set it before him. He ate and she ate with
him, till they had enough, after which she set on the wine, and
she drank and he drank, and she ceased not to ply him with drink
and entertain him with discourse, till he became drunken and fell
asleep. Thereupon she arose without stay or delay and taking out
of her bundle a budget of Táifí leather,[FN#474] opened it and
drew forth a pair of knitting needles, wherewith she fell to work
and stinted not till she had made a beautiful zone, which she
folded up in a wrapper after cleaning it and ironing it, and laid
it under her pillow. Then she doffed her dress till she was
mother-naked and lying down beside Nur al-Din shampoo'd him till
he awoke from his heavy sleep. He found by his side a maiden like
virgin silver, softer than silk and delicater than a tail of
fatted sheep, than standard more conspicuous and goodlier than
the red camel,[FN#475] in height five feet tall with breasts firm
and full, brows like bended bows, eyes like gazelles' eyes and
cheeks like blood-red anemones, a slender waist with dimples
laced and a navel holding an ounce of the unguent benzoin, thighs
like bolsters stuffed with ostrich-down, and between them what
the tongue fails to set forth and at mention whereof the tears
jet forth. Brief it was as it were she to whom the poet alluded
in these two couplets,

"From her hair is Night, from her forehead Noon * From her
side-face Rose; from her lip wine boon:
From her Union Heaven, her Severance Hell: * Pearls from her
teeth; from her front full Moon."

And how excellent is the saying of another bard,[FN#476]

"A Moon she rises, Willow-wand she waves * Breathes ambergris and
gazeth a gazelle.
Meseems that sorrow wooes my heart and wins * And when she wends
makes haste therein to dwell.
Her face is fairer than the Stars of Wealth[FN#477] * And sheeny
brows the crescent Moon excel."

And quoth a third also,

"They shine fullest Moons, unveil Crescent-bright; *
Sway tenderest Branches and turn wild kine;
'Mid which is a Dark-eyed for love of whose charms *
The Sailors[FN#478] would joy to be ground low-li'en."

So Nur al-Din turned to her at once and clasping her to his
bosom, sucked first her upper lip and then her under lip and slid
his tongue between the twain into her mouth. Then he rose to her
and found her a pearl unthridden and a filly none but he had
ridden. So he abated her maidenhead and had of her amorous
delight and there was knitted between them a love-bond which
might never know breach nor severance.[FN#479] He rained upon her
cheeks kisses like the falling of pebbles into water, and struck
with stroke upon stroke, like the thrusting of spears in battle
brunt; for that Nur al-Din still yearned after clipping of necks
and sucking of lips and letting down of tress and pressing of
waist and biting of cheek and cavalcading on breast with Cairene
buckings and Yamani wrigglings and Abyssinian sobbings and Hindí
pamoisons and Nubian lasciviousness and Rífí leg-liftings[FN#480]
and Damiettan moanings and Sa'ídí[FN#481] hotness and Alexandrian
languishment[FN#482] and this damsel united in herself all these
virtues, together with excess of beauty and loveliness, and
indeed she was even as saith of her the poet,

"This is she I will never forget till I die * Nor draw near but
to those who to her draw nigh.
A being for semblance like Moon at full * Praise her Maker, her
Modeller glorify!
Tho' be sore my sin seeking love-liesse * On esperance-day ne'er
repent can I;
A couplet reciting which none can know * Save the youth who in
couplets and rhymes shall cry,
'None weeteth love but who bears its load * Nor passion, save
pleasures and pains he aby.'"

So Nur al-Din lay with the damsel through the night in solace and
delight,--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased
saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Nur al-Din
lay with that damsel through the night in solace and delight, the
twain garbed in the closely buttoned garments of embrace, safe
and secure against the misways of nights and days, and they
passed the dark hours after the goodliest fashion, fearing
naught, in their joys love-fraught, from excess of talk and
prate. As saith of them the right excellent poet,[FN#483]

"Go, visit her thou lovest, and regard not
The words detractors utter; envious churls
Can never favour love. Oh! sure the merciful
Ne'er make a thing more fair to look upon,
Than two fond lovers in each other's arms,
Speaking their passion in a mute embrace.
When heart has turned to heart, the fools would part them
Strike idly on cold steel. So when thou'st found
One purely, wholly thine, accept her true heart,
And live for her alone. Oh! thou that blamest
The love-struck for their love, give o'er thy talk
How canst thou minister to a mind diseased?"

When the morning morrowed in sheen and shone, Nur al-Din awoke
from deep sleep and found that she had brought water:[FN#484] so
they made the Ghusl-ablution, he and she, and he performed that
which behoved him of prayer to his Lord, after which she set
before him meat and drink, and he ate and drank. Then the damsel
put her hand under her pillow and pulling out the girdle which
she had knitted during the night, gave it to Nur al-Din, who
asked, "Whence cometh this girdle?"[FN#485] Answered she, "O my
lord, 'tis the silk thou boughtest yesterday for twenty dirhams.
Rise now and go to the Persian bazar and give it to the broker,
to cry for sale, and sell it not for less than twenty gold pieces
in ready money." Quoth Nur al-Din, "O Princess of fair ones how
can a thing, that cost twenty dirhams and will sell for as many
dinars, be made in a single night?"; and quoth she, "O my lord,
thou knowest not the value of this thing; but go to the market
therewith and give it to the broker, and when he shall cry it,
its worth will be made manifest to thee." Herewith he carried the
zone to the market and gave it to the broker, bidding him cry it,
whilst he himself sat down on a masonry bench before a shop. The
broker fared forth and returning after a while said to him, "O my
lord, rise take the price of thy zone, for it hath fetched twenty
dinars money down." When Nur al-Din heard this, he marvelled with
exceeding marvel and shook with delight. Then he rose, between
belief and misbelief, to take the money and when he had received
it, he went forthright and spent it all on silk of various
colours and returning home, gave his purchase to the damsel,
saying, "Make this all into girdles and teach me likewise how to
make them, that I may work with thee; for never in the length of
my life saw I a fairer craft than this craft nor a more abounding
in gain and profit. By Allah, 'tis better than the trade of a
merchant a thousand times!" She laughed at his language and said,
"O my lord, go to thy friend the druggist and borrow other thirty
dirhams of him, and to-morrow repay him from the price of the
girdle the thirty together with the fifty already loaned to
thee." So he rose and repaired to the druggist and said to him,
"O Uncle, lend me other thirty dirhams, and to-morrow, Almighty
Allah willing, I will repay thee the whole fourscore." The old
man weighed him out thirty dirhams, wherewith he went to the
market and buying meat and bread, dried fruits, and flowers as
before, carried them home to the damsel whose name was
Miriam,[FN#486] the Girdle-girl. She rose forthright and making
ready rich meats, set them before her lord Nur al-Din; after
which she brought the wine-service and they drank and plied each
other with drink. When the wine began to play with their wits,
his pleasant address and inner grace pleased her, and she recited
these two couplets,

"Said I to Slim-waist who the wine engraced * Brought in
musk-scented bowl and a superfine,
'Was it prest from thy cheek?' He replied 'Nay, nay! * When did
man from Roses e'er press the Wine?'"

And the damsel ceased not to carouse with her lord and ply him
with cup and bowl and require him to fill for her and give her to
drink of that which sweeteneth the spirits, and whenever he put
forth hand to her, she drew back from him, out of coquetry. The
wine added to her beauty and loveliness, and Nur al-Din recited
these two couplets,

"Slim-waist craved wine from her companeer; * Cried (in meeting
of friends when he feared for his fere,)
'An thou pass not the wine thou shalt pass the night, * A-banisht
my bed!' And he felt sore fear."

They ceased not drinking till drunkenness overpowered Nur al-Din
and he slept; whereupon she rose forthright and fell to work upon
a zone, as was her wont. When she had wrought it to end, she
wrapped it in paper and doffing her clothes, lay down by his side
and enjoyed dalliance and delight till morn appeared.--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-sixth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Miriam
the Girdle-girl, having finished her zone and wrapped it in paper
doffed her dress and lay down by the side of her lord; and then
happened to them what happened of dalliance and delight; and he
did his devoir like a man. On the morrow, she gave him the girdle
and said to him, "Carry this to the market and sell it for twenty
dinars, even as thou soldest its fellow yesterday." So he went to
the bazar and sold the girdle for twenty dinars, after which he
repaired to the druggist and paid him back the eighty dirhams,
thanking him for the bounties and calling down blessings upon
him. He asked, "O my son, hast thou sold the damsel?"; and Nur
al-Din answered, "Wouldst thou have me sell the soul out of my
body?" and he told him all that had passed, from commencement to
conclusion, whereat the druggist joyed with joy galore, than
which could be no more and said to him, "By Allah, O my son, thou
gladdenest me! Inshallah, mayst thou ever be in prosperity!
Indeed I wish thee well by reason of my affection for thy ather
and the continuance of my friendship with him." Then Nur al-Din
left the Shaykh and straightway going to the market, bought meat
and fruit and wine and all that he needed according to his custom
and returned therewith to Miriam. They abode thus a whole year in
eating and drinking and mirth and merriment and love and good
comradeship, and every night she made a zone and he sold it on
the morrow for twenty dinars, wherewith he bought their needs and
gave the rest to her, to keep against a time of necessity. After
the twelvemonth she said to him one day, "O my lord, whenas thou
sellest the girdle to-morrow, buy for me with its price silk of
six colours, because I am minded to make thee a kerchief to wear
on thy shoulders, such as never son of merchant, no, nor King's
son, ever rejoiced in its like." So next day he fared forth to
the bazar and after selling the zone brought her the dyed silks
she sought and Miriam the Girdle-girl wrought at the kerchief a
whole week, for, every night, when she had made an end of the
zone, she would work awhile at the kerchief till it was finished.
Then she gave it to Nur al-Din, who put it on his shoulders and
went out to walk in the market-place, whilst all the merchants
and folk and notables of the town crowded about him, to gaze on
his beauty and that of the kerchief which was of the most
beautiful. Now it chanced that one night, after this, he awoke
from sleep and found Miriam weeping passing sore and reciting
these couplets,

"Nears my parting fro' my love, nigher draws the Severance-day *
Ah well-away for parting! and again ah well-away!
And in tway is torn my heart and O pine I'm doomed to bear * For
the nights that erst witnessed our pleasurable play!
No help for it but Envier the twain of us espy * With evil eye
and win to us his lamentable way.
For naught to us is sorer than the jealousy of men * And the
backbiter's eyne that with calumny affray."

He said, "O my lady Miriam,[FN#487] what aileth thee to weep?";
and she replied, "I weep for the anguish of parting for my heart
presageth me thereof." Quoth he, "O lady of fair ones, and who
shall interpose between us, seeing that I love thee above all
creatures and tender thee the most?"; and quoth she, "And I love
thee twice as well as thou me; but fair opinion of fortune still
garreth folk fall into affliction, and right well saith the
poet,[FN#488]

'Think'st thou thyself all prosperous, in days which prosp'rous
be,
Nor fearest thou impending ill, which comes by Heaven's decree?
We see the orbs of heav'n above, how numberless they are,
But sun and moon alone eclips'd, and ne'er a lesser star!
And many a tree on earth we see, some bare, some leafy green,
Of them, not one is hurt with stone save that has fruitful been!
See'st not th' refluent ocean, bear carrion on its tide,
While pearls beneath its wavy flow, fixed in the deep, abide?'"

Presently she added, "O my lord Nur al-Din, an thou desire to
nonsuit separation, be on thy guard against a swart-visaged
oldster, blind of the right eye and lame of the left leg; for he
it is who will be the cause of our severance. I saw him enter the
city and I opine that he is come hither in quest of me." Replied
Nur al-Din, "O lady of fair ones, if my eyes light on him, I will
slay him and make an example of him." Rejoined she, "O my lord,
slay him not; but talk not nor trade with him, neither buy nor
sell with him nor sit nor walk with him nor speak one word to
him, no, not even the answer prescribed by law,[FN#489] and I
pray Allah to preserve us from his craft and his mischief." Next
morning, Nur al-Din took the zone and carried it to the market,
where he sat down on a shop-bench and talked with the sons of the
merchants, till the drowsiness preceding slumber overcame him and
he lay down on the bench and fell asleep. Presently, behold, up
came the Frank whom the damsel had described to him, in company
with seven others, and seeing Nur al-Din lying asleep on the
bench, with his head wrapped in the kerchief which Miriam had
made for him and the edge thereof in his grasp, sat down by him
and hent the end of the kerchief in hand and examined it, turning
it over for some time. Nur al-Din sensed that there was something
and awoke; then, seeing the very man of whom Miriam had warned
him sitting by his side, cried out at him with a great cry which
startled him. Quoth the Frank, "What aileth thee to cry out thus
at us? Have we taken from thee aught?"; and quoth Nur al-Din, "By
Allah, O accursed, haddest thou taken aught from me, I would
carry thee before the Chief of Police!" Then said the Frank, "O
Moslem, I conjure thee by thy faith and by that wherein thou
believest, inform me whence thou haddest this kerchief;" and Nur
al-Din replied, "Tis the handiwork of my lady mother,"--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-seventh Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Frank asked Nur al-Din anent the maker of the kerchief, he
answered, saying, "In very sooth this kerchief is the handiwork
of my mother, who made it for me with her own hand." Quoth the
Frank "Wilt thou sell it to me and take ready money for it?," and
quoth Nur al-Din, "By Allah, I will not sell it to thee or to any
else, for she made none other than it." "Sell it to me and I will
give thee to its price this very moment five hundred dinars,
money down; and let her who made it make thee another and a
finer." "I will not sell it at all, for there is not the like of
it in this city." "O my lord, wilt thou sell it for six hundred
ducats of fine gold?" And the Frank went on to add to his offer
hundred by hundred, till he bid nine hundred dinars; but Nur
al-Din said, "Allah will open to me otherwise than by my vending
it. I will never sell it, not for two thousand dinars nor more
than that; no, never." The Frank ceased not to tempt him with
money, till he bid him a thousand dinars, and the merchants
present said, "We sell thee the kerchief at that price:[FN#490]
pay down the money." Quoth Nur al-Din, "I will not sell it, I
swear by Allah!"[FN#491] But one of the merchants said to him,
"Know thou, O my son, that the value of this kerchief is an
hundred dinars at most and that to an eager purchaser, and if
this Frank pay thee down a thousand for it, thy profit will be
nine hundred dinars, and what gain canst thou desire greater than
this gain? Wherefore 'tis my rede that thou sell him this
kerchief at that price and bid her who wrought it make thee other
finer than it: so shalt thou profit nine hundred dinars by this
accursed Frank, the enemy of Allah and of The Faith." Nur al-Din
was abashed at the merchants and sold the kerchief to the Frank,
who, in their presence, paid him down the thousand dinars, with
which he would have returned to his handmaid to congratulate her
on what had passed; but the stranger said, "Harkye, O company of
merchants, stop my lord Nur al-Din, for you and he are my guests
this night. I have a jar of old Greek wine and a fat lamb, fresh
fruit, flowers and confections; wherefore do ye all cheer me with
your company to-night and not one of you tarry behind." So the
merchants said, "O my lord Nur al-Din, we desire that thou be
with us on the like of this night, so we may talk together, we
and thou, and we pray thee, of thy favour and bounty, to bear us
company, so we and thou, may be the guests of this Frank, for he
is a liberal man." And they conjured him by the oath of
divorce[FN#492] and hindered him by main force from going home.
Then they rose forthright and shutting up their shops, took Nur
al-Din and fared with the Frank, who brought them to a goodly and
spacious saloon, wherein were two daïses. Here he made them sit
and set before them a scarlet tray-cloth of goodly workmanship
and unique handiwork, wroughten in gold with figures of breaker
and broken, lover and beloved, asker and asked, whereon he ranged
precious vessels of porcelain and crystal, full of the costliest
confections, fruits and flowers, and brought them a flagon of old
Greek wine. Then he bade slaughter a fat lamb and kindling fire,
proceeded to roast of its flesh and feed the merchants therewith
and give them draughts of that wine, winking at them the while to
ply Nur al-Din with drink. Accordingly they ceased not plying him
with wine till he became drunken and took leave of his wits; so
when the Frank saw that he was drowned in liquor, he said to him,
"O my lord Nur al-Din, thou gladdenest us with thy company
to-night: welcome, and again welcome to thee." Then he engaged
him awhile in talk, till he could draw near to him, when he said,
with dissembling speech, "O my lord, Nur al-Din, wilt thou sell
me thy slave-girl, whom thou boughtest in presence of these
merchants a year ago for a thousand dinars? I will give thee at
this moment five thousand gold pieces for her and thou wilt thus
make four thousand ducats profit." Nur al-Din refused, but the
Frank ceased not to ply him with meat and drink and lure him with
lucre, still adding to his offers, till he bid him ten thousand
dinars for her; whereupon Nur al-Din, in his drunkenness, said
before the merchants, "I sell her to thee for ten thousand
dinars: hand over the money." At this the Frank rejoiced with joy
exceeding and took the merchants to witness the sale. They passed
the night in eating and drinking, mirth and merriment, till the
morning, when the Frank cried out to his pages, saying, "Bring me
the money." So they brought it to him and he counted out ten
thousand dinars to Nur al-Din, saying, "O my lord, take the price
of thy slave-girl, whom thou soldest to me last night, in the
presence of these Moslem merchants." Replied Nur al-Din, "O
accursed, I sold thee nothing and thou liest anent me, for I have
no slave-girls." Quoth the Frank, "In very sooth thou didst sell
her to me and these merchants were witnesses to the bargain."
Thereupon all said, "Yes, indeed! thou soldest him thy slave-girl
before us for ten thousand dinars, O Nur al-Din and we will all
bear witness against thee of the sale. Come, take the money and
deliver him the girl, and Allah will give thee a better than she
in her stead. Doth it irk thee, O Nur al-Din, that thou boughtest
the girl for a thousand dinars and hast enjoyed for a year and a
half her beauty and loveliness and taken thy fill of her converse
and her favours? Furthermore thou hast gained some ten thousand
golden dinars by the sale of the zones which she made thee every
day and thou soldest for twenty sequins, and after all this thou
hast sold her again at a profit of nine thousand dinars over and
above her original price. And withal thou deniest the sale and
belittlest and makest difficulties about the profit! What gain is
greater than this gain and what profit wouldst thou have
profitabler than this profit? An thou love her thou hast had thy
fill of her all this time: so take the money and buy thee another
handsomer than she; at a dowry of less than half this price, and
the rest of the money will remain in thy hand as capital." And
the merchants ceased not to ply him with persuasion and special
arguments till he took the ten thousand dinars, the price of the
damsel, and the Frank straightway fetched Kazis and witnesses,
who drew up the contract of sale by Nur al-Din of the handmaid
hight Miriam the Girdle-girl. Such was his case; but as regards
the damsel's, she sat awaiting her lord from morning till sundown
and from sundown till the noon of night; and when he returned
not, she was troubled and wept with sore weeping. The old
druggist heard her sobbing and sent his wife, who went in to her
and finding her in tears, said to her, "O my lady, what aileth
her and finding her in tears, said to her, "O my lady, what
aileth thee to weep?" Said she, "O my mother, I have sat waiting
the return of my lord, Nur al-Din all day; but he cometh not, and
I fear lest some one have played a trick on him, to make him sell
me, and he have fallen into the snare and sold me."--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-eighth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Miriam
the Girdle-girl said to the druggist's wife, "I am fearful lest
some one have been playing a trick on my lord to make him sell
me, and he have fallen into the snare and sold me." Said the
other, "O my lady Miriam, were they to give thy lord this hall
full of gold as thy price, yet would he not sell thee, for what I
know of his love to thee. But, O my lady, belike there be a
company come from his parents at Cairo and he hath made them an
entertainment in the lodging where they alighted, being ashamed
to bring them hither, for that the place is not spacious enough
for them or because their condition is less than that he should
bring them to his own house; or belike he preferred to conceal
thine affair from them, so passed the night with them; and
Inshallah! to-morrow he will come to thee safe and sound. So
burden not thy soul with cark and care, O my lady, for of a
certainty this is the cause of his absence from thee last night
and I will abide with thee this coming night and comfort thee,
until thy lord return to thee." So the druggist's wife abode with
her and cheered her with talk throughout the dark hours and, when
it was morning, Miriam saw her lord enter the street followed by
the Frank and amiddlemost a company of merchants, at which sight
her side-muscles quivered and her colour changed and she fell
a-shaking, as ship shaketh in mid-ocean for the violence of the
gale. When the druggist's wife saw this, she said to her, "O my
lady Miriam what aileth thee that I see thy case changed and thy
face grown pale and show disfeatured?" Replied she, "By Allah, O
my lady, my heart forebodeth me of parting and severance of
union!" And she bemoaned herself with the saddest sighs, reciting
these couplets,[FN#493]

"Incline not to parting, I pray; * For bitter its savour is aye.
E'en the sun at his setting turns pale * To think he must part
from the day;
And so, at his rising, for joy * Of reunion, he's radiant and
gay."

Then Miriam wept passing sore wherethan naught could be more,
making sure of separation, and cried to the druggist's wife, "O
my mother, said I not to thee that my lord Nur al-Din had been
tricked into selling me? I doubt not but he hath sold me this
night to yonder Frank, albeit I bade him beware of him; but
deliberation availeth not against destiny. So the truth of my
words is made manifest to thee." Whilst they were talking,
behold, in came Nur al-Din, and the damsel looked at him and saw
that his colour was changed and that he trembled and there
appeared on his face signs of grief and repentance: so she said
to him, "O my lord Nur al-Din, meseemeth thou hast sold me."
Whereupon he wept with sore weeping and groaned and lamented and
recited these couplets,[FN#494]

"When e'er the Lord 'gainst any man,
Would fulminate some harsh decree,
And he be wise, and skilled to hear,
And used to see;
He stops his ears, and blinds his heart,
And from his brain ill judgment tears,
And makes it bald as 'twere a scalp,
Reft of its hairs;[FN#495]
Until the time when the whole man
Be pierced by this divine command;
Then He restores him intellect
To understand."

Then Nur al-Din began to excuse himself to his handmaid, saying,
"By Allah, O my lady Miriam, verily runneth the Reed with whatso
Allah hath decreed. The folk put a cheat on me to make me sell
thee, and I fell into the snare and sold thee. Indeed, I have
sorely failed of my duty to thee; but haply He who decreed our
disunion will vouchsafe us reunion." Quoth she, "I warned thee
against this, for this it was I dreaded." Then she strained him
to her bosom and kissed him between the eyes, reciting these
couplets,

"Now, by your love! your love I'll ne'er forget, * Though lost my
life for stress of pine and fret:
I weep and wail through livelong day and night * As moans the
dove on sandhill-tree beset.
O fairest friends, your absence spoils my life; * Nor find I
meeting-place as erst we met."

At this juncture, behold, the Frank came in to them and went up
to Miriam, to kiss her hands; but she dealt him a buffet with her
palm on the cheek, saying, "Avaunt, O accursed! Thou hast
followed after me without surcease, till thou hast cozened my
lord into selling me! But O accursed, all shall yet be well,
Inshallah!" The Frank laughed at her speech and wondered at her
deed and excused himself to her, saying, "O my lady Mirian, what
is my offence? Thy lord Nur al-Din here sold thee of his full
consent and of his own free will. Had he loved thee, by the right
of the Messiah, he had not transgressed against thee! And had he
not fulfilled his desire of thee, he had not sold thee." Quoth
one of the poets,

'Whom I irk let him fly fro' me fast and faster * If I name his
name I am no directer.
Nor the wide wide world is to me so narrow * That I act expecter
to this rejecter.'"[FN#496]

Now this handmaid was the daughter of the King of France, the
which is a wide an spacious city,[FN#497] abounding in
manufactures and rarities and trees and flowers and other
growths, and resembleth the city of Constantinople; and for her
going forth of her father's city there was a wondrous cause and
thereby hangeth a marvellous tale which we will set out in due
order, to divert and delight the hearer.[FN#498]--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-ninth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the cause
of Miriam the Girdle-girl leaving her father and mother was a
wondrous and thereby hangeth a marvellous tale. She was reared
with her father and mother in honour and indulgence and learnt
rhetoric and penmanship and arithmetic and cavalarice and all
manner crafts, such as broidery and sewing and weaving and
girdle-making and silk-cord making and damascening gold on silver
and silver on gold, brief all the arts both of men and women,
till she became the union-pearl of her time and the unique gem of
her age and day. Moreover, Allah (to whom belong Might and
Majesty!) had endowed her with such beauty and loveliness and
elegance and perfection of grace that she excelled therein all
the folk of her time, and the Kings of the isles sought her in
marriage of her sire, but he refused to give her to wife to any
of her suitors, for that he loved her with passing love and could
not bear to be parted from her a single hour. Moreover, he had no
other daughter than herself, albeit he had many sons, but she was
dearer to him than all of them. It fortuned one year that she
fell sick of an exceeding sickness and came nigh upon death,
werefore she made a vow that, if she recovered from her malady,
she would make the pilgrimage to a certain monastery, situate in
such an island, which was high in repute among the Franks, who
used to make vows to it and look for a blessing therefrom. When
Miriam recovered from her sickness, she wished to accomplish her
vow anent the monastery and her sire despatched her to the
convent in a little ship, with sundry daughters of the
city-notables to wait upon her and patrician Knights to protect
them all. As they drew near the island, there came out upon them
a ship of the ships of the Moslems, champions of The Faith,
warring in Allah's way, who boarded the vessel and making prize
of all therein, knights and maidens, gifts and monies, sold their
booty in the city of Kayrawán.[FN#499] Miriam herself fell into
the hands of a Persian merchant, who was born impotent[FN#500]
and for whom no woman had ever discovered her nakedness; so he
set her to serve him. Presently, he fell ill and sickened well
nigh unto death, and the sickness abode with him two months,
during which she tended him after the goodliest fashion, till
Allah made him whole of his malady, when he recalled her
tenderness and loving-kindness to him and the persistent zeal
with which she had nurst him and being minded to requite her the
good offices she had done him, said to her, "Ask a boon of me?"
She said, "O my lord, I ask of thee that thou sell me not but to
the man of my choice." He answered, "So be it. I guarantee thee.
By Allah, O Miriam, I will not sell thee but to him of whom thou
shalt approve, and I put thy sale in thine own hand." And she
rejoiced herein with joy exceeding. Now the Persian had expounded
to her Al-Islam and she became a Moslemah and learnt of him the
rules of worship. Furthermore during that period the Perisan had
taught her the tenets of The Faith and the observances incumbent
upon her: he had made her learn the Koran by heart and master
somewhat of the theological sciences and the traditions of the
Prophet; after which, he brought her to Alexandria-city and sold
her to Nur al-Din, as we have before set out. Meanwhile, when her
father, the King of France, heard what had befallen his daughter
and her company, he saw Doomsday break and sent after her ships
full of knights and champions, horsemen and footsmen; but they
fell not in any trace of her whom they sought in the
Islands[FN#501] of the Moslems; so all returned to him, crying
out and saying, "Well-away!" and "Ruin!" and "Well worth the
day!" The King grieved for her with exceeding grief and sent
after her that one-eyed lameter, blind of the left,[FN#502] for
that he was his chief Wazir, a stubborn tyrant and a froward
devil,[FN#503] full of craft and guile, bidding him make search
for her in all the lands of the Moslems and buy her, though with
a ship-load of gold. So the accursed sought her, in all the
islands of the Arabs and all the cities of the Moslems, but found
no sign of her till he came to Alexandria-city where he made
quest for her and presently discovered that she was with Nur
al-Din Ali the Cairene, being directed to the trace of her by the
kerchief aforesaid, for that none could have wrought it in such
goodly guise but she. Then he bribed the merchants to help him in
getting her from Nur al-Din and beguiled her lord into selling
her, as hath been already related. When he had her in his
possession, she ceased not to weep and wail: so he said to her,
"O my lady Miriam, put away from thee this mourning and grieving
and return with me to the city of thy sire, the seat of thy
kingship and the place of thy power and thy home, so thou mayst
be among thy servants and attendants and be quit of this
abasement and this strangerhood. Enough hath betided me of
travail, of travel and of disbursing monies on thine account, for
thy father bade me buy thee back, though with a shipload of gold;
and now I have spent nigh a year and a half in seeking thee." And
he fell to kissing her hands and feet and humbling himself to
her; but the more he kissed and grovelled she only redoubled in
wrath against him, and said to him, "O accursed, may Almighty
Allah not vouchsafe thee to win thy wish!" Presently his pages
brought her a shemule with gold-embroidered housings and mounting
her thereon, raised over her head a silken canopy, with staves of
gold and silver, and the Franks walked round about her, till they
brought her forth the city by the sea-gate,[FN#504] where they
took boat with her and rowing out to a great ship in harbor
embarked therein. Then the monocular Wazir cried out to the
sailors, saying, "Up with the mast!" So they set it up forthright
and spreading the newly bent sails and the colours manned the
sweeps and put out to sea. Meanwhile Miriam continued to gaze
upon Alexandria, till it disappeared from her eyes, when she fell
a-weeping in her privacy with sore weeping.--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eightieth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
the Wazir of the Frankish King put out to sea in the ship bearing
Miriam the Girdle-girl, she gazed Alexandria-wards till the city
was hidden from her sight when she wailed and wept copious tears
and recited these couplets,

"O dwelling of my friends say is there no return * Uswards? But
what ken I of matters Allah made?
Still fare the ships of Severance, sailing hastily * And in my
wounded eyelids tear have ta'en their stead,
For parting from a friend who was my wish and will * Healed every
ill and every pain and pang allay'd.
Be thou, O Allah, substitute of me for him * Such charge some day
the care of Thee shall not evade."

Then she could not refrain from weeping and wailing. So the
patrician[FN#505] knights came up to her and would have comforted
her, but she heeded not their consoling words, being distracted
by the claims of passion and love-longing. And she shed tears and
moaned and complained and recited these couplets,

"The tongue of Love within my vitals speaketh * Saying, 'This
lover boon of Love aye seeketh!'
And burn my liver hottest coals of passion * And parting on my
heart sore suffering wreaketh.
How shall I face this fiery love concealing * When fro' my
wounded lids the tear aye leaketh?

In this plight Miriam abode during all the voyage; no peace was
left her at all nor would patience come at her call. Such was her
case in company with the Wazir, the monocular, the lameter; but
as regards Nur al-Din the Cairene, when the ship had sailed with
Miriam, the world was straitened upon him and he had neither
peace nor patience. He returned to the lodging where they twain
had dwelt, and its aspect was black and gloomy in his sight. Then
he saw the métier wherewith she had been wont to make the zones
and her dress that had been upon her beauteous body; so he
pressed them to his breast, whilst the tears gushed from his eyes
and he recited these couplets,

"Say me, will Union after parting e'er return to be * After
long-lasting torments, after hopeless misery?
Alas! Alas! what wont to be shall never more return * But grant
me still return of dearest her these eyne may see.
I wonder me will Allah deign our parted lives unite * And will my
dear one's plighted troth preserve with constancy!
Naught am I save the prey of death since parting parted us; * And
will my friends consent that I am a wierd so deadly dree?
Alas my sorrow! Sorrowing the lover scant avails; * Indeed I melt
away in grief and passion's ecstasy:
Past is the time of my delight when were we two conjoined: *
Would Heaven I wot if Destiny mine esperance will degree!
Redouble then, O Heart, thy pains and, O mine eyes, o'erflow *
With tears till not a tear remain within these eyne of me?
Again alas for loved ones lost and loss of patience eke! * For
helpers fail me and my griefs are grown beyond decree.
The Lord of Threefold Worlds I pray He deign to me return * My
lover and we meet as wont in joy and jubilee."

Then Nur al-Din wept with weeping galore than which naught could
be more; and peering into ever corner of the room, recited these
two couplets,

"I view their traces and with pain I pine * And by their sometime
home I weep and yearn;
And Him I pray who parting deigned decree * Some day He deign
vouchsafe me their return!"

Then Nur al-Din sprang to his feet and locking the door of the
house, fared forth running at speed, to the sea shore whence he
fixed his eyes on the place of the ship which had carried off his
Miriam whilst sighs burst from his breast and tears from his lids
as he recited these couplets,

"Peace be with you, sans you naught compensateth me * The near,
the far, two cases only here I see:
I yearn for you at every hour and tide as yearns * For
water-place wayfarer plodding wearily.
With you abide my hearing, heart and eyen-sight * And (sweeter
than the honeycomb) your memory.
Then, O my Grief when fared afar your retinue * And bore that
ship away my sole expectancy."

And Nur al-Din wept and wailed, bemoaned himself and complained,
crying out and saying, "O Miriam! O Miriam! Was it but a vision
of thee I saw in sleep or in the allusions of dreams?" And by
reason of that which grew on him of regrets, he recited these
couplets,[FN#506]

"Mazed with thy love no more I can feign patience,
This heart of mine has held none dear but thee!
And if mine eye hath gazed on other's beauty,
Ne'er be it joyed again with sight of thee!
I've sworn an oath I'll ne'er forget to love thee,
And sad's this breast that pines to meet with thee!
Thou'st made me drink a love-cup full of passion,
Blest time! When I may give the draught to thee!
Take with thee this my form where'er thou goest,
And when thou 'rt dead let me be laid near thee!
Call on me in my tomb, my bones shall answer
And sigh responses to a call from thee!
If it were asked, 'What wouldst thou Heaven should order?'
'His will,' I answer, 'First, and then what pleases thee.'"

As Nur al-Din was in this case, weeping and crying out, "O
Miriam! O Miriam!" behold, an old man landed from a vessel and
coming up to him, saw him shedding tears and heard him reciting
these verses,

"O Maryam of beauty[FN#507] return, for these eyne * Are as
densest clouds railing drops in line:
Ask amid mankind and my railers shall say * That mine eyelids are
drowning these eyeballs of mine."

Said the old man, "O my son, meseems thou weepest for the damsel
who sailed yesterday with the Frank?" When Nur al-Din heard these
words of the Shaykh he fell down in a swoon and lay for a long
while without life; then, coming to himself, he wept with sore
weeping and improvised these couplets,

"Shall we e'er be unite after severance-tide * And return in the
perfectest cheer to bide?
In my heart indeed is a lowe of love * And I'm pained by the
spies who my pain deride:
My days I pass in amaze distraught, * And her image a-nights I
would see by side:
By Allah, no hour brings me solace of love * And how can it when
makebates vex me and chide?
A soft-sided damsel of slenderest waist * Her arrows of eyne on
my heart hath plied?
Her form is like Bán[FN#508]-tree branch in garth * Shame her
charms the sun who his face most hide:
Did I not fear God (be He glorified!) * 'My Fair be glorified!'
Had I cried."

The old man looked at him and noting his beauty and grace and
symmetry and the fluency of his tongue and the seductiveness of
his charms, had ruth on him and his heart mourned for his case.
Now that Shaykh was the captain of a ship, bound to the damsel's
city, and in this ship were a hundred Moslem merchants, men of
the Saving Faith; so he said to Nur al-Din, "Have patience and
all will yet be well; I will bring thee to her an it be the will
of Allah, extolled and exalted be He!"--And Shahrazad perceived
the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-first Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
old skipper said to Nur al-Din, "I will bring thee to her,
Inshallah!" the youth asked, "When shall we set out?" and the
other said, "Come but three days more and we will depart in peace
and prosperity." Nur al-Din rejoiced at the captain's words with
joy exceeding and thanked him for his bounty and benevolence.
Then he recalled the days of love-liesse dear and union with his
slave-girl without peer, and he shed bitter tears and recited
these couplets,

"Say, will to me and you the Ruthful union show * My lords! Shall
e'er I win the wish of me or no?
A visit-boon by you will shifty Time vouchsafe? * And seize your
image eye-lids which so hungry grow?
With you were Union to be sold, I fain would buy; * But ah, I see
such grace doth all my means outgo!"

Then Nur al-Din went forthright to the market and bought what he
needed of viaticum and other necessaries for the voyage and
returned to the Rais, who said to him, "O my son, what is that
thou hast with thee?" said he, "My provisions and all whereof I
have need for the voyage." Thereupon quoth the old man, laughing,
"O my son, art thou going a-pleasuring to Pompey's
Pillar?[FN#509] Verily, between thee and that thou seekest is two
months' journey and the wind be fair and the weather favourable."
Then he took of him somewhat of money and going to the bazar,
bought him a sufficiency of all that he needed for the voyage and
filled him a large earthen jar[FN#510] with fresh water. Nur
al-Din abode in the ship three days until the merchants had made
an end of their precautions and preparations and embarked, when
they set sail and putting out to sea, fared on one-and-fifty
days. After this, there came out upon them corsairs,[FN#511]
pirates who sacked the ship and taking Nur al-Din and all therein
prisoners, carried them to the city of France and paraded them
before the King, who bade cast them into jail, Nur al-Din amongst
the number. As they were being led to prison the galleon[FN#512]
arrived with the Princess Miriam and the one-eyed Wazir, and when
it made the harbour, the lameter landed and going up to the King
gave him the glad news of his daughter's safe return: whereupon
they beat the kettledrums for good tidings and decorated the city
after the goodliest fashion. Then the King took horse, with all
his guards and lords and notables and rode down to the sea to
meet her. The moment the ship cast anchor she came ashore, and
the King saluted her and embraced her and mounting her on a
bloodsteed, bore her to the palace, where her mother received her
with open arms, and asked her of her case and whether she was a
maid as before or whether she had become a woman carnally known
by man.[FN#513] She replied, "O my mother, how should a girl, who
hath been sold from merchant to merchant in the land of Moslems,
a slave commanded, abide a virgin? The merchant who bought me
threatened me with the bastinado and violenced me and took my
maidenhead, after which he sold me to another and he again to a
third." When the Queen heard these her words, the light in her
eyes became night and she repeated her confession to the King who
was chagrined thereat and his affair was grievous to him. So he
expounded her case to his Grandees and Patricians[FN#514] who
said to him, "O King, she hath been defiled by the Moslems and
naught will purify her save the striking off of an hundred
Mohammedan heads." Whereupon the King sent for the True Believers
he had imprisoned; and they decapitated them, one after another,
beginning with the captain, till none was left save Nur al-Din.
They tare off a strip of his skirt and binding his eyes
therewith, led him to the rug of blood and were about to smite
his neck, when behold, an ancient dame came up to the King at
that very moment and said, "O my lord, thou didst vow to bestow
upon each and every church five Moslem captives, to held us in
the service thereof, so Allah would restore thee thy daughter the
Princess Miriam; and now she is restored to thee, so do thou
fulfil thy vow." The King replied, "O my mother, by the virtue of
the Messiah and the Veritable Faith, there remaineth to me of the
prisoners but this one captive, whom they are about to put to
death: so take him with thee to help in the service of the
church, till there come to me more prisoners of the Moslems, when
I will send thee other four. Hadst thou come earlier, before they
hewed off the heads of these, I had given thee as many as thou
wouldest have." The old woman thanked the King for his boon and
wished him continuance of life, glory and prosperity. Then
without loss of time she went up to Nur al-Din, whom she raised
from the rug of blood; and, looking narrowly at him saw a comely
youth and a dainty, with a delicate skin and a face like the moon
at her full; whereupon she carried him to the church and said to
him, "O my son, doff these clothes which are upon thee, for they
are fit only for the service of the Sultan."[FN#515] So saying
the ancient dame brought him a gown and hood of black wool and a
broad girdle,[FN#516] in which she clad and cowled him; and,
after binding on his belt, bade him do the service of the church.
Accordingly, he served the church seven days, at the end of which
time behold, the old woman came up to him and said, "O Moslem,
don thy silken dress and take these ten dirhams and go out
forthright and divert thyself abroad this day, and tarry not here
a single moment, lest thou lose thy life." Quoth he, "What is to
do, O my mother?"; and quoth she, "Know, O my son, that the
King's daughter, the Princess Miriam the Girdle-girl, hath a mind
to visit the church this day, to seek a blessing by pilgrimage
and to make oblation thereto, a douceur[FN#517] of thank-offering
for her deliverance from the land of the Moslems and in
fulfilment of the vows she vowed to the Messiah, so he would save
her. With her are four hundred damsels, not one of whom but is
perfect in beauty and loveliness and all of them are daughters of
Wazirs and Emirs and Grandees: they will be here during this very
hour and if their eyes fall on thee in this church, they will hew
thee in pieces with swords." Thereupon Nur al-Din took the ten
dirhams from the ancient dame, and donning his own dress, went
out to the bazar and walked about the city and took his pleasure
therein, till he knew its highways and gates,--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-second Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Nur
al-Din, after donning his own dress and taking the ten dirhams
from the ancient dame, fared forth to the market streets and
wandered about a while till he knew every quarter of the city,
after which he returned to the church[FN#518] and saw the
Princess Miriam the Girdle-girl, daughter of the King of France
come up to the fane, attended by four hundred damsels,
high-bosomed maids like moons, amongst whom was the daughter of
the one-eyed Wazir and those of the Emirs and Lords of the realm;
and she walked in their midst as she were moon among stars. When
his eyes fell upon her Nur al-Din could not contain himself, but
cried out from the core of his heart, "O Miriam! O Miriam!" When
the damsels heard his outcry they ran at him with swords shining
bright like flashes of leven-light and would have slain him
forthright. But the Princess turned and looking on him, knew him
with fullest knowledge, and said to her maidens, "Leave this
youth; doubtless he is mad, for the signs of madness be manifest
on his face." When Nur al-Din heard this, he uncovered his head
and rolled his eyes and made signs with his hands and twisted his
legs, foaming the while at the mouth. Quoth the Princess, "Said I
not that the poor youth was mad? Bring him to me and stand off
from him, that I may hear what he saith; for I know the speech of
the Arabs and will look into his case and see if his madness
admit of cure or not." So they laid hold of him and brought him
to her; after which they withdrew to a distance and she said to
him, "Hast thou come hither on my account and ventured thy life
for my sake and feignest thyself mad?" He replied, "O my lady,
hast thou not heard the saying of the poet?,[FN#519]

'Quoth they, 'Thou'rt surely raving mad for her thou lov'st;' and
I, 'There is no pleasantness in life but for the mad,'
reply.
Compare my madness with herself for whom I rave; if she Accord
therewith, then blame me not for that which I aby.'"

Miriam replied, "By Allah, O Nur al-Din, indeed thou hast sinned
against thyself, for I warned thee of this before it befell thee:
yet wouldst thou not hearken to me, but followest thine own lust:
albeit that whereof I gave thee to know I learnt not by means of
inspiration nor physiognomy[FN#520] nor dreams, but by
eye-witness and very sight; for I saw the one-eyed Wazir and knew
that he was not come to Alexandria but in quest of me." Said he,
"O my lady Miriam, we seek refuge with Allah from the error of
the intelligent!"[FN#521] Then his affliction redoubled on him
and he recited this saying,[FN#522]

"Pass o'er my fault, for 'tis the wise man's wont
Of other's sins to take no harsh account;
And as all crimes have made my breast their site,
So thine all shapes of mercy should unite.
Who from above would mercy seek to know,
Should first be merciful to those below."

Then Nur al-Din and Princess Miriam ceased not from lovers'
chiding which to trace would be tedious, relating each to other
that which had befallen them and reciting verses and making moan,
one to other, of the violence of passion and the pangs of pine
and desire, whilst the tears ran down their cheeks like rivers,
till there was left them no strength to say a word and so they
continued till day deprated and night darkened. Now the Princess
was clad in a green dress, purfled with red gold and broidered
with pearls and gems which enhanced her beauty and loveliness and
inner grace; and right well quoth the poet of her,[FN#523]

"Like the full moon she shineth in garments all of green, With
loosened vest and collars and flowing hair beseen.
'What is thy name?' I asked her, and she replied, 'I'm she Who
roasts the hearts of lovers on coals of love and teen.
I am the pure white silver, ay, and the gold wherewith The
bondsmen from strait prison and dour releasèd been.'
Quoth I, 'I'm all with rigours consumed;' but 'On a rock,' Said
she, 'such as my heart is, thy plaints are wasted clean.'
'Even if thy heart,' I answered, 'be rock in very deed, Yet hath
God caused fair water well from the rock, I ween.'"

And when night darkened on them the Lady Miriam went up to her
women and asked them, "Have ye locked the door?"; and they
answered, "Indeed we have locked it." So she took them and went
with them to a place called the hapel of the Lady Mary the
Virgin, Mother of Light, because the Nazarenes hold that there
are her heart and soul. The girls betook themselves to prayer for
blessings from above and circuited all the church; and when they
had made an end of their visitation, the Princess turned to them
and said, "I desire to pass the night alone in the Virgin's
chapel and seek a blessing thereof, for that yearning after it
hath betided me, by reason of my long absence in the land of the
Moslems; and as for you, when ye have made an end of your
visitation, do ye sleep whereso ye will." Replied they, "With
love and goodly gree: be it as thou wilt!"; and leaving her alone
in the chapel, dispersed about the church and slept. The Lady
Miriam waited till they were out of sight and hearing, then went
in search of Nur al-Din, whom she found sitting in a corner on
live coals, awaiting her. He rose and kissed her hands and feet
and she sat down and seated him by her side. Then she pulled off
all that was upon her of raiment and ornaments and fine linen and
taking Nur al-Din in her arms strained him to her bosom. And they
ceased not, she and he, from kissing and clipping and strumming
to the tune of "hocus-pocus,"[FN#524] saying the while, "How
short are the nights of Union and the nights of Disunion how long
are they!" and reciting these verses,

"O Night of Union, Time's virginal prized, * White star of the
Nights with auroral dyes,
Thou garrest Dawn after Noon to rise * Say art thou Kohl in
Morning's Eyes,
Or wast thou Slumber to bleared eye lief?
O Night of Parting, how long thy stay * Whose latest hours aye
the first portray,
This endless circle that noways may * Show breach till the coming
of Judgment-day,
Day when dies the lover of parting-grief."[FN#525]

As they were in this mighty delight and joy engrossing they heard
one of the servants of the Saint[FN#526] smite the gong[FN#527]
upon the roof, to call the folk to the rites of their worship,
and he was even as saith the poet,

"I saw him strike the gong and asked of him straightway, * Who
made the Fawn[FN#528] at striking going so knowing, eh?'
And to my soul, 'What smiting irketh thee the more-- * Striking
the gong or striking note of going,[FN#529] say?'"

--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-third Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Nur al-Din
and Miriam the Girdle-girl rose forthwith and donned her clothes
and ornaments; but this was grievous to Nur al-Din, and his
gladness was troubled; the tears streamed from his eyes and he
recited these couplets,

"I ceasèd not to kiss that cheek with budding roses dight * And
eyes down cast and bit the same with most emphatic bite;
Until we were in gloria[FN#530] and lay him down the spy * And
sank his eyes within his brain declining further sight:
And struck the gongs as they that had the charge of them were
like * Muezzin crying duty-prayers in Allah's book indite.
Then rose she up right hastily and donned the dress she'd doffed
* Sore fearing lest a shooting-star[FN#531] upon our heads
alight.
And cried, 'O wish and will of me, O end of all my hopes! *
Behold the morning comes to us in brightest whitest light.'
I swear if but one day of rule were given to my life * And I were
made an Emperor of majesty and might,
Adown I'd break the buttresses of churches one and all * And by
their slaughter rid the earth of every shaveling wight."

Then the Lady Miriam pressed him to her bosom and kissed his
cheek and asked him, "O Nur al-Din, how long hast thou been in
this town?" "Seven days." "Hast thou walked about in it, and dost
thou know its ways and issues and its sea-gates and land gates?"
"Yes!" "Knowest thou the way to the offertory-chest[FN#532] of
the church?" "Yes!" "Since thou knowest all this, as soon as the
first third[FN#533] of the coming night is over, go to the
offertory-chest and take thence what thou wishest and willest.
Then open the door that giveth upon the tunnel[FN#534] leading to
the sea, and go down to the harbour, where thou wilt find a
little ship and ten men therein, and when the Rais shall see
thee, he will put out his hand to thee. Give him thy hand and he
will take thee up into the ship, and do thou wait there till I
come to thee. But 'ware and have a care lest sleep overtake thee
this night, or thou wilt repent whenas repentance shall avail
thee naught." Then the Princess farewelled him and going forth
from Nur al-Din, aroused from sleep her women and the rest of the
damsels, with whom she betook herself to the church door and
knocked; whereupon the ancient dame opened to her and she went
forth and found the knights and varlets standing without. They
brought her a dapple she-mule and she mounted: whereupon they
raised over her head a canopy[FN#535] with curtains of silk, and
the knights took hold of the mule's halter. Then the
guards[FN#536] encompassed her about, drawn brand in hand, and
fared on with her, followed by her, till they brought her to the
palace of the King her father. Meanwhile, Nur al-Din abode
concealed behind the curtain, under cover of which Miriam and he
had passed the night, till it was broad day, when the main door
was opened and the church became full of people. Then he mingled
with the folk and accosted the old Prioress, the guardian[FN#537]
of the shrine, who said to him, "Where didst thou lie last
night?" Said he, "In the town as thou badest me." Quoth she, "O
my son, thou hast done the right thing; for, hadst thou nighted
in the Church, she had slain thee on the foulest wise." And quoth
he, "Praised be Allah who hath delivered me from the evil of this
night!" Then he busied himself with the service of the church and
ceased not busying till day departed and night with darkness
starkened when he arose and opened the offertory-chest and took
thence of jewels whatso was light of weight and weighty of worth.
Then he tarried till the first watch of the night was past, when
he made his way to the postern of the tunnel and opening it, went
forth, calling on Allah for protection, and ceased not faring on
until, after finding and opening the door, he came to the sea.
Here he discovered the vessel moored to the shore near the gate;
and her skipper, a tall old man of comely aspect with a long
beard, standing in the waist, his ten men being ranged before
him. Nur al-Din gave him his hand, as Miriam had bidden him, and
the captain took it and pulling him on board of the ship cried
out to his crew, saying, "Cast off the moorings and put out to
sea with us, ere day break." Said one of the ten, "O my lord the
Captain, how shall we put out now, when the King hath notified us
that to-morrow he will embark in this ship and go round about the
sea, being fearful for his daughter Miriam from the Moslem
thieves?" But the Rais cried out at them saying, "Woe to you, O
accursed; Dare ye gainsay me and bandy words with me?" So saying
the old captain bared his blade and with it dealt the sailor who
had spoken a thrust in the throat, that the steel came out
gleaming from his nape; and quoth another of the sailors, "What
hath our comrade done of crime, that thou shouldst cut his
throat?" Thereupon the captain clapped hand to sword and smote
the speaker's head, nor did he leave smiting the rest of the
sailors till he had slain them all, one after other, and cast the
ten bodies ashore. Then he turned to Nur al-Din and cried out at
him with a terrible great cry, that made him tremble, saying, "Go
down and pull up the mooring-satke." Nur al-Din feared lest he
should strike him also with the sword; so he sprang up and leapt
ashore and pulling up the stake jumped aboard again, swiftlier
than the dazzling leven. The captain ceased not to bid him do
this and do that and tack and wear hither and thither and look at
the stars, and Nur al-Din did all that he bade him, with heart
a-quaking for affright; whilst he himself spread the sails, and
the ship fared with the twain into the dashing sea, swollen with
clashing billows.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and
ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-fourth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
the old skipper had made sail he drave the ship, aided by Nur
al-Din, into the dashing sea before a favouring gale. Meanwhile,
Nur al-Din held on to the tackle immersed in deep thought, and
drowned in the sea of solicitude, knowing not what was hidden for
him in the future; and whenever he looked at the captain, his
heart quaked and he knew not whither the Rais went with him. He
abode thus, preoccupied with care and doubt, till it was high
day, when he looked at the skipper and saw him take hold of his
long beard and pull at it, whereupon it came off in his hand and
Nur al-Din, examining it, saw that it was but a false beard glued
on. So he straitly considered that same Rais, and behold, it was
the Princess Miriam, his mistress and the dearling of his heart,
who had contrived to waylay the captain and slay him and skinned
off his beard, which she had stuck on to her own face. At this
Nur al-Din was transported for you, and his breast broadened and
he marvelled at her prowess and the stoutness of her heart and
said to her, "Welcome, O my hope and my desire and the end of
mine every wish!" Then love and gladness agitated him and he made
sure of winning to his hopes and his expectancy; wherefore he
broke out into song and chanted these couplets,

"To all who unknown my love for the May * From whom Fate disjoins
me O say, I pray,
'Ask my kith and kin of my love that aye * Ensweetens my verses
to lovely lay:
For the loss of the tribesmen my life o'er sway!'

Their names when named heal all malady; * Cure and chase from
heart every pain I dree:
And my longings for love reach so high degree * That my Sprite is
maddened each morn I see,
And am grown of the crowd to be saw and say.

No blame in them will I e'er espy: * No! nor aught of solace sans
them descry:
Your love hath shot me with pine, and I * Bear in heart a flame
that shall never die,
But fire my liver with fiery ray.

All folk my sickness for marvel score * That in darkest night I
wake evermore
What ails them to torture this heart forlore * And deem right for
loving my blood t' outpour:
And yet--how justly unjust are they!

Would I wot who 'twas could obtain of you * To wrong a youth
who's so fain of you:
By my life and by Him who made men of you * And the spy tell
aught I complain of you
He lies, by Allah, in foulest way!

May the Lord my sickness never dispel, * Nor ever my heart of its
pains be well,
What day I regret that in love I fell * Or laud any land but
wherein ye dwell:
Wring my heart and ye will or make glad and gay!

I have vitals shall ever be true to you * Though racked by the
rigours not new to you
Ere this wrong and this right I but sue to you: * Do what you
will to thrall who to you
Shall ne'er grudge his life at your feet to lay."

When Nur al-Din ceased to sing, the Princess Miriam marvelled at
his song and thanked him therefor, saying, "Whoso's case is thus
it behoveth him to walk the ways of men and never do the deed of
curs and cowards." Now she was stout of heart and cunning in the
sailing of ships over the salt sea, and she knew all the winds
and their shiftings and every course of the main. So Nur al-Din
said, "O my lady, hadst thou prolonged this case on me,[FN#538] I
had surely died for stress of affright and chagrin, more by token
of the fire of passion and love-longing and the cruel pangs of
separation." She laughed at his speech and rising without stay or
delay brought out somewhat of food and liquor; and they ate and
drank and enjoyed themselves and made merry. Then she drew forth
rubies and other gems and precious stones and costly trinkets of
gold and silver and all manner things of price, light of weight
and weighty of worth, which she had taken from the palace of her
sire and his treasuries, and displayed them to Nur al-Din, who
rejoiced therein with joy exceeding. All this while the wind blew
fair for them and merrily sailed the ship nor ceased sailing till
they drew near the city of Alexandria and sighted its landmarks,
old and new, and Pompey's Pillar. When they made the port, Nur
al-Din landed forthright and securing the ship to one of the
Fulling-Stones,[FN#539] took somewhat of the treasures that
Miriam had brought with her, and said to her, "O my lady, tarry
in the ship, against I return and carry thee up into the city in
such way as I should wish and will." Quoth she, "It behoveth that
this be done quickly, for tardiness in affairs engendereth
repentance." Quoth he, "There is no tardiness in me;" and,
leaving her in the ship, went up into the city to the house of
the druggist his father's old fried, to borrow of his wife for
Miriam veil and mantilla, and walking boots and
petticoat-trousers after the usage of the women of Alexandria,
unknowing that there was appointed to betide him of the shifts of
Time, the Father of Wonders, that which was far beyond his
reckoning. Thus it befel Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-girl;
but as regards her sire the King of France, when he arose in the
morning, he missed his daughter and questioned her women and her
eunuchs of her. Answered they, "O our lord, she went out last
night, to go to Church and after that we have no tidings of her."
But, as the King talked with them, behold, there arose so great a
clamour of cries below the palace, that the place rang thereto,
and he said, "What may be the news?" The folk replied, "O King,
we have found ten men slain on the sea-shore, and the royal yacht
is missing. Moreover we saw the postern of the Church, which
giveth upon the tunnel leading to the sea, wide open; and the
Moslem prisoner, who served in the Church, is missing." Quoth the
King, "An my ship be lost, without doubt or dispute."--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-fifth Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
King of France missed his daughter they brought him tidings of
her, saying, "Thy yacht is lost"; and he replied, "An the craft
be lost, without dispute or doubt my daughter is in it." So he
summoned without stay or delay the Captain of the Port and cried
out at him, saying, "By the virtue[FN#540] of the Messiah and the
Faith which is no liar, except thou and thy fighting men overtake
my ship forthright and bring it back to me, with those who are
therein, I will do thee die the foulest of deaths and make a
terrible example of thee!" Thereupon the captain went out from
before him, trembling, and betook himself to the ancient dame of
the Church, to whom said he, 'Heardest thou aught from the
captive, that was with thee, anent his native land and what
countryman he was?" And she answered, "He used to say, I come
from the town of Alexandria." When the captain heard the old
woman's words he returned forthright to the port and cried out to
the sailors, "Make ready and set sail." So they did his bidding
and straightway putting out to sea, fared night and day till they
sighted the city of Alexandria at the very time when Nur al-Din
landed, leaving the Princess in the ship. They soon espied the
royal yacht and knew her; so they moored their own vessel at a
distance therefrom and putting off in a little frigate they had
with them, which drew but two cubits of water and in which were
an hundred fighting-men, amongst them the one-eyed Wazir (for
that he was a stubborn tyrant and a froward devil and a wily
thief, none could avail against his craft, as he were Abu
Mohammed al-Battál[FN#541]), they ceased not rowing till they
reached the bark and boarding her, all at once, found none
therein save the Princess Miriam. So they took her and the ship,
and returning to their own vessel, after they had landed and
waited a long while,[FN#542] set sail forthright for the land of
the Franks, having accomplished their errand, without a fight or
even drawing sword. The wind blew fair for them and they sailed
on, without ceasing and with all diligence, till they reached the
city of France and landing with the Princess Miriam carried her
to her father, who received her, seated on the throne of his
Kingship. As soon as he saw her, he said to her, "Woe to thee, O
traitress! What ailed thee to leave the faith of thy fathers and
forefathers and the safeguard of the Messiah, on whom is our
reliance, and follow after the faith of the Vagrants,[FN#543] to
wit, the faith of Al-Islam, the which arose with the sword
against the Cross and the Images?" Replied Miriam, "I am not at
fault, I went out by night to the church, to visit the Lady Mary
and seek a blessing of her, when there fell upon me unawares a
band of Moslem robbers, who gagged me and bound me fast and
carrying me on board the barque, set sail with me for their own
country. However, I beguiled them and talked with them of their
religion, till they loosed my bonds; and ere I knew it thy men
overtook me and delivered me. And by the virtue of the Messiah
and the Faith which is no liar and the Cross and the Crucified
thereon, I rejoiced with joy exceeding in my release from them
and my bosom broadened and I was glad for my deliverance from the
bondage of the Moslems!" Rejoined the King, "Thou liest, O whore!
O adultress! By the virtue of that which is revealed of
prohibition and permission in the manifest Evangel,[FN#544] I
will assuredly do thee die by the foulest of deaths and make thee
the vilest of examples! Did it not suffice thee to do as thou
didst the first time and put off thy lies upon us, but thou must
return upon us with thy deceitful inventions?" Thereupon the King
bade kill her and crucify her over the palace gate; but, at that
moment the one-eyed Wazir, who had long been enamoured of the
Princess, came in to him and said, "Ho King! saly her not, but
give her to me to wife, and I will watch over her with the utmost
warding, nor will I go in unto her, till I have built her a
palace of solid stone, exceeding high of foundation, so no
thieves may avail to climb up to its terrace-roof; and when I
have made an end of building it, I will sacrifice thirty Moslems
before the gate thereof, as an expiatory offering to the Messiah
for myself and for her." The King granted his request and bade
the priests and monks and patriarchs marry the Princess to him;
so they did his bidding, whereupon he bade set about building a
strong and lofty palace, befitting her rank and the workmen fell
to work upon it. On this wise it betided the Princess Miriam and
her sire and the one-eyed Wazir; but as regards Nur al-Din, when
he came back with the petticoat-trousers and mantilla and walking
boots and all the attire of Alexandrian women which he had
borrowed of the druggist's wife, he "found the air void and the
fane afar[FN#545]";--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and
ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-sixth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Nur
al-Din, "found the aire void[FN#546] and the fane afar," his
heart sank within him and he wept floods of tears and recited
these verses,[FN#547]

"The phantom of Soada came by nigh to wake me towards morning
while my companions were sleeping in the desert:
But when we awoke to behold the nightly phantom, I saw the air
vacant, and the place of visitation distant."

Then Nur al-Din walked on along the sea-shore and turned right
and left, till he saw folk gathered together on the beach and
heard them say, "O Moslems, there remaineth no honour to
Alexandria-city, since the Franks enter it and snatch away those
who are therein and return to their own land, at their
leisure[FN#548] nor pursued of any of the Moslems or fighters for
the Faith!" Quoth Nur al-Din to them, "What is to do?"; and quoth
they, "O my son, one of the ships of the Franks, full of armed
men, came down but now upon the port and carried off a ship which
was moored here, with her that was therein, and made unmolested
for their own land." Nur al-Din fell down a-swoon, on hearing
these words; and when he recovered they questioned him of his
case and he told them all that had befallen him first and last;
whereupon they all took to reviling him and railing at him,
saying, "Why couldst thou not bring her up into the town without
mantilla and muffler?" And all and each of the folk gave him some
grievous word, berating him with sharp speech, and shooting at
him some shaft or reproach, albeit one said, "Let him be; that
which hath befallen him sufficeth him," till he again fell down
in a fainting-fit. And behold, at this moment, up came the old
druggist, who, seeing the folk gathered together, drew near to
learn what was the matter and found Nur al-Din lying a-swoon in
their midst. So he sat down at his head and arousing him, said to
him as soon as he recovered, "O my son, what is this case in
which I see thee?" Nur al-Din said, "O uncle, I had brought back
in a barque my lost slave-girl from her father's city, suffering
patiently all I suffered of perils and hardships; and when I came
with her to this port, I made the vessel fast to the shore and
leaving her therein, repaired to thy dwelling and took of thy
consort what was needful for her, that I might bring her up into
the town; but the Franks came and capturing barque and damsel
made off unhindered, and returned to their own land." Now when
the Shaykh, the druggist, heard this, the light in his eyes
became night and he grieved with sore grieving for Nur al-Din and
said to him, "O my son, why didst thou not bring her out of the
ship into the city without mantilla? But speech availeth not at
this season; so rise, O my son, and come up with me to the city;
haply Allah will vouchsafe thee a girl fairer than she, who shall
console thee for her. Alhamdolillah-praised be Allah-who hath not
made thee lose aught by her! Nay, thou hast gained by her. And
bethink thee, O my son, that Union and Disunion are in the hands
of the Most High King.." Replied Nur al-Din, "By Allah, O uncle,
I can never be consoled for her loss nor will I ever leave
seeking her, though on her account I drink the cup of death!"
Rejoined the druggist, "O my son, and what art thou minded to
do?" Quoth Nur al-Din, "I am minded to return to the land of the
Franks[FN#549] and enter the city of France and emperil myself
there; come what may, loss of life or gain of life." Quoth the
druggist, "O my son, there is an old saw, 'Not always doth the
crock escape the shock'; and if they did thee no hurt the first
time, belike they will slay thee this time, more by token that
they know thee now with full knowledge." Quoth Nur al-Din, "O my
uncle, let me set out and be slain for the love of her
straightway and not die of despair for her loss by slow
torments." Now as Fate determined there was then a ship in port
ready to sail, for its passengers had made an end of their
affairs[FN#550] and the sailors had pulled up the mooring-stakes,
when Nur al-Din embarked in her. So they shook out their canvas
and relying on the Compassionate, put out to sea and sailed many
days, with fair wind and weather, till behold, they fell in with
certain of the Frank cruisers, which were scouring those waters
and seizing upon all ships they saw, in their fear for the King's
daughter from the Moslem corsairs: and as often as they made
prize of a Moslem ship, they carried all her people to the King
of France, who put them to death in fulfilment of the vow he had
vowed on account of his daughter Miriam. So, seeing the ship
wherein was Nur al-Din they boarded her and taking him and the
rest of the company prisoners, to the number of an hundred
Moslems, carried them to the King and set them between his hands.
He bade cut their throats. Accordingly they slaughtered them all
forthwith, one after another, till there was none left but Nur
al-Din, whom the headsman had left to the last, in pity of his
tender age and slender shape. When the King saw him, he knew him
right well and said to him, "Art thou not Nur al-Din, who was
with us before?" Said he, "I was never with thee: and my name is
not Nur al-Din, but Ibrahim." Rejoined the King; "Thou liest,
thou art Nur al-Din, he whom I gave to the ancient dame the
Prioress, to help her in the service of the church." But Nur
al-Din replied, "O my lord, my name is Ibrahim." Quoth the King,
"Wait a while," and bade his knights fetch the old woman
forthright, saying, "When she cometh and seeth thee, she will
know an thou be Nur al-Din or not." At this juncture, behold, in
came the one-eyed Wazir who had married the Princess and kissing
the earth before the King said to him, "Know, O King, that the
palace is finished; and thou knowest how I vowed to the Messiah
that, when I had made an end of building it, I would cut thirty
Moslems' throats before its doors; wherefore I am come to take
them of thee, that I may sacrifice them and so fulfil my vow to
the Messiah. They shall be at my charge, by way of loan, and
whenas there come prisoners to my hands, I will give thee other
thirty in lieu of them." Replied the King, 'By the virtue of the
Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, I have but this one
captive left!" And he pointed to Nur al-Din, saying, "Take him
and slaughter him at this very moment and the rest I will send
thee when there come to my hands other prisoners of the Moslems."
Thereupon the one-eyed Wazir arose and took Nur al-Din and
carried him to his palace, thinking to slaughter him on the
threshold of the gate; but the painters said to him, "O my lord,
we have two days' painting yet to do: so bear with us and delay
to cut the throat of this captive, till we have made an end of
our work; haply by that time the rest of the thirty will come, so
thou mayst despatch them all at one bout and accomplish thy vow
in a single day." Thereupon the Wazir bade imprison Nur
al-Din.--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased
saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Wazir bade imprison Nur al-Din, they carried him to the stables
and left him there in chains, hungering and thirsting and making
moan for himself; for indeed he saw death face to face. Now it
fortuned, by the ordinance of Destiny and fore-ordained Fate,
that the King had two stallions, own brothers,[FN#551] such as
the Chosroe Kings might sigh in vain to possess themselves of one
of them; they were called Sábik and Láhik[FN#552] and one of them
was pure silvern white while the other was black as the darksome
night. And all the Kings of the isles had said, "Whoso stealeth
us one of these stallions, we will give him all he seeketh of red
gold and pearls and gems;" but none could avail to steal them.
Now one of them fell sick of a jaundice and there came a
whiteness over his eyes;[FN#553] whereupon the King gathered
together all the farriers in the city to treat him; but they all
failed of his cure. Presently the Wazir came into the King; and
finding him troubled because of the horse, thought to do away his
concern and said to him, "O King, give me the stallion and I will
cure him," The King consented and caused carry the horse to the
stable wherein Nur al-Din lay chained; but, when he missed his
brother, he cried out with an exceeding great cry and neighed, so
that he affrighted all the folk. The Wazir, seeing that he did
thus but because he was parted from his brother, went to tell the
King, who said, "If this, which is but a beast, cannot brook to
be parted from his brother, how should it be with those that have
reason?" And he bade his grooms take the other horse and put him
with his brother in the Wazir's stables, saying, "Tell the
Minister that the two stallions be a gift from me to him, for the
sake of my daughter Miriam." Nur al-Din was lying in the stable,
chained and shackled, when they brought in the two stallions and
he saw that one of them had a film over his eyes. Now he had some
knowledge of horses and of the doctoring of their diseases; so he
said to himself, "This by Allah is my opportunity! I will go to
the Wazir and lie to him, saying, 'I will heal thee this horse':
then will I do with him somewhat that shall destroy his eyes, and
he will slay me and I shall be at rest from this woe-full life."
So he waited till the Wazir entered the stable, to look upon the
steed, and said to him, "O my lord, what will be my due, an I
heal this horse, and make his eyes whole again?" Replied the
Wazir, "As my head liveth, an thou cure him, I will spare thy
life and give thee leave to crave a boon of me!" And Nur al-Din
said, "O my lord, bid my hands be unbound!" So the Wazir bade
unbind him and he rose and taking virgin glass,[FN#554] brayed it
and mixed it with unslaked lime and a menstruum of onion-juice.
Then he applied the whole to the horse's eyes and bound them up,
saying in himself, "Now will his eyes be put out and they will
slay me and I shall be at rest from this woe-full life." Then he
passed the night with a heart free from the uncertainty[FN#555]
of cark and care, humbling himself to Allah the Most High and
saying, "O Lord, in Thy knowledge is that which dispenseth with
asking and craving!" Now when the morning morrowed and the sun
shone, the Wazir came to the stable and, loosing the bandage from
the horse's eyes considered them and found them finer than
before, by the ordinance of the King who openeth evermore. So he
said to Nur al-Din, "O Moslem, never in the world saw I the like
of thee for the excellence of thy knowledge. By the virtue of the
Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, thou makest me with
wonder to admire, for all the farriers of our land have failed to
heal this horse!" Then he went up to Nur al-Din and, doing off
his shackles with his own hand, clad him in a costly dress and
made him his master of the Horse; and he appointed him stipends
and allowances and lodged him in a story over the stables. So Nur
al-Din abode awhile, eating and drinking and making merry and
bidding and forbidding those who tended the horses; and whoso
neglected or failed to fodder those tied up in the stable wherein
was his service, he would thrown down and beat with grievous
beating and lay him by the legs in bilboes of iron. Furthermore,
he used every day to descend and visit the stallions and rub them
down with his own hand, by reason of that which he knew of their
value in the Wazir's eyes and his love for them; wherefore the
Minister rejoiced in him with joy exceeding and his breast
broadened and he was right glad, unknowing what was to be the
issue of his case. Now in the new palace, which the one-eyed
Wazir had bought for Princess Miriam, was a lattice-window
overlooking his old house and the flat wherein Nur al-Din lodged.
The Wazir had a daughter, a virgin of extreme loveliness, as she
were a fleeing gazelle or a bending branchlet, and it chanced
that she sat one day at the lattice aforesaid and behold, she
heard Nur al-Din, singing and solacing himself under his sorrows
by improvising these verses,

"O my Censor who wakest a-morn to see * The joys of life and its
jubilee!
Had the fangs of Destiny bitten thee * In such bitter case thou
hadst pled this plea,
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
But from Fate's despight thou art safe this day;- * From her
falsest fay and her crying 'Nay!'
Yet blame him not whom his woes waylay * Who distraught shall say
in his agony,
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
Excuse such lovers in flight abhorr'd * Nor to Love's distreses
thine aid afford:
Lest thy self be bound by same binding cord * And drink of Love's
bitterest injury.
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
In His service I wont as the days went by * With freest heart
through the nights to lie;
Nor tasted wake, nor of Love aught reckt * Ere my heart to
subjection summoned he:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
None weet of Love and his humbling wrong * Save those he sickened
so sore, so long,
Who have lost their wits 'mid the lover-throng * Draining
bitterest cup by his hard decree:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
How oft in Night's gloom he cause wake to rue * Lovers' eyne, and
from eyelids their sleep withdrew;
Till tears to the railing of torrents grew, * Overflowing cheeks
, unconfined and free:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
How many a man he has joyed to steep * In pain, and for pine hath
he plundered sleep,--
Made don garb of mourning the deepest deep * And even his
dreaming forced to flee:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
How oft sufferance fails me! How bones are wasted * And down my
cheeks torrent tear-drops hasted:
And embittered She all the food I tasted * However sweet it was
wont to be:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
Most hapless of men who like me must love, * And must watch when
Night droops her wing from above,
Who, swimming the main where affection drove * Must sign and sink
in that gloomy sea:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
Who is he to whom Love e'er stinted spite * And who scaped his
springes and easy sleight;
Who free from Love lived in life's delight? * Where is he can
boast of such liberty?
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'
Deign Lord such suffering wight maintain * Then best Protector,
protect him deign!
Establish him and his life assain * And defend him from all
calamity:
'Ah me, for Love and his case, ah me:
My heart is burnt by the fires I dree!'"

And when Nur al-Din ended his say and ceased to sing his rhyming
lay, the Wazir's daughter said to herself, "By the virtue of the
Messiah and the Faith which is no liar, verily this Moslem is a
handsome youth! But doubtless he is a lover separated from his
mistress. Would Heaven I wot an the beloved of this fair one is
fair like unto him and if she pine for him as he for her! An she
be seemly as he is, it behoveth him to pour forth tears and make
moan of passion; but, an she be other than fair, his days are
wasted in vain regrets and he is denied the taste of
delights."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to
say her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-eighth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the
Wazir's daughter said to herself, "An his beloved be fair as he,
it behoveth him to pour forth tears; and, if other than fair, his
heart is wasted in vain regrets!" Now Miriam the Girdle-girl, the
Minister's consort, had removed to the new palace the day before
and the Wazir's daughter knew that she was straitened of breast;
so she was minded to seek her and talk with her and tell her the
tidings of the young man and the rhymes and verses she had heard
him recite; but, before she could carry out her design the
Princess sent for her to cheer her with her converse. So she went
to her and found her heavy at heart and her tears hurrying down
her cheeks; and whilst she was weeping with sore weeping she
recited these couplets,

"My life is gone but love-longings remain * And my breast is
straitened with pine and pain:
And my heart for parting to melt is fain * Yet hoping that union
will come again,
And join us in one who now are twain.
Stint your blame to him who in heart's your thrall * With the
wasted frame which his sorrows gall,
Nor with aim of arrow his heart appal * For parted lover is
saddest of all,
And Love's cup of bitters is sweet to drain!"

Quoth the Wazir's daughter to her, "What aileth thee, O Princess,
to be thus straitened in breast and sorrowful of thought?"
Whereupon Miriam recalled the greatness of the delights that were
past and recited these two couplets,

"I will bear in patience estrangement of friend * And on cheeks
rail tears that like torrents wend:
Haply Allah will solace my sorrow, for He * Neath the ribs of
unease maketh ease at end."

Said the Wazir's daughter, "O Princess, let not thy breast be
straitened, but come with me straightway to the lattice; for
there is with us in the stable[FN#556] a comely young man,
slender of shape and sweet of speech, and meseemeth he is a
parted lover." Miriam asked, "And by what sign knowest thou that
he is a parted lover?"; and she answered, "O Queen, I know it by
his improvising odes and verses all watches of the night and
tides of the day." Quoth the Princess in herself, "If what the
Wazir's daughter says be true, these are assuredly the traits of
the baffled, the wretched Ali Nur al-Din. Would I knew if indeed
he be the youth of whom she speaketh." At this thought,
love-longing and distraction of passion redoubled on her and she
rose at once and walking with the maiden to the lattice, looked
down upon the stables, where she saw her love and lord Nur al-Din
and fixing her eyes steadfastly upon him, knew him with the
bestest knowledge of love, albeit he was sick, of the greatness
of his affection for her and of the fire of passion, and the
anguish of separation and yearning and distraction. Sore upon him
was emaciation and he was improvising and saying,

"My heart is a thrall; my tears ne'er abate * And their rains the
railing of clouds amate;
'Twixt my weeping and watching and wanting love; * And whining
and pining for dearest mate.
Ah my burning heat, my desire, my lowe! * For the plagues that
torture my heart are eight;
And five upon five are in suite of them; * So stand and listen to
all I state:
Mem'ry, madding thoughts, moaning languishment, * Stress of
longing love, plight disconsolate;
In travail, affliction and strangerhood, * And annoy and joy when
on her I wait.
Fail me patience and stay for engrossing care * And sorrows my
suffering soul regrate.
On my heart the possession of passion grows * O who ask of what
fire in my heart's create,
Why my tears in vitals should kindle flame, * Burning heart with
ardours insatiate,
Know, I'm drowned in Deluge[FN#557] of tears and my soul * From
Lazá-lowe fares to Háwiyah-goal."[FN#558]

When the Princess Miriam beheld Nur al-Din and heard his loquence
and verse and speech, she made certain that it was indeed her
lord Nur al-Din; but she concealed her case from the Wazir's
daughter and said to her, "By the virtue of the Messiah and the
Faith which is no liar, I thought not thou knewest of my
sadness!" Then she arose forthright and withdrawing from the
window, returned to her own place, whilst the Wazir's daughter
went to her own occupations. The Princess awaited patiently
awhile, then returned to the window and sat there, gazing upon
her beloved Nur al-Din and delighting her eyes with his beauty
and inner and outer grace. And indeed, she saw that he was like
unto moon at full on fourteenth night; but he was ever sighing
with tears never drying, for that he recalled whatso he had been
abying. So he recited these couplets,

"I hope for Union with my love which I may ne'er obtain * At all,
but bitterness of life is all the gain I gain:
My tears are likest to the main for ebb and flow of tide; * But
when I meet the blamer-wight to staunch my tears I'm fain.
Woe to the wretch who garred us part by spelling of his
spells;[FN#559] * Could I but hend his tongue in hand I'd
cut his tongue in twain:
Yet will I never blame the days for whatso deed they did *
Mingling with merest, purest gall the cup they made me
drain!
To whom shall I address myself; and whom but you shall seek * A
heart left hostage in your Court, by you a captive ta'en?
Who shall avenge my wrongs on you,[FN#560] tyrant despotical *
Whose tyranny but grows the more, the more I dare complain?
I made him regnant of my soul that he the reign assain * But me
he wasted wasting too the soul I gave to reign.
Ho thou, the Fawn, whom I so lief erst gathered to my breast *
Enow of severance tasted I to own its might and main,
Thou'rt he whose favours joined in one all beauties known to man,
* Yet I thereon have wasted all my Patience' fair domain.
I entertained him in my heart whereto he brought unrest * But I
am satisfied that I such guest could entertain.
My tears for ever flow and flood, likest the surging sea * And
would I wot the track to take that I thereto attain.
Yet sore I fear that I shall die in depths of my chagrin * And
must despair for evermore to win the wish I'd win."

When Miriam heard the verses of Nur al-Din the loving-hearted,
the parted; they kindled in her vitals a fire of desire, and
while her eyes ran over with tears, she recited these two
couplets,

"I longed for him I love; but, when we met, * I was amazed nor
tongue nor eyes I found.
I had got ready volumes of reproach; * But when we met, could
syllable no sound."

When Nur al-Din heard the voice of Princess Miriam, he knew it
and wept bitter tears, saying, "By Allah, this is the chanting of
the Lady Miriam."--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and
ceased saying her permitted say.






End of Volume 8.





Arabian Nights, Volume 8
Footnotes




[FN#1] Ironicè; we are safe as long as we are defended by such a
brave.

[FN#2] Blue, azure. This is hardly the place for a protest, but
I must not neglect the opportunity of cautioning my readers
against rendering Bahr al-Azrak ("Blue River") by "Blue Nile." No
Arab ever knew it by that name or thereby equalled it with the
White Nile. The term was a pure invention of Abyssinian Bruce who
was well aware of the unfact he was propagating, but his
inordinate vanity and self-esteem, contrasting so curiously with
many noble qualities, especially courage and self-reliance,
tempted him to this and many other a traveller's tale.

[FN#3] This is orthodox Moslem doctrine and it does something
for the dignity of human nature which has been so unwisely
depreciated and degraded by Christianity. The contrast of Moslem
dignity and Christian abasement in the East is patent to every
unblind traveller.

[FN#4] Here ends vol. iii. of the Mac. Edit.

[FN#5] This famous tale is a sister prose-poem to the "Arabian
Odyssey" Sindbad the Seaman; only the Bassorite's travels are in
Jinn-land and Japan. It has points of resemblance in
"fundamental outline" with the Persian Romance of the Fairy Hasan
Bánú and King Bahrám-i-Gúr. See also the Kathá (s.s.) and the two
sons of the Asúra Máyá; the Tartar "Sidhi Kúr" (Tales of a
Vampire or Enchanted Corpse) translated by Mr. W. J. Thoms (the
Father of "Folk-lore" in 1846,) in "Lays and Legends of various
Nations"; the Persian Bahár-i-Dánish (Prime of Lore). Miss
Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales"; Miss Frere's "Old Deccan Days" and
Mrs. F. A. Steel's "Tale of the King and his Seven Sons," with
notes by Lieutenant (now Captain) R. C. Temple (Folk-lore of the
Panjab, Indian Antiquary of March, 1882).

[FN#6] In the Mac. Edit. (vol. iv. i.) the merchant has two
sons who became one a brazier ("dealer in copper-wares" says Lane
iii. 385) and the other a goldsmith. The Bresl. Edit. (v. 264)
mentions only one son, Hasan, the hero of the story which is
entitled, "Tale of Hasan al-Basrí and the Isles of Wák Wák."

[FN#7] Arab. "Shásh Abyaz:" this distinctive sign of the True
Believer was adopted by the Persian to conceal his being a
fire-worshipper, Magian or "Guebre." The latter word was
introduced from the French by Lord Byron and it is certainly far
superior to Moore's "Gheber."

[FN#8] Persians being always a suspected folk.

[FN#9] Arab. "Al-Búdikah" afterwards used (Night dcclxxix) in
the sense of crucible or melting-pot, in modern parlance a
pipe-bowl; and also written "Bútakah," an Arab distortion of the
Persian "Bútah."

[FN#10] Arab. "Sindán" or "Sindiyán" (Dozy). "Sandán," anvil;
"Sindán," big, strong (Steingass).

[FN#11] Arab. "Kímíya," (see vol. i. 305) properly the
substance which transmutes metals, the "philosopher's stone"
which, by the by, is not a stone; and comes from , a
fluid, a wet drug, as opposed to Iksír (Al-) a dry
drug. Those who care to see how it is still studied will consult
my History of Sindh (chapt. vii) and my experience which pointed
only to the use made of it in base coinage. Hence in mod. tongue
Kímiyáwi, an alchemist, means a coiner, a smasher. The reader
must not suppose that the transmutation of metals is a dead
study: I calculate that there are about one hundred workers in
London alone.

[FN#12] Arab. "Al-Kír," a bellows also = Kúr, a furnace. For
the full meaning of this sentence, see my "Book of the Sword," p.
119.

[FN#13] Lit. "bade him lean upon it with the shears" (Al-Káz).

[FN#14] There are many kinds of Kohls (Hindos. Surmá and
Kajjal) used in medicine and magic. See Herklots, p. 227.

[FN#15] Arab. "Sabíkah" = bar, lamina, from "Sabk" = melting,
smelting: the lump in the crucible would be hammered out into an
ingot in order to conceal the operation

[FN#16] i.e. £375.

[FN#17] Such report has cost many a life: the suspicion was and
is still deadly as heresy in a "new Christian" under the
Inquisition.

[FN#18] Here there is a double entendre: openly it means, "Few
men recognise as they should the bond of bread and salt:" the
other sense would be (and that accounts for the smile), "What the
deuce do I care for the bond?"

[FN#19] Arab. "Kabbát" in the Bresl. Edit. "Ka'abán ": Lane
(iii. 519) reads "Ka'áb plur. of Ka'ab a cup."

[FN#20] A most palpable sneer. But Hasan is purposely
represented as a "softy" till aroused and energized by the magic
of Love.

[FN#21] Arab. "Al-iksír" (see Night dcclxxix, supra p. 9): the
Greek word which has returned from a trip to Arabia and
reappeared in Europe as "Elixir."

[FN#22] "Awák" plur. of "Ukíyah," the well-known "oke," or
"ocque," a weight varying from 1 to 2 lbs. In Morocco it is
pronounced "Wukíyah," and = the Spanish ounce (p. 279 Rudimentos
del Arabe Vulgar, etc., by Fr. José de Lorchundi, Madrid,
Rivadencyra, 1872).

[FN#23] These lines have occurred in vol. iv. 267, where
references to other places are given. I quote Lane by way of
variety. In the text they are supposed to have been written by
the Persian, a hint that Hasan would never be seen again.

[FN#24] i.e. a superfetation of iniquity.

[FN#25] Arab. "Kurbán" = offering, oblation to be brought to
the priest's house or to the altar of the tribal God Yahveh,
Jehovah (Levit. ii, 2-3 etc.). Amongst the Maronites Kurban is
the host (-wafer) and amongst the Turks 'Id al-Kurban
(sacrifice-feast) is the Greater Bayram, the time of Pilgrimage.

[FN#26] Nár = fire, being feminine, like the names of the other
"elements."

[FN#27] The Egyptian Kurbáj of hippopotamus-hide (Burkh. Nubia,
pp. 62,282) or elephant-hide (Turner ii. 365). Hence the Fr.
Cravache (as Cravat is from Croat).

[FN#28] In Mac. Edit. "Bahriyah": in Bresl. Edit. "Nawátíyah."
See vol. vi. 242, for , navita, nauta.

[FN#29] In Bresl. Edit. (iv. 285) "Yá Khwájah," for which see
vol. vi. 46.

[FN#30] Arab. "Tabl" (vulg. baz) = a kettle-drum about half a
foot broad held in the left hand and beaten with a stick or
leathern thong. Lane refers to his description (M.E. ii. chapt.
v.) of the Dervish's drum of tinned copper with parchment face,
and renders Zakhmah or Zukhmah (strap, stirrup-leather) by
"plectrum," which gives a wrong idea. The Bresl. Edit. ignores
the strap.

[FN#31] The "Spartivento" of Italy, mostly a tall headland which
divides the clouds. The most remarkable feature of the kind is
the Dalmatian Island, Pelagosa.

[FN#32] The "Rocs" (Al-Arkhákh) in the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 290).
The Rakham = aquiline vulture.

[FN#33] Lane here quotes a similar incident in the romance "Sayf
Zú al-Yazan," so called from the hero, whose son, Misr, is sewn
up in a camel's hide by Bahrám, a treacherous Magian, and is
carried by the Rukhs to a mountain-top.

[FN#34] These lines occurred in Night xxvi. vol. i. 275: I quote
Mr. Payne for variety.

[FN#35] Thus a Moslem can not only circumcise and marry himself
but can also bury canonically himself. The form of this prayer
is given by Lane M. E. chapt. xv.

[FN#36] i.e. If I fail in my self-imposed duty, thou shalt
charge me therewith on the Judgment-day.

[FN#37] Arab. "Al-Alwán," plur. of laun (colour). The latter
in Egyptian Arabic means a "dish of meat." See Burckhardt No.
279. I repeat that the great traveller's "Arabic Proverbs" wants
republishing for two reasons. First he had not sufficient
command of English to translate with the necessary laconism and
assonance: secondly in his day British Philistinism was too
rampant to permit a literal translation. Consequently the book
falls short of what the Oriental student requires; and I have
prepared it for my friend Mr. Quaritch.

[FN#38] i.e. Lofty, high-builded. See Night dcclxviii. vol. vii.
p. 347. In the Bresl. Edit. Al-Masíd (as in Al-Kazwíni): in the
Mac. Edit. Al-Mashid

[FN#39] Arab. "Munkati" here = cut off from the rest of the
world. Applied to a man, and a popular term of abuse in Al-Hijáz,
it means one cut off from the blessings of Allah and the benefits
of mankind; a pauvre sire. (Pilgrimage ii. 22.)

[FN#40] Arab. "Baras au Juzám," the two common forms of leprosy.
See vol. iv. 51. Popular superstition in Syria holds that coition
during the menses breeds the Juzám, Dáa al-Kabír (Great Evil) or
Dáa al-Fíl (Elephantine Evil), i.e. Elephantiasis and that the
days between the beginning of the flow (Sabíl) to that of coition
shows the age when the progeny will be attacked; for instance if
it take place on the first day, the disease will appear in the
tenth year, on the fourth the fortieth and so on. The only
diseases really dreaded by the Badawin are leprosy and small-pox.
Coition during the menses is forbidden by all Eastern faiths
under the severest penalties. Al-Mas'údi relates how a man thus
begotten became a determined enemy of Ali; and the ancient Jews
attributed the magical powers of Joshua Nazarenus to this
accident of his birth, the popular idea being that sorcerers are
thus impurely engendered.

[FN#41] By adoption - See vol. iii. 151. This sudden affection
(not love) suggests the "Come to my arms, my slight
acquaintance!" of the Anti-Jacobin. But it is true to Eastern
nature; and nothing can be more charming than this fast
friendship between the Princess and Hasan.

[FN#42] En tout bien et en tout honneur, be it understood.

[FN#43] He had done nothing of the kind; but the feminine mind
is prone to exaggeration. Also Hasan had told them a fib, to
prejudice them against the Persian.

[FN#44] These nervous movements have been reduced to a system in
the Turk. "Ihtilájnámeh" = Book of palpitations, prognosticating
from the subsultus tendinum and other involuntary movements of
the body from head to foot; according to Ja'afar the Just, Daniel
the Prophet, Alexander the Great; the Sages of Persia and the
Wise Men of Greece. In England we attend chiefly to the eye and
ear.

[FN#45] Revenge, amongst the Arabs, is a sacred duty; and, in
their state of civilization, society could not be kept together
without it. So the slaughter of a villain is held to be a
sacrifice to Allah, who amongst Christians claims for Himself the
monopoly of vengeance.

[FN#46] Arab. "Zindík." See vol. v. 230.

[FN#47] Lane translates this "put for him the remaining food and
water;" but Ai-Akhar (Mac. Edit.) evidently refers to the Najíb
(dromedary).

[FN#48] We can hardly see the heroism of the deed, but it must
be remembered that Bahram was a wicked sorcerer, whom it was
every good Moslem's bounden duty to slay. Compare the treatment
of witches in England two centuries ago.

[FN#49] The mother in Arab tales is ma mère, now becoming
somewhat ridiculous in France on account of the over use of that
venerable personage.

[FN#50] The forbidden closet occurs also in Sayf Zú al-Yazan,
who enters it and finds the bird-girls. Trébutien ii, 208 says,
"Il est assez remarquable qu'il existe en Allemagne une tradition
à peu près semblable, et qui a fourni le sujet d'un des contes de
Musaeus, entitulé, le voile enlevé." Here Hasan is artfully left
alone in a large palace without other companions but his thoughts
and the reader is left to divine the train of ideas which drove
him to open the door.

[FN#51] Arab. "Buhayrah" (Bresl. Edit. "Bahrah"), the tank or
cistern in the Hosh (court-yard) of an Eastern house. Here,
however, it is a rain-cistern on the flat roof of the palace (See
Night dcccviii).

[FN#52] This description of the view is one of the most gorgeous
in The Nights.

[FN#53] Here again are the "Swan-maidens" (See vol. v. 346) "one
of the primitive myths, the common heritage of the whole Aryan
(Iranian) race." In Persia Bahram-i-Gúr when carried off by the
Dív Sapíd seizes the Peri's dove-coat: in Santháli folk-lore
Torica, the Goatherd, steals the garment doffed by one of the
daughters of the sun; and hence the twelve birds of Russian
Story. To the same cycle belong the Seal-tales of the Faroe
Islands (Thorpe's Northern Mythology) and the wise women or
mermaids of Shetland (Hibbert). Wayland the smith captures a
wife by seizing a mermaid's raiment and so did Sir Hagán by
annexing the wardrobe of a Danubian water-nymph. Lettsom, the
translator, mixes up this swan-raiment with that of the Valkyries
or Choosers of the Slain. In real life stealing women's clothes
is an old trick and has often induced them, after having been
seen naked, to offer their persons spontaneously. Of this I knew
two cases in India, where the theft is justified by divine
example. The blue god Krishna, a barbarous and grotesque Hindu
Apollo, robbed the raiment of the pretty Gopálís (cowherdesses)
who were bathing in the Arjun River and carried them to the top
of a Kunduna tree; nor would he restore them till he had reviewed
the naked girls and taken one of them to wife. See also Imr
al-Kays (of the Mu'allakah) with "Onaiza" at the port of
Daratjuljul (Clouston's Arabian Poetry, p.4). A critic has
complained of my tracing the origin of the Swan-maiden legend to
the physical resemblance between the bird and a high-bred girl
(vol. v. 346). I should have explained my theory which is
shortly, that we must seek a material basis for all so-called
supernaturalisms, and that anthropomorphism satisfactorily
explains the Swan-maiden, as it does the angel and the devil.
There is much to say on the subject; but this is not the place
for long discussion.

[FN#54] Arab. "Nafs Ammárah," corresponding with our canting
term "The Flesh." Nafs al-Nátíkah is the intellectual soul or
function; Nafs al-Ghazabíyah = the animal function and Nafs al
Shahwáníyah = the vegetative property.

[FN#55] The lines occur in vol. ii. 331: I have quoted Mr.
Payne. Here they are singularly out of place.

[FN#56] Not the "green gown" of Anglo-India i.e. a white
ball-dress with blades of grass sticking to it in consequence of
a "fall backwards."

[FN#57] These lines occur in vol. i. 219: I have borrowed from
Torrens (p. 219).

[FN#58] The appearance of which ends the fast and begins the
Lesser Festival. See vol. i. 84.

[FN#59] See note, vol. i. 84, for notices of the large navel;
much appreciated by Easterns.

[FN#60] Arab. "Shá'ir Al-Walahán" = the love-distraught poet;
Lane has "a distracted poet." My learned friend Professor Aloys
Sprenger has consulted, upon the subject of Al-Walahán the
well-known Professor of Arabic at Halle, Dr. Thorbeck, who
remarks that the word (here as further on) must be an adjective,
mad, love-distraught, not a "lakab" or poetical cognomen. He
generally finds it written Al-Shá'ir al-Walahán (the
love-demented poet) not Al-Walahán al-Shá'ir = Walahán the Poet.
Note this burst of song after the sweet youth falls in love: it
explains the cause of verse-quotation in The Nights, poetry being
the natural language of love and battle.

[FN#61] "Them" as usual for "her."

[FN#62] Here Lane proposes a transposition, for "Wa-huwá (and
he) fi'l-hubbi," to read "Fi 'l-hubbi wa huwa (wa-hwa);" but the
latter is given in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#63] For the pun in "Sabr"=aloe or patience. See vol. i.
138. In Herr Landberg (i. 93) we find a misunderstanding of the
couplet--

"Aw'ákibu s-sabri (Kála ba'azuhum)
Mahmúdah: Kultu, 'khshi an takhirriní.'"

"The effects of patience" (or aloes) quoth one "are
praiseworthy!" Quoth I, "Much I fear lest it make me stool."
Mahmúdah is not only un laxatif, but a slang name for a
confection of aloes.

[FN#64] Arab. "Akúna fidá-ka." Fidá = ransom, self-sacrifice and
Fidá'an = instead of. The phrase, which everywhere occurs in The
Nights, means, "I would give my life to save thine "

[FN#65] Thus accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but
in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not
hesitate a moment in prescribing a fib.

[FN#66] i.e. the 25,000 Amazons who in the Bresl. Edit. (ii.
308) are all made to be the King's Banát" = daughters or
protégées. The Amazons of Dahome (see my "Mission") who may now
number 5,000 are all officially wives of the King and are called
by the lieges "our mothers."

[FN#67] The tale-teller has made up his mind about the damsel;
although in this part of the story she is the chief and eldest
sister and subsequently she appears as the youngest daughter of
the supreme Jinn King. The mystification is artfully explained
by the extraordinary likeness of the two sisters. (See Night
dcccxi.)

[FN#68] This is a reminiscence of the old-fashioned "marriage by
capture," of which many traces survive, even among the civilised
who wholly ignore their origin.

[FN#69] Meaning her companions and suite.

[FN#70] Arab. "'Abáah" vulg. "'Abáyah." See vol. ii. 133.

[FN#71] Feet in the East lack that development of sebaceous
glands which afflicts Europeans.

[FN#72] i.e. cutting the animals' throats after Moslem law.

[FN#73] In Night dcclxxviii. supra p.5, we find the orthodox
Moslem doctrine that "a single mortal is better in Allah's sight
than a thousand Jinns." For, I repeat, Al-Islam systematically
exalts human nature which Christianity takes infinite trouble to
degrade and debase. The results of its ignoble teaching are only
too evident in the East: the Christians of the so-called (and
miscalled) "Holy Land" are a disgrace to the faith and the
idiomatic Persian term for a Nazarene is "Tarsá" = funker,
coward.

[FN#74] Arab. "Sakaba Kúrahá;" the forge in which children are
hammered out?

[FN#75] Arab. "Má al-Maláhat" = water (brilliancy) of beauty.

[FN#76] The fourth of the Seven Heavens, the "Garden of
Eternity," made of yellow coral.

[FN#77] How strange this must sound to the Young Woman of London
in the nineteenth century.

[FN#78] "Forty days" is a quasi-religious period amongst Moslem
for praying, fasting and religious exercises: here it represents
our "honey-moon." See vol. v. p. 62.

[FN#79] Yá layta, still popular. Herr Carlo Landberg (Proverbes
et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol. i. of Syria, Leyden, E. J.
Brill, 1883) explains layta for rayta (=raayta) by permutation of
liquids and argues that the contraction is ancient (p. 42). But
the Herr is no Arabist: "Layta" means "would to Heaven," or,
simply "I wish," "I pray" (for something possible or impossible);
whilst "La'alla" (perhaps, it may be) prays only for the
possible: and both are simply particles governing the noun in
the oblique or accusative case.

[FN#80] "His" for "her," i.e. herself, making somewhat of
confusion between her state and that of her son.

[FN#81] i.e. his mother; the words are not in the Mac. Edit.

[FN#82] Baghdad is called House of Peace, amongst other reasons,
from the Dijlah (Tigris) River and Valley "of Peace." The word
was variously written Baghdád, Bághdád, (our old Bughdaud and
Bagdat), Baghzáz, Baghzán, Baghdán, Baghzám and Maghdád as Makkah
and Bakkah (Koran iii. 90). Religious Moslems held Bágh (idol)
and Dád (gift) an ill-omened conjunction, and the Greeks changed
it to Eirenopolis. (See Ouseley's Oriental Collcctions, vol. i.
pp. 18-20.)

[FN#83] This is a popular saying but hardly a "vulgar proverb."
(Lane iii. 522.) It reminds rather of Shakespear's:

"So loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly."

[FN#84] i.e. God forbid that I should oppose thee!

[FN#85] Here the writer again forgets apparently, that Shahrazad
is speaking: she may, however, use the plural for the singular
when speaking of herself.

[FN#86] i.e. She would have pleaded ill-treatment and lawfully
demanded to be sold.

[FN#87] The Hindus speak of "the only bond that woman knows--her
heart."

[FN#88] i.e. a rarity, a present (especially in Persian).

[FN#89] Arab. "Al-bisát" wa'l-masnad lit. the carpet and the
cushion.

[FN#90] For "Báb al-bahr" and "Báb al-Barr" see vol. iii. 281.

[FN#91] She was the daughter of Ja'afar bin Mansúr; but, as will
be seen, The Nights again and again called her father Al-Kásim.

[FN#92] This is an error for the fifth which occurs in the
popular saying, "Is he the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbás!" i.e.
Harun al-Rashid. Lane (note, in loco) thus accounts for the
frequent mention of the Caliph, the greatest of the Abbasides in
The Nights. But this is a causa non causa.

[FN#93] i.e. I find thy beauty all-sufficient. So the proverb
"The son of the quarter (young neighbour) filleth not the eye,"
which prefers a stranger.

[FN#94] They are mere doggerel, like most of the pieces de
circonstance.

[FN#95] Afterwards called Wák Wák, and in the Bresl. Edit. Wák
al-Wák. See Lane's notes upon these Islands. Arab Geographers
evidently speak of two Wak Waks. Ibn al-Fakih and Al-Mas'údi
(Fr. Transl., vol. iii. 6-7) locate one of them in East Africa
beyond Zanzibar and Sofala. "Le territoire des Zendjes
(Zanzibar-Negroids) commence au canal (Al-Khalij) dérivé du haut
Nil (the Juln River?) et se prolonge jusqu'au pays de Sofalah et
des Wak-Wak." It is simply the peninsula of Guardafui (Jard
Hafun) occupied by the Gallas, pagans and Christians, before
these were ousted by the Moslem Somal; and the former perpetually
ejaculated "Wak" (God) as Moslems cry upon Allah. This
identification explains a host of other myths such as the
Amazons, who as Marco Polo tells us held the "Female Island"
Socotra (Yule ii. 396). The fruit which resembled a woman's head
(whence the puelloe Wakwakienses hanging by the hair from trees),
and which when ripe called out "Wak Wak" and "Allah al-Khallák"
(the Creator) refers to the Calabash-tree (Adausonia digitata),
that grotesque growth, a vegetable elephant, whose gourds,
something larger than a man's head, hang by a slender filament.
Similarly the "cocoa" got its name, in Port. = Goblin, from the
fancied face at one end. The other Wak Wak has been identified in
turns with the Seychelles, Madagascar, Malacca, Sunda or Java
(this by Langlès), China and Japan. The learned Prof. de Goeje
(Arabishe Berichten over Japan, Amsterdam, Muller, 1880) informs
us that in Canton the name of Japan is Wo-Kwok, possibly a
corruption of Koku-tan, the ebony-tree (Diospyros ebenum) which
Ibn Khor-dábah and others find together with gold in an island
4,500 parasangs from Suez and East of China. And we must
remember that Basrah was the chief starting-place for the
Celestial Empire during the rule of the Tang dynasty (seventh and
ninth centuries). Colonel J. W. Watson of Bombay suggests New
Guinea or the adjacent islands where the Bird of Paradise is said
to cry "Wak Wak!" Mr. W. F. Kirby in the Preface (p. ix.) to his
neat little book "The New Arabian Nights," says: "The Islands of
Wak-Wak, seven years' journey from Bagdad, in the story of Hasan,
have receded to a distance of a hundred and fifty years' journey
in that of Majin (of Khorasan). There is no doubt(?) that the
Cora Islands, near New Guinea, are intended; for the wonderful
fruits which grow there are Birds of Paradise, which settle in
flocks on the trees at sunset and sunrise, uttering this very
cry." Thus, like Ophir, Wak Wak has wandered all over the world
and has been found even in Peru by the Turkish work Tárikh
al-Hind al-Gharbi = History of the West Indies (Orient. Coll. iii
189).

[FN#96] I accept the emendation of Lane's Shaykh, "Nasím "
(Zephyr) for "Nadím " (cup-companion).

[FN#97] "Jannat al-Ná'im" = Garden of Delights is No. V Heaven,
made of white diamond.

[FN#98] This appears to her very prettily put.

[FN#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.

[FN#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."

[FN#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.

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

[FN#103] Arab. "Ghayúr"--jealous, an admirable epithet which
Lane dilutes to "changeable"--making a truism of a metaphor.

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

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

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

[FN#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.

[FN#108] The month which begins the Moslem year.

[FN#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.

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

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

[FN#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."

[FN#113] Arab. "Kantara al-lijám fi Karbús (bow) sarjih."

[FN#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.

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

[FN#116] Arab. "Adim;" now called Bulghár, our Moroccan
leather.

[FN#117] Arab. "Zinád," which Lane renders by "instruments for
striking fire," and Mr. Payne, after the fashion of the
translators of Al-Hariri, "flint and steel."

[FN#118] A congener of Hasan and Husayn, little used except in
Syria where it is a favourite name for Christians. The Muhít of
Butrus Al-Bostáni (s.v.) tells us that it also means a bird
called Abú Hasan and supplies various Egyptian synonyms. In Mod.
Arab. Grammar the form Fa''úl is a diminutive as Hammúd for
Ahmad, 'Ammúr for 'Amrú. So the fem. form, Fa''úlah, e.g.
Khaddúgah = little Khadijah and Naffúsah=little Nafisah; Ar'úrah
= little clitoris - whereas in Heb. it is an incrementative e.g.
dabbúlah a large dablah (cake or lump of dried figs, etc.).

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

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

[FN#121] Arab. "Dakkah," which Lane translates by "settee."

[FN#122] Arab. "Ambar al-Khám" the latter word (raw) being pure
Persian.

[FN#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.

[FN#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 (Zát) al-Dawáhi." It will be remembered that the title
means calamitous to the foe.

[FN#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, "Yá Ummí!" = O
my mother. This is pledging one's word, as it were, not to make
love to her.

[FN#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.

[FN#127] These are the Puellæ 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!
Wak!' (God! God!) till their hair is cut, and when it is cut
they die; and the islanders understand this cry wherefrom they
augure ill." The Ajáib al-Hind (chapt. xv.) places in Wak-land
the Samandal, a bird which enters the fire without being burnt
evidently the Egyptian "Pi-Benni," which the Greeks metamorphised
to "Phoenix." It also mentions a hare-like animal, now male then
female, and the Somal behind Cape Guardafui tell the same tale of
their Cynhyænas.

[FN#128] i.e. I will keep thee as though thou wert the apple of
my eye.

[FN#129] A mere exaggeration of the "Gull-fairs" noted by
travellers in sundry islands as Ascension and the rock off
Brazilian Santos.

[FN#130] Arab. "Kámil wa Basít wa Wáfir" = the names of three
popular metres, for which see the Terminal Essay.

[FN#131] Arab. "Manáshif" = drying towels, Plur. of Minshafah,
and the popular term which Dr. Jonathan Swift corrupted to
"Munnassaf." Lane (Nights, Introduct. p. ix.).

[FN#132] Arab. "Shafaif" opposed to "Shafah" the mouth-lips.

[FN#133] Fountains of Paradise. This description is a fair
instance of how the Saj'a (prose-rhyme) dislocates the order; an
Arab begins with hair, forehead, eyebrows and lashes and when he
reaches the nose, he slips down to the toes for the sake of the
assonance. If the latter be neglected the whole list of charms
must be otherwise ordered; and the student will compare Mr.
Payne's version of this passage with mine.

[FN#134] A fair specimen of the Arab logogriph derived from the
Abjad Alphabet which contains only the Hebrew and Syriac letters
not the six Arabic. Thus 4 X 5=20 which represents the Kaf (K)
and 6 X 10=60, or Sin (S). The whole word is thus "Kos", the
Greek or , and the lowest word, in Persian as in
Arabic, for the female pudenda, extensively used in vulgar abuse.
In my youth we had at the University something of the kind,

To five and five and fifty-five
The first of letters add
To make a thing to please a King
And drive a wise man mad.

Answer VVLVA. Very interesting to the anthropological student is
this excursus of Hasan, who after all manner of hardships and
horrors and risking his life to recover his wife and children,
breaks out into song on the subject of her privities. And it can
hardly be tale-teller's gag as both verse and prose show
considerable art in composition. (See p. 348.)

Supplementary Note To Hasan of Bassorah.

Note(p.93)--There is something wondrous naïve in a lover who,
when asked by his mistress to sing a song in her honour, breaks
out into versical praises of her parts. But even the classical
Arab authors did not disdain such themes. See in Al-Harírí (Ass.
of Mayyáfarikín) where Abú Zayd laments the impotency of old age
in form of a Rasy or funeral oration (Preston p. 484, and Chenery
p. 221). It completely deceived Sir William Jones, who inserted
it into the chapter "De Poesi Funebri," p. 527 (Poeseos Asiaticæ
Commentarii), gravely noting, "Hæc Elegia non admodum dissimilis
esse videtur pulcherrimi illius carminis de Sauli et Jonathani
obitu; at que adeò versus iste ‘ubi provocant adversarios nunquam
rediit a pugnæ contentione sine spiculo sanguine imbuto, ‘ex
Hebræoreddi videtur,

A sanguine occisorum, a fortium virorum adipe,
Arcus Jonathani non rediit irritus."

I need hardly say with Captain Lockett (226) that this "Sabb
warrior," this Arabian Achilles, is the celebrated Bonus Deus or
Hellespontiacus of the Ancients. The oration runs thus:--

O folk I have a wondrous tale, so rare
Much shall it profit hearers wise and ware!
I saw in salad-years a potent Brave
And sharp of edge and point his warrior glaive;
Who entered joust and list with hardiment
Fearless of risk, of victory confident,
His vigorous onset straitest places oped
And easy passage through all narrows groped:
He ne'er encountered foe in single fight
But came from tilt with spear in blood stained bright;
Nor stormed a fortress howso strong and stark--
With fencèd gates defended deep and dark--
When shown his flag without th' auspicious cry
"Aidance from Allah and fair victory nigh!"‡
Thus wise full many a night his part he played
In strength and youthtide's stately garb arrayed,
Dealing to fair young girl delicious joy
And no less welcome to the blooming boy.
But Time ne'er ceased to stint his wondrous strength
(Steadfast and upright as the gallow's length)
Until the Nights o'erthrew him by their might
And friends contemned him for a feckless wight;
Nor was a wizard but who wasted skill
Over his case, nor leach could heal his ill.
Then he abandoned arms abandoned him
Who gave and took salutes so fierce and grim;
And now lies prostrate drooping haughty crest;
For who lives longest him most ills molest.
Then see him, here he lies on bier for bet;--
Who will a shroud bestow on stranger dead?

A fair measure of the difference between Eastern and Western
manners is afforded by such a theme being treated by their
gravest writers and the verses being read and heard by the
gravest and most worshipful men, whilst amongst us Preston and
Chenery do not dare even to translate them. The latter, indeed,
had all that immodest modesty for which English professional
society is notable in this xixth century. He spoiled by
needlessly excluding from a scientific publication (Mem. R.A.S.)
all of my Proverbia Communia Syriaca (see Unexplored Sryia, i.
364) and every item which had a shade of double entendre. But
Nemesis frequently found him out: during his short and obscure
rule in Printing House Square, The Thunderer was distinguished by
two of the foulest indecencies that ever appeared in an English
paper.

‡ The well-known Koranic verse, whereby Allah is introduced into
an indecent tale and "Holy Writ" is punned upon. I have noticed
(iii. 206) that victory Fat'h lit.=opening everything (as e.g. a
maidenhead).

[FN#135] Egyptian and Syrian vulgar term for Mawálíyah or
Mawáliyah, a short poem on subjects either classical or vulgar.
It generally consists of five lines all rhyming except the
penultimate. The metre is a species of the Basít which, however,
admits of considerable poetical license; this being according to
Lane the usual "Weight,"

/ / / .

The scheme is distinctly anapæstic and Mr. Lyall (Translations of
Ancient Arabic Poetry) compares with a cognate metre, the Tawíl,
certain lines in Abt Vogler, e.g.

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

[FN#136] i.e. repeat the chapter of the Koran termed The
Opening, and beginning with these words, "Have we not opened thy
breast for thee and eased thee of thy burden which galled thy
back? *** Verily with the difficulty cometh ease!"--Koran xciv.
vol. 1, 5.

[FN#137] Lane renders Nur al-Hudà (Light of Salvation) by Light
of Day which would be Nur al-Hadà.

[FN#138] In the Bresl. Edit. "Yá Salám"=O safety!--a vulgar
ejaculation.

[FN#139] A favourite idiom meaning from the mischief which may
(or will) come from the Queen.

[FN#140] He is not strong-minded but his feminine persistency of
purpose, likest to that of a sitting hen, is confirmed by the
"Consolations of religion." The character is delicately drawn.

[FN#141] In token that she intended to act like a man.

[FN#142] This is not rare even in real life: Moslem women often
hide and change their names for superstitious reasons, from the
husband and his family.

[FN#143] Arab. "Sabab" which also means cause. Vol. ii. 14.
There is the same metaphorical use of "Habl"= cord and cause.

[FN#144] Arab. "Himà," a word often occurring in Arab poetry,
domain, a pasture or watered land forcibly kept as far as a dog's
bark would sound by some masterful chief like "King Kulayb." (See
vol. ii. 77.) This tenure was forbidden by Mohammed except for
Allah and the Apostle (i.e. himself). Lane translates it
"asylum."

[FN#145] She was a maid and had long been of marriageable age.

[FN#146] The young man had evidently "kissed the Blarney stone";
but the flattery is the more telling as he speaks from the heart.

[FN#147] "Inshallah " here being= D. V.

[FN#148] i.e. The "Place of Light" (Pharos), or of Splendour.
Here we find that Hasan's wife is the youngest sister, but with
an extraordinary resemblance to the eldest, a very masterful
young person. The anagnorisis is admirably well managed.

[FN#149] i.e. the sweetmeats of the feast provided for the
returning traveller. The old woman (like others) cannot resist
the temptation of a young man's lips. Happily for him she goes
so far and no farther.

[FN#150] The first, fourth, fifth and last names have already
occurred: the others are in order, Star o' Morn, Sun of Undtirn
and Honour of Maidenhood. They are not merely fanciful, but are
still used in Egypt and Syria.

[FN#151] Arab. "Fájirah" and elsewhere "Ahirah," =whore and
strumpet used often in loose talk as mere abuse without special
meaning.

[FN#152] This to Westerns would seem a most improbable detail,
but Easterns have their own ideas concerning "Al-Muhabbat
al-ghariziyah" =natural affection, blood speaking to blood, etc.

[FN#153] One of the Hells (see vol. iv. 143). Here it may be
advisable to give the names of the Seven Heavens (which are
evidently based upon Ptolemaic astronomy) and which correspond
with the Seven Hells after the fashion of Arabian system-mania.
(1) Dar al-Jalál (House of Glory) made of pearls; (2) Dár
al-Salám (of Rest), rubies and jacinths; (3) Jannat al-Maawá
(Garden of Mansions, not "of mirrors," as Herklots has it, p.
98), made of yellow copper; (4) Jannat al-Khuld (of Eternity),
yellow coral; (5) Jannat al-Na'ím (of Delights), white diamond;
(6) Jannat al-Firdaus (of Paradise), red gold; and (7) Jannat
al-'Adn (of Eden, or Al-Karár= of everlasting abode, which some
make No. 8), of red pearls or pure musk. The seven Hells are
given in vol. v. 241; they are intended for Moslems (Jahannam);
Christians (Lazà); Jews (Hutamah); Sabians (Sa'ir); Guebles
(Sakar); Pagans or idolaters (Jahím); and Hypocrites (Háwiyah).

[FN#154] Arab. "'Atb," more literally= "blame," "reproach."

[FN#155] Bresl. Edit. In the Mac. "it returned to the place
whence I had brought it"--an inferior reading.

[FN#156] The dreams play an important part in the Romances of
Chivalry, e.g. the dream of King Perion in Amadis de Gaul, chapt.
ii. (London; Longmans, 1803).

[FN#157] Amongst Moslems bastardy is a sore offence and a
love-child is exceedingly rare. The girl is not only carefully
guarded but she also guards herself knowing that otherwise she
will not find a husband. Hence seduction is all but unknown. The
wife is equally well guarded and lacks opportunities hence
adultery is found difficult except in books. Of the Ibn (or
Walad) Harám (bastard as opposed to the Ibn Halál) the proverb
says, "This child is not thine, so the madder he be the more is
thy glee!" Yet strange to say public prostitution has never been
wholly abolished in Al-Islam. Al-Mas'údi tells us that in Arabia
were public prostitutes'(Bagháyá), even before the days of the
Apostle, who affected certain quarters as in our day the
Tartúshah of Alexandria and the Hosh Bardak of Cairo. Here says
Herr Carlo Landberg (p. 57, Syrian Proverbs) "Elles parlent une
langue toute à elle." So pretentious and dogmatic a writer as
the author of Proverbes et Dictons de la Province de Syrie, ought
surely to have known that the Hosh Bardak is the head-quarters of
the Cairene Gypsies. This author, who seems to write in order to
learn, reminds me of an acute Oxonian undergraduate of my day
who, when advised to take a "coach," became a "coach" himself.

[FN#158] These lines occur in vol. vii. p. 340. I quote Mr.
Payne.

[FN#159] She shows all the semi-maniacal rancour of a good
woman, or rather a woman who has not broken the eleventh
commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out," against an erring
sister who has been discovered. In the East also these unco'gúid
dames have had, and too often have, the power to carry into
effect the cruelty and diabolical malignity which in London and
Paris must vent itself in scan. mag. and anonymous letters.

[FN#160] These faintings and trances are as common in the
Romances of Chivalry e.g. Amadis of Gaul, where they unlace the
garments to give more liberty, pour cold water on the face and
bathe the temples and pulses with diluted vinegar (for rose
water) exactly as they do in The Nights.

[FN#161] So Hafiz, "Bád-i-Sabá chu bugzarí" etc.

[FN#162] Arab. "Takiyah." See vol. i. 224 and for the Tarn-Kappe
vol. iv. p. 176. In the Sinthásana Dwatrinsati (vulgo. Singhásan
Battísí), or Thirty-two Tales of a Throne, we find a bag always
full of gold, a bottomless purse; earth which rubbed on the
forehead overcomes all; a rod which during the first watch of the
night furnishes jewelled ornaments; in the second a beautiful
girl; in the third invisibility, and in the fourth a deadly foe
or death; a flower-garland which renders the possessor invisible
and an unfading lotus-flower which produces a diamond every day.

[FN#163] Arab. "Judad," plur. of Jadíd, lit.= new coin, ergo
applied to those old and obsolete; 10 Judad were= one nusf or
half dirham.

[FN#164] Arab. "Raff," a shelf proper, running round the room
about 7-7½ feet from the ground. During my day it was the
fashion in Damascus to range in line along the Raff splendid
porcelain bowls brought by the Caravans in olden days from China,
whilst on the table were placed French and English specimens of
white and gold "china" worth perhaps a franc each.

[FN#165] Lane supposes that the glass and china-ware had fallen
upon the divan running round the walls under the Raff and were
not broken.

[FN#166] These lines have occurred in Night dclxxxix. vol. vii.
p. 119. I quote Lane.

[FN#167] The lines have occurred before. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#168] This formula, I repeat, especially distinguishes the
Tale of Hasan of Bassorah.

[FN#169] These lines have occurred in vol. 1. 249. I quote Lane.

[FN#170] She speaks to the "Gallery," who would enjoy a loud
laugh against Mistress Gadabout. The end of the sentence must
speak to the heart of many a widow.

[FN#171] These lines occur in vol. i. 25: so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#172] Arab. "Musáhikah;" the more usual term for a Tribade
is "Sahíkah" from "Sahk" in the sense of rubbing: both also are
applied to onanists and masturbators of the gender feminine.

[FN#173] i.e. by way of halter. This jar is like the cask in
Auerbach's Keller; and has already been used by witches; Night
dlxxxvii. vol. vi. 158.

[FN#174] Here they are ten but afterwards they are reduced to
seven: I see no reason for changing the text with Lane and Payne.

[FN#175] Wazir of Solomon. See vol. i. 42; and vol. iii. 97.

[FN#176] Arab. "Ism al-A'azam," the Ineffable Name, a
superstition evidently derived from the Talmudic fancies of the
Jews concerning their tribal god, Yah or Yahvah.

[FN#177] The tradition is that Mohámmed asked Akáf al-Wadá'ah
"Hast a wife?"; and when answered in the negative, "Then thou
appertainest to the brotherhood of Satans! An thou wilt be one
of the Christian monks then company therewithal; but an thou be
of us, know that it is our custom to marry!"

[FN#178] The old woman, in the East as in the West, being the
most vindictive of her kind. I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 70)
that a Badawi will sometimes though in shame take the blood-wit;
but that if it be offered to an old woman she will dash it to the
ground and clutch her knife and fiercely swear by Allah that she
will not eat her son's blood.

[FN#179] Neither dome nor fount etc. are mentioned before, the
normal inadvertency.

[FN#180] In Eastern travel the rest comes before the eating and
drinking.

[FN#181] Arab. "'Id" (pron.'Eed) which I have said (vol. i. 42,
317) is applied to the two great annual festivals, the "Fête of
Sacrifice," and the "Break-Fast." The word denotes restoration
to favour and Moslems explain as the day on which Adam (and Eve)
who had been expelled from Paradise for disobedience was
re-established (Uída) by the relenting of Allah. But the name
doubtless dates amongst Arabs from days long before they had
heard of the "Lord Nomenclator."

[FN#182] Alluding to Hasan seizing her feather dress and so
taking her to wife.

[FN#183] Arab. "Kharajú"=they (masc.) went forth, a vulgarism
for "Kharajna" (fem.)

[FN#184] Note the notable housewife who, at a moment when youth
would forget everything, looks to the main chance.

[FN#185] Arab. "Al-Malakút" (not "Malkút" as in Freytag) a Sufi
term for the world of Spirits (De Lacy Christ, Ar. i. 451).
Amongst Eastern Christians it is vulgarly used in the fem. and
means the Kingdom of Heaven, also the preaching of the Gospel.

[FN#186] This is so rare, even amongst the poorest classes in
the East, that it is mentioned with some emphasis.

[FN#187] A beauty among the Egyptians, not the Arabs.

[FN#188] True Fellah--"chaff."

[FN#189] Alluding to the well-known superstition, which has
often appeared in The Nights, that the first object seen in the
morning, such as a crow, a cripple, or a cyclops determines the
fortunes of the day. Notices in Eastern literature are as old as
the days of the Hitopadesa; and there is a something instinctive
in the idea to a race of early risers. At an hour when the
senses are most impressionable the aspect of unpleasant
spectacles ahs double effect.

[FN#190] Arab. "Masúkah," the stick used for driving cattle,
bâton gourdin (Dozy). Lane applies the word to a wooden plank
used for levelling the ground.

[FN#191] i.e. the words I am about to speak to thee.

[FN#192] Arab. "Sahifah," which may mean "page" (Lane) or "book"
(Payne).

[FN#193] Pronounce, "Abussa'ádát" = Father of Prosperities:
Lane imagines that it came from the Jew's daughter being called
"Sa'adat." But the latter is the Jew's wife (Night dcccxxxiii)
and the word in the text is plural.

[FN#194] Arab. "Furkh samak" lit. a fish-chick, an Egyptian
vulgarism.

[FN#195] Arab. "Al-Rasif"; usually a river-quay, levée, an
embankment. Here it refers to the great dyke which distributed
the Tigris-water.

[FN#196] Arab. "Dajlah," see vol. i, p 180. It is evidently
the origin of the biblical "Hiddekel" "Hid" = fierceness,
swiftness.

[FN#197] Arab. "Bayáz" a kind of Silurus (S. Bajad, Forsk.)
which Sonnini calls Bayatto, Saksatt and Hébedé; also Bogar
(Bakar, an ox). The skin is lubricous, the flesh is soft and
insipid and the fish often grows to the size of a man. Captain
Speke and I found huge specimens in the Tangany ika Lake.

[FN#198] Arab. "Mu'allim," vulg. "M'allim," prop.= teacher,
master esp. of a trade, a craft. In Egypt and Syria it is a
civil address to a Jew or a Christian, as Hájj is to a Moslem.

[FN#199] Arab. "Gharámah," an exaction, usually on the part of
government like a corvée etc. The Europeo-Egyptian term is
Avania (Ital.) or Avanie (French).

[FN#200] Arab. "Sayyib-hu" an Egyptian vulgarism found also in
Syria. Hence Sáibah, a woman who lets herself go (a-whoring)
etc. It is syn. with "Dashar," which Dozy believes to be a
softening of Jashar; and Jashsh became Dashsh.

[FN#201] The Silurus is generally so called in English on
account of its feeler-acting mustachios.

[FN#202] See Night dcccvii, vol. viii. p. 94.

[FN#203] This extraordinary confusion of two distinct religious
mythologies cannot be the result of ignorance. Educated Moslems
know at least as much as Christians do, on these subjects, but
the Rawi or story-teller speaks to the "Gallery." In fact it
becomes a mere ‘chaff' and The Nights give some neat specimens of
our modern linguistic.

[FN#204] See vol. ii. 197. "Al-Siddíkah" (fem.) is a title of
Ayishah, who, however, does not appear to have deserved it.

[FN#205] The Jew's wife.

[FN#206] Here is a double entendre. The fisherman meant a word
or two. The Jew understood the Shibboleth of the Moslem Creed,
popularly known as the "Two Words,"--I testify that there is no
Ilah (god) but Allah (the God) and I testify that Mohammed is the
Messenger of Allah. Pronouncing this formula would make the Jew
a Moslem. Some writers are surprised to see a Jew ordering a
Moslem to be flogged; but the former was rich and the latter was
poor. Even during the worst days of Jewish persecutions their
money-bags were heavy enough to lighten the greater part, if not
the whole of their disabilities. And the Moslem saying is, "The
Jew is never your (Moslem or Christian) equal: he must be either
above you or below you." This is high, because unintentional
praise of the (self-) Chosen People.

[FN#207] He understands the "two words" (Kalmatáni) the Moslem's
double profession of belief; and Khalifah's reply embodies the
popular idea that the number of Moslems (who will be saved) is
preordained and that no art of man can add to it or take from it.

[FN#208] Arab. "Mamarr al-Tujjár" (passing-place of the
traders) which Lane renders "A chamber within the place through
which the traders passed." At the end of the tale (Night
dccxlv.) we find him living in a Khan and the Bresl. Edit. (see
my terminal note) makes him dwell in a magazine (i.e. ground-
floor store-room) of a ruined Khan.

[FN#209] The text is somewhat too concise and the meaning is
that the fumes of the Hashish he had eaten ("his mind under the
influence of hasheesh," says Lane) suggested to him, etc.

[FN#210] Arab. "Mamrak" either a simple aperture in ceiling or
roof for light and air or a more complicated affair of lattice-
work and plaster; it is often octagonal and crowned with a little
dome. Lane calls it "Memrak," after the debased Cairene
pronunciation, and shows its base in his sketch of a Ka'áh (M.E.,
Introduction).

[FN#211] Arab. "Kamar." This is a practice especially amongst
pilgrims. In Hindostan the girdle, usually a waist-shawl, is
called Kammar-band our old "Cummerbund." Easterns are too
sensible not to protect the pit of the stomach, that great
ganglionic centre, against sun, rain and wind, and now our
soldiers in India wear flannel-belts on the march.

[FN#212] Arab. "Fa-immá 'alayhá wa-immá bihá," i.e. whether
(luck go) against it or (luck go) with it.

[FN#213] "O vilest of sinners!" alludes to the thief. "A
general plunge into worldly pursuits and pleasures announced the
end of the pilgrimage-ceremonies. All the devotees were now
"whitewashed"--the book of their sins was a tabula rasa: too many
of them lost no time in making a new departure down South and in
opening a fresh account" (Pilgrimage iii. 365). I have noticed
that my servant at Jeddah would carry a bottle of Raki, uncovered
by a napkin, through the main streets.

[FN#214] The copper cucurbites in which Solomon imprisoned the
rebellious Jinns, often alluded to in The Nights.

[FN#215] i.e. Son of the Chase: it is prob. a corruption of the
Persian Kurnas, a pimp, a cuckold, and introduced by way of
chaff, intelligible only to a select few "fast" men.

[FN#216] For the name see vol. ii.61, in the Tale of Ghánim bin
'Ayyúb where the Caliph's concubine is also drugged by the Lady
Aubaydah.

[FN#217] We should say, "What is this?" etc. The lines have
occurred before so I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#218] Zubaydah, I have said, was the daughter of Ja'afar, son
of the Caliph al-Mansur, second Abbaside. The story-teller
persistently calls her daughter of Al-Kásim for some reason of
his own; and this he will repeat in Night dcccxxxix.

[FN#219] Arab. "Shakhs," a word which has travelled as far as
Hindostan.

[FN#220] Arab. "Shamlah" described in dictionaries, as a cloak
covering the whole body. For Hizám (girdle) the Bresl. Edit.
reads "Hirám" vulg. "Ehrám," the waist-cloth, the Pilgrim's
attire.

[FN#221] He is described by Al-Siyúti (p. 309) as "very fair,
tall handsome and of captivating appearance."

[FN#222] Arab. "Uzn al-Kuffah" lit. "Ear of the basket," which
vulgar Egyptians pronounce "Wizn," so "Wajh" (face) becomes
"Wishsh" and so forth.

[FN#223] Arab. "Bi-fardayn" = with two baskets, lit. "two
singles," but the context shows what is meant. English Frail and
French Fraile are from Arab. "Farsalah" a parcel (now esp. of
coffee-beans) evidently derived from the low Lat. "Parcella" (Du
Cange, Paris, firmin Didot 1845). Compare "ream," vol. v. 109.

[FN#224] Arab. "Sátúr," a kind of chopper which here would be
used for the purpose of splitting and cleaning and scaling the
fish.

[FN#225] And, consequently, that the prayer he is about to make
will find ready acceptance.

[FN#226] Arab. "Ruh bilá Fuzúl" (lit. excess, exceeding) still a
popular phrase.

[FN#227] i.e. better give the fish than have my head broken.

[FN#228] Said ironicè, a favourite figure of speech with the
Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.

[FN#229] The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. 274.

[FN#230] This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would
still be admired wherever Arabs are not "frankified."

[FN#231] Arab. "Shibábah;" Lane makes it a kind of reed-
flageolet.

[FN#232] These lines occur in vol. i. 76: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#233] The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our
sanding the sugar and going to church.

[FN#234] Arab. "Yá Shukayr," from Shakar, being red (clay,
etc.): Shukár is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim.
Form. Lane's Shaykh made it a dim. of "Ashkar" = tawny, ruddy (of
complexion), so the former writes, "O Shukeyr." Mr. Payne
prefers "O Rosy cheeks."

[FN#235] For "Sandal," see vol. ii. 50. Sandalí properly means
an Eunuch clean rasé, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandal-wood.

[FN#236] Arab. "Yá mumátil," one who retards payment.

[FN#237] Arab. "Kirsh al-Nukhál" = guts of bran, a term too
little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But
Khalifah is a Fallah-grazioso of normal assurance shrewd withal;
he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and he uses
the first epithet that comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii.
for the sudden change in Khalifah.

[FN#238] So the Persian "May your shadow never be less" means, I
have said, the shadow which you throw over your servant. Shade,
cold water and fresh breezes are the joys of life in arid Arabia.

[FN#239] When a Fellah demanded money due to him by the
Government of Egypt, he was a once imprisoned for arrears of
taxes and thus prevented from being troublesome. I am told that
matters have improved under English rule, but I "doubt the fact."

[FN#240] This freak is of course not historical. The tale-
teller introduces it to enhance the grandeur and majesty of Harun
al-Rashid, and the vulgar would regard it as a right kingly
diversion. Westerns only wonder that such things could be.

[FN#241] Uncle of the Prophet: for his death see Pilgrimage ii.
248.

[FN#242] First cousin of the Prophet, son of Abú Tálib, a
brother of Al-Abbas from whom the Abbasides claimed descent.

[FN#243] i.e. I hope thou hast or Allah grant thou have good
tidings to tell me.

[FN#244] Arab. "Nákhúzah Zulayt." The former, from the Persian
Nákhodá or ship-captain which is also used in a playful sense "a
godless wight," one owning no (ná) God (Khudá). Zulayt = a low
fellow, blackguard.

[FN#245] Yásamín and Narjis, names of slave-girls or eunuchs.

[FN#246] Arab. Tamar-hanná, the cheapest of dyes used ever by
the poorest classes. Its smell, I have said, is that of newly
mown hay, and is prized like that of the tea-rose.

[FN#247] The formula (meaning, "What has he to do here?") is by
no means complimentary.

[FN#248] Arab. "Jarrah" (pron. "Garrah") a "jar." See Lane
(M.E. chapt. v.) who was deservedly reproached by Baron von
Hammer for his superficial notices. The "Jarrah" is of pottery,
whereas the "Dist" is a large copper chauldron and the Khalkinah
one of lesser size.

[FN#249] i.e. What a bother thou art, etc.

[FN#250] This sudden transformation, which to us seems
exaggerated and unnatural, appears in many Eastern stories and in
the biographies of their distinguished men, especially students.
A youth cannot master his lessons; he sees a spider climbing a
slippery wall and after repeated falls succeeding. Allah opens
the eyes of his mind, his studies become easy to him, and he ends
with being an Allámah (doctissimus).

[FN#251] Arab. "Bismillah, Námí!" here it is not a blessing,
but a simple invitation, "Now please go to sleep."

[FN#252] The modern inkcase of the Universal East is a lineal
descendant of the wooden palette with writing reeds. See an
illustration of that of "Amásis, the good god and lord of the two
lands" (circ. B.C. 1350) in British Museum (p. 41, "The Dwellers
on the Nile," by E. A. Wallis Bridge, London, 56, Paternoster
Row, 1885).

[FN#253] This is not ironical, as Lane and Payne suppose, but a
specimen of inverted speech--Thou art in luck this time!

[FN#254] Arab. "Marhúb" = terrible: Lane reads "Mar'úb" =
terrified. But the former may also mean, threatened with
something terrible.

[FN#255] i.e. in Kut al-Kulúb.

[FN#256] Lit. to the son of thy paternal uncle, i.e. Mohammed.

[FN#257] In the text he tells of the whole story beginning with
the eunuch and the hundred dinars, the chest, etc.: but -- "of no
avail is a twice-told tale."

[FN#258] Koran xxxix. 54. I have quoted Mr. Rodwell who affects
the Arabic formula, omitting the normal copulatives.

[FN#259] Easterns find it far easier to "get the chill of
poverty out of their bones" than Westerns.

[FN#260] Arab. "Dar al-Na'ím." Name of one of the seven stages
of the Moslem heaven. This style of inscription dates from the
days of the hieroglyphs. A papyrus describing the happy town of
Raamses ends with these lines.--

Daily is there a supply of food:
Within it gladness doth ever brood
* * * *
Prolonged, increased; abides there Joy, etc., etc.

[FN#261] Arab. "Ansár" = auxiliaries, the men of Al-Medinah
(Pilgrimage ii. 130, etc.).

[FN#262] Arab. "Asháb" = the companions of the Prophet who may
number 500 (Pilgrimage ii. 81, etc.).

[FN#263] Arab. "Hásilah" prob. a corner of a "Godown" in some
Khan or Caravanserai.

[FN#264] Arab. "Funduk" from the Gr. , whence the
Italian Fondaco e.g. at Venice the Fondaco de' Turchi.

[FN#265] Arab. "Astár" plur. of Satr: in the Mac. Edit. Sátúr,
both (says Dozy) meaning "Couperet" (a hatchet). Habicht
translates it "a measure for small fish," which seems to be a
shot and a bad shot as the text talks only of means of carrying
fish. Nor can we accept Dozy's emendation Astál (plur. of Satl)
pails, situlæ. In Petermann's Reisen (i. 89) Satr=assiette.

[FN#266] Which made him expect a heavy haul.

[FN#267] Arab. "Urkúb" = tendon Achilles in man hough or pastern
in beast, etc. It is held to be an incrementative form of 'Akab
(heel); as Kur'úb of Ka'b (heel) and Khurtúm of Khatm (snout).

[FN#268] Arab. "Karmút" and "Zakzúk." The former (pronounced
Garmút) is one of the many Siluri (S. Carmoth Niloticus) very
common and resembling the Shál. It is smooth and scaleless with
fleshy lips and soft meat and as it haunts muddy bottoms it was
forbidden to the Ancient Egyptians. The Zakzúk is the young of
the Shál (Synodontis Schal: Seetzen); its plural form Zakázik
(pronounced Zigázig) gave a name to the flourishing town which
has succeeded to old Bubastis and of which I have treated in
"Midian" and "Midian Revisited."

[FN#269] "Yá A'awar"=O one-eye! i.e.. the virile member. So the
vulgar insult "Ya ibn al-aur" (as the vulgar pronounce it) "O son
of a yard!" When AlMas'údi writes (Fr. Trans. vii. 106), "Udkhul
usbu'ak fí aynih," it must not be rendered "Il faut lui faire
violence": thrust thy finger into his eye ('Ayn) means "put thy
penis up his fundament!" ('Ayn being=Dubur). The French remarks,
"On en trouverait l'équivalent dans les bas-fonds de notre
langue," So in English "pig's eye," "blind eye," etc.

[FN#270] Arab. "Nabbút"=a quarterstaff: see vol. i. 234.

[FN#271] Arab. "Banní," vulg. Benni and in Lane (Lex. Bunni) the
Cyprinus Bynni (Forsk.), a fish somewhat larger than a barbel
with lustrous silvery scales and delicate flesh, which Sonnini
believes may be the "Lepidotes" (smooth-scaled) mentioned by
Athenæus. I may note that the Bresl. Edit. (iv. 332) also affects
the Egyptian vulgarism "Farkh-Banni" of the Mac. Edit. (Night
dcccxxxii.).

[FN#272] The story-teller forgets that Khalif had neither basket
nor knife.

[FN#273] Arab. "Rayhán" which may here mean any scented herb.

[FN#274] In the text "Fard Kalmah," a vulgarism. The Mac. Edit.
(Night dcccxxxv.) more aptly says, "Two words" (Kalmatáni, vulg.
Kalmatayn) the Twofold Testimonies to the Unity of Allah and the
Mission of His Messenger.

[FN#275] The lowest Cairene chaff which has no respect for
itself or others.

[FN#276] Arab. "Karrat azlá hú": alluding to the cool skin of
healthy men when digesting a very hearty meal.

[FN#277] This is the true Fellah idea. A peasant will go up to
his proprietor with the "rint" in gold pieces behind his teeth
and undergo an immense amount of flogging before he spits them
out. Then he will return to his wife and boast of the number of
sticks he has eaten instead of paying at once and his spouse will
say, "Verily thou art a man." Europeans know nothing of the
Fellah. Napoleon Buonaparte, for political reasons, affected
great pity for him and horror of his oppressors, the Beys and
Pashas; and this affectation gradually became public opinion. The
Fellah must either tyrannise or be tyrannised over; he is never
happier than under a strong-handed despotism and he has never
been more miserable than under British rule, or rather, misrule.
Our attempts to constitutionalise him have made us the
laughing-stock of Europe.

[FN#278] The turban is a common substitute for a purse with the
lower classes of Egyptians; and an allusion to the still popular
practice of turban-snatching will be found in vol. i. p. 259.

[FN#279] Arab. "Sálih," a devotee; here, a naked Dervish.

[FN#280] Here Khalif is made a conspicuous figure in Baghdad
like Boccaccio's Calandrino and Co. He approaches in type the old
Irishman now extinct, destroyed by the reflux action Of
Anglo-America (U.S.) upon the miscalled "Emerald Isle." He
blunders into doing and saying funny things whose models are the
Hibernian "bulls" and acts purely upon the impulse of the moment,
never reflecting till (possibly) after all is over.

[FN#281] Arab. "Kaylúlah," explained in vol. i. 51.

[FN#282] i.e. thy bread lawfully gained. The "Bawwák"
(trumpeter) like the "Zammár" (piper of the Mac. Edit.) are
discreditable craftsmen, associating with Almahs and loose women
and often serving as their panders.

[FN#283] i.e. he was indecently clad. Man's "shame" extends from
navel to knees. See vol vi. 30.

[FN#284] Rashid would be=garden-cresses or stones: Rashíd the
heaven-directed.

[FN#285] Arab. "Uff 'alayka"=fie upon thee! Uff=lit. Sordes
Aurium and Tuff (a similar term of disgust)=Sordes unguinum. To
the English reader the blows administered to Khalif appear rather
hard measure. But a Fellah's back is thoroughly broken to the
treatment and he would take ten times as much punishment for a
few piastres.

[FN#286] Arab. "Zurayk" dim. of Azrak=blue-eyed. See vol. iii.
104.

[FN#287] Of Baghdad.

[FN#288] Arab. "Hásil," i.e. cell in a Khan for storing goods:
elsewhere it is called a Makhzan (magazine) with the same sense.

[FN#289] The Bresl. text (iv. 347) abbreviates, or rather omits;
so that in translation details must be supplied to make sense.

[FN#290] Arab. "Kamán," vulgar Egyptian, a contraction from
Kama' (as) + anna (since, because). So " Kamán shuwayh"=wait a
bit; " Kamán marrah"=once more and "Wa Karmána-ka"=that is why.

[FN#291] i.e. Son of the Eagle: See vol. iv. 177. Here, however,
as the text shows it is hawk or falcon. The name is purely
fanciful and made mnemonically singular.

[FN#292] The Egyptian Fellah knows nothing of boxing like the
Hausá man; but he is fond of wrestling after a rude and
uncultivated fashion, which would cause shouts of laughter in
Cumberland and Cornwall. And there are champions in this line,
See vol. iii. 93.

[FN#293] The usual formula. See vol. ii. 5.

[FN#294] As the Fellah still does after drinking a cuplet
("fingán" he calls it) of sugared coffee.

[FN#295] He should have said "white," the mourning colour under
the Abbasides.

[FN#296] Anglicè, "Fine feathers make fine birds"; and in
Eastern parlance, "Clothe the reed and it will become a bride."
(Labbis al-Búsah tabkí 'Arúsah, Spitta Bey, No. 275.) I must
allow myself a few words of regret for the loss of this Savant,
one of the most singleminded men known to me. He was vilely
treated by the Egyptian Government, under the rule of the
Jew-Moslem Riyáz; and, his health not allowing him to live in
Austria, he died shortly after return home.

[FN#297] Arab. " Saub (Tobe) 'Atábi": see vol. iii. 149.

[FN#298] In text "Kimkhá," which Dozy also gives Kumkh=chenille,
tissu de soie veloutee: Damasquète de soie or et argent de
Venise, du Levant , à fleurs, etc. It comes from Kamkháb or
Kimkháb, a cloth of gold, the well-known Indian "Kimcob."

[FN#299] Here meaning=Enter in Allah's name!

[FN#300] The Arabs have a saying, "Wine breeds gladness, music
merriment and their offspring is joy."

[FN#301] Arab. "Jokh al-Saklát," rich kind of brocade on
broadcloth.

[FN#302] Arab. "Hanabát," which Dozy derives from O. German
Hnapf, Hnap now Napf: thence too the Lat. Hanapus and Hanaperium:
Ital. Anappo, Nappo; Provenc. Enap and French and English
"Hanap"= rich bowl, basket, bag. But this is known even to the
dictionaries.

[FN#303] Arab. " Kirám," nobles, and " Kurúm," vines, a word
which appears in Carmel=Karam-El (God's vineyard).

[FN#304] Arab. "Suláf al-Khandarísí," a contradiction. Suláf=the
ptisane of wine. Khandarísí, from Greek , lit. gruel,
applies to old wine.

[FN#305] i.e. in bridal procession.

[FN#306] Arab. "Al-'Arús, 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. "Dádat." 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-cœurs. See vol. i.
168.

[FN#315] Arab. "Wisháh" 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. "Ghází"=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-Sháh mát"=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-Gháliyah," 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
Asám!" Arab. Prov. ii. 589) used by Háris bin Amrú, King of
Kindah, to the old woman Asám whom he had sent to inspect a girl
he purposed marrying.

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

[FN#327] Arab. "Sálifah," 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. "Tás," from Pers. Tásah. 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, jugum; Inkár, negare; matrah,
matelas; Ishtirá, acheter, etc. To which I may add wasat, waist;
zabad, civet; Bás, buss (kiss); uzrub (pron. Zrub), drub; Kat',
cut; Tarík, 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. " Himà." 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. "Mansúr 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 'Akík, 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 "Makám." The Arabs had many names for their old
habitations, e.g.; Kubbah, of brick; Sutrah, of sun-dried mud;
Hazírah, of wood; Tiráf, a tent of leather; Khabáa, of wool;
Kash'a, of skins; Nakhád, of camel's or goat's hair; Khaymah, of
cotton cloth; Wabar, of soft hair as the camel's undercoat and
Fustát (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. Súk=a
bazar-street, known from Tanjah (Tangiers) to Timbuctoo.

[FN#345] Arab. "Walímah" usually=a wedding-feast. According to
the learned Nasíf alYazají the names of entertainments are as
follows: Al-Jafalà=a general invitation, opp. to Al-Nakarà,
especial; Khurs, a childbirth feast; 'Akíkah, when the boy-babe
is first shaved; A'zár=circumcision-feast; Hizák, when the boy
has finished his perlection of the Koran; Milák, on occasion of
marriage-offer; Wazímah, a mourning entertainment; Wakírah=a
"house-warming"; Nakí'ah, on returning from wayfare; 'Akírah, at
beginning of the month Rajab; Kirà=a guest-feast and Maadubah, a
feast for other cause; any feast.

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

[FN#347] Here "Muákhát" 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. "Ishárah" in classical Arab. signs with the
finger (beckoning); Aumá with the hand; Ramz, with the lips;
Khalaj, with the eyelids (wink); and Ghamz with the eye. Aumáz is
a furtive glance, especially of women, and Ilház, 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 "Rákib" (a
camel-rider) to a man on horseback who is properly Fáris plur.
"Khayyálah," while "Khayyál" is a good rider. Other names are
"Fayyál" (elephant-rider), Baghghál (mule-rider) and Hammár
(donkeyrider).

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

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

[FN#357] Arab. "'Abír," 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 Chiksá, 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-Mál"=capital, as opposed to Ribá 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 Tehámah * * * 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'á 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-Sákayn. But 'Adan Lá'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 ( ), 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 'Ajáib al-Makhlúkát, Al-Kazwíni (ob. A.D. 1275)
derives the name from Ibn Sinán bin Ibrahím; and is inclined
there to place the Bír al-Mu'attal (abandoned well) and the Kasr
alMashíd (lofty palace) of Koran xxii. 44; and he adds "Kasr
al-Misyad" to those mentioned in the tale of Sayf al-Mulúk and
Badí'a al-Jamál.

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

[FN#363] Arab. "Zahrawíyah" which contains a kind of double
entendre. Fátimah the Prophet's only daughter is entitled
Al-Zahrá 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 æt. 28) who made this world, like Honorius, a hell in
order to win a next-world heaven. Her titles are Zahrá and Batúl
(Pilgrimage ii. 90) both signifying virgin. Burckhardt translates
Zahrá 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.
"Batúl" 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 Umá's with
the Hindú 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 Shí'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 mediæval "præsentia 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 "Ruhbán"=monks or
"Batárikah"=patriarchs. See vol. ii. 89.

[FN#369] Arab. "Khilál." 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 Majnún) 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] Trébutien (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. Dánis the Abbot chaunts Anima mea
turbata est valdè.

[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. "Shammirí"=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 Alá al-Din Abu al-Shámát (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 "Anwá" by Pleiads; but it means the setting of
one star and simultaneous rising of another foreshowing rain.
There are seven Anwá (plur. of nawa) in the Solar year viz.
Al-Badri (Sept.-Oct.); Al-Wasmiyy (late autumn and December);
Al-Waliyy (to April); Al-Ghamír (June); Al-Busriyy (July); Bárih
al-Kayz (August) and Ahrák al-Hawá 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. "Kiráb" = sword-case of wood, the sheath being of
leather.

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

[FN#386] A doubtful tradition in the Mishkát al-Masábih 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 Marhabá (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.
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 Sultaníyah, 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. "Jamár," the palm-pith and cabbage, both eaten by
Arabs with sugar.

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

[FN#400] Mr. Payne quotes Eugene Fromèntin, "Un Eté 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. "Jalájal" = small bells for falcons: in Port.
cascaveis, whence our word.

[FN#402] Khulanján. 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 (Tarfá); 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 fí 'l-jifáni, wa yuska * Labanu 'l-Bukhti fi
Kusá'i 'l-Khalanji:
Honey's served to them in platters for food; * Camels' milk in
bowls of the Khalanj wood."

The pl. Khalánij is used by Himyán bin Kaháfah in this "bayt",

"Hattá izá má qazati 'l-Hawáijá * Wa malaat Halába-há
'l-Khalánijá:
Until she had done every work of hers * And with sweet milk had
filled the porringers."

[FN#403] In text Al-Shá'ir Al-Walahán, 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. "Ikyán," 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 Kubád.

[FN#407] Full or Fill in Bresl. Edit. = Arabian jessamine or
cork-tree ( ). 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. "Lisán 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 "Lá 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. "Akmám," 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. "Ikyán" 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-Bayzáwi 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 Majmú'a (united),
as opposed to "Mafrúk" (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.

[FN#429] I again solicit the reader's attention to the
simplicity, the pathos and the beauty of this personification of
the lute.

[FN#430] "They" for she.

[FN#431] The Arabs very justly make the "'Andalib" =
nightingale, masculine.

[FN#432] Anwár = lights or flowers: See Night dccclxv. supra p.
270.

[FN#433] These couplets have occurred in vol. i. 168; so I quote
Mr. Payne.

[FN#434] i.e. You may have his soul but leave me his body:
company with him in the next world and let me have him in this.

[FN#435] Alluding to the Koranic (cxiii. 1.), "I take refuge
with the Lord of the Daybreak from the mischief of that which He
hath created, etc." This is shown by the first line wherein
occurs the Koranic word "Ghásik" (cxiii. 3) which may mean the
first darkness when it overspreadeth or the moon when it is
eclipsed.

[FN#436] "Malak" = level ground; also tract on the Nile sea.
Lane M.E. ii. 417, and Bruckhardt Nubia 482.

[FN#437] This sentiment has often been repeated.

[FN#438] The owl comes in because "Búm" (pron. boom) rhymes with
Kayyúm = the Eternal.

[FN#439] For an incident like this see my Pilgrimmage (vol. i.
176). How true to nature the whole scene is; the fond mother
excusing her boy and the practical father putting the excuse
aside. European paternity, however, would probably exclaim, "The
beast's in liquor!"

[FN#440] In ancient times this seems to have been the universal
and perhaps instinctive treatment of the hand that struck a
father. By Nur al-Din's flight the divorce-oath became
technically null and void for Taj al-Din had sworn to mutilate
his son next morning.

[FN#441] So Roderic Random and his companions "sewed their money
between the lining and the waistband of their breeches, except
some loose silver for immediate expense on the road." For a
description of these purses see Pilgrimage i. 37.

[FN#442] Arab. Rashid (our Rosetta), a corruption of the Coptic
Trashit; ever famous for the Stone.

[FN#443] For a parallel passage in praise of Alexandria see vol.
i. 290, etc. The editor or scribe was evidently an Egyptian.

[FN#444] Arab. "Saghr" (Thagr), the opening of the lips showing
the teeth. See vol. i. p. 156.

[FN#445] Iskandariyah, the city of Iskandar or Alexander the
Great, whose "Soma" was attractive to the Greeks as the corpse of
the Prophet Daniel afterwards was to the Moslems. The choice of
site, then occupied only by the pauper village of Rhacotis, is
one proof of many that the Macedonian conqueror had the
inspiration of genius.

[FN#446] i.e. paid them down. See vol. i. 281; vol. ii. 145.

[FN#447] Arab. "Baltiyah," Sonnini's "Bolti" and Nébuleux
(because it is dozid-coloured when fried), the Labrus Niloticus
from its labra or large fleshy lips. It lives on the "leaves of
Paradise" hence the flesh is delicate and savoury and it is
caught with the épervier or sweep-net in the Nile, canals and
pools.

[FN#448] Arab. "Liyyah," not a delicate comparison, but
exceedingly apt besides rhyming to "Baltiyah." The cauda of the
"five-quarter sheep, whose tails are so broad and thick that
there is as much flesh upon them as upon a quarter of their
body," must not be confounded with the lank appendage of our
English muttons. See i. 25, Dr. Burnell's Linschoten (Hakluyt
Soc. 1885).

[FN#449] A variant occurs in vol. ix. 191.

[FN#450] Arab. "Tars Daylami," a small shield of bright metal.

[FN#451] Arab. "Kaukab al-durri," see Pilgrimage ii. 82.

[FN#452] Arab. "Kusúf" applied to the moon; Khusúf being the
solar eclipse.

[FN#453] May Abú Lahab's hands perish. . . and his wife be a
bearer of faggots!" Korau cxi. 184. The allusion is neat.

[FN#454] Alluding to the Angels who shoot down the Jinn. See
vol. i. 224. The index misprints "Shibáh."

[FN#455] For a similar scene see Ali Shar and Zumurrud, vol. iv.
187.

[FN#456] i.e. of the girl whom as the sequel shows, her owner
had promised not to sell without her consent. This was and is a
common practice. See vol. iv. 192.

[FN#457] These lines have occurred in vol. iii. p. 303. I quote
Mr. Payne.

[FN#458] Alluding to the erectio et distensio penis which comes
on before dawn in tropical lands and which does not denote any
desire for women. Some Anglo-Indians term the symptom signum
salutis, others a urine-proud pizzle.

[FN#459] Arab. "Mohtasib," in the Maghrib "Mohtab," the officer
charged with inspecting weights and measures and with punishing
fraud in various ways such as nailing the cheat's ears to his
shop's shutter, etc.

[FN#460] Every where in the Moslem East the slave holds himself
superior to the menial freeman, a fact which I would impress upon
the several Anti-slavery Societies, honest men whose zeal mostly
exceeds their knowledge, and whose energy their discretion.

[FN#461] These lines, extended to three couplets, occur in vol.
iv. 193. I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#462] "At this examination (on Judgment Day) Mohammedans also
believe that each person will have the book, wherein all the
actions of his life are written, delivered to him; which books
the righteous will receive in their right hand, and read with
great pleasure and satisfaction; but the ungodly will be obliged
to take them, against their wills, in their left (Koran xvii.
xviii. lxix, and lxxxiv.), which will be bound behind their
backs, their right hand being tied to their necks." Sale,
Preliminary Discourse; Sect. iv.

[FN#463] "Whiteness" (bayáz) also meaning lustre, honour.

[FN#464] This again occurs in vol. iv. 194. So I quote Mr.
Payne.

[FN#465] Her impudence is intended to be that of a captive
Princess.

[FN#466] i.e. bent groundwards.

[FN#467] See vol. iv. 192. In Marocco Za'ar is applied to a man
with fair skin, red hair and blue eyes (Gothic blood?) and the
term is not complimentary as "Sultan Yazid Za'ar."

[FN#468] The lines have occurred before (vol. iv. 194). I quote
Mr. Lane ii. 440. Both he and Mr. Payne have missed the point in
"ba'zu layáli" a certain night when his mistress had left him so
lonely.

[FN#469] Arab. "Raat-hu." This apparently harmless word suggests
one simlar in sound and meaning which gave some trouble in its
day. Says Mohammed in the Koran (ii. 98) "O ye who believe! say
not (to the Apostle) Rá'iná (look at us) but Unzurná (regard
us)." "Rá'iná" as pronounced in Hebrew means "our bad one."

[FN#470] By reason of its leanness.

[FN#471] In the Mac. Edit. "Fifty." For a scene which
illustrates this mercantile transaction see my Pilgrimage i. 88,
and its deduction. "How often is it our fate, in the West as in
the East, to see in bright eyes and to hear from rosy lips an
implied, if not an expressed 'Why don't you buy me?' or, worse
still, 'Why can't you buy me?'"

[FN#472] See vol. ii. 165 dragging or trailing the skirts =
walking without the usual strut or swagger: here it means
assuming the humble manners of a slave in presence of the master.

[FN#473] This is the Moslem form of "boycotting": so amongst
early Christians they refused to give one another God-speed.
Amongst Hindús it takes the form of refusing "Hukkah (pipe) and
water" which practically makes a man an outcast. In the text the
old man expresses the popular contempt for those who borrow and
who do not repay. He had evidently not read the essay of Elia on
the professional borrower.

[FN#474] See note p. 273.

[FN#475] i.e. the best kind of camels.

[FN#476] This first verse has occurred three times.

[FN#477] Arab. "Surayyá" in Dictionaries a dim. of Sarwá =
moderately rich. It may either denote abundance of rain or a
number of stars forming a constellation. Hence in Job (xxxviii.
31) it is called a heap (kímah).

[FN#478] Pleiads in Gr. the Stars whereby men sail.

[FN#479] This is the Eastern idea of the consequence of
satisfactory coition which is supposed to be the very seal of
love. Westerns have run to the other extreme.

[FN#480] "Al-Ríf" simply means lowland: hence there is a Ríf in
the Nile-delta. The word in Europe is applied chiefly to the
Maroccan coast opposite Gibraltar (not, as is usually supposed
the North-Western seaboard) where the Berber-Shilhá race, so
famous as the "Rif pirates" still closes the country to
travellers.

[FN#481] i.e. Upper Egypt.

[FN#482] These local excellencies of coition are described
jocosely rather than anthropologically.

[FN#483] See vol. i. 223: I take from Torrens, p. 223.

[FN#484] For the complete ablution obligatory after copulation
before prayers can be said. See vol. vi. 199.

[FN#485] Arab. "Zunnár," the Greek , for which, see vol.
ii. 215.

[FN#486] Miriam (Arabic Maryam), is a Christian name, in Moslem
lands. Abú Maryam "Mary's father" (says Motarrazi on Al-Hariri,
Ass. of Alexandria) is a term of contempt, for men are called
after sons (e.g. Abu Zayd), not after daughters. In more modern
authors Abu Maryam is the name of ushers and lesser officials in
the Kazi's court.

[FN#487] This formality, so contrary to our Western familiarity
after possession, is an especial sign of good breeding amongst
Arabs and indeed all Eastern nations. It reminds us of the "grand
manner" in Europe two hundred years ago, not a trace of which now
remains.

[FN#488] These lines are in Night i. ordered somewhat
differently: so I quote Torrens (p. 14).

[FN#489] i.e. to the return Salám--"And with thee be peace and
the mercy of Allah and His blessings!" See vol. ii. 146. The
enslaved Princess had recognised her father's Wazir and knew that
he could have but one object, which being a man of wit and her
lord a "raw laddie," he was sure to win.

[FN#490] It is quite in Moslem manners for the bystanders to
force the sale seeing a silly lad reject a most advantageous
offer for sentimental reasons. And the owner of the article would
be bound by their consent.

[FN#491] Arab. "Wa'llahi." "Bi" is the original particle of
swearing, a Harf al-jarr (governing the genitive as Bi'lláhi) and
suggesting the idea of adhesion: "Wa" (noting union) is its
substitute in oath-formulæ and "Ta" takes the place of Wa as
Ta'lláhi. The three-fold forms are combined in a great "swear."

[FN#492] i.e. of divorcing their own wives.

[FN#493] These lines have occurred before: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#494] These lines are in Night xxvi., vol. i. 275: I quote
Torrens (p. 277), with a correction for "when ere."

[FN#495] This should be "draws his senses from him as one pulls
hair out of paste."

[FN#496] Rághib and Záhid: see vol. v. 141.

[FN#497] Carolus Magnus then held court in Paris; but the text
evidently alludes to one of the port-cities of Provence as
Marseille which we English will miscall Marseilles.

[FN#498] Here the writer, not the young wife, speaks; but as a
tale-teller he says "hearer"not "reader."

[FN#499] Kayrawán, the Arab. form of the Greek Cyrene which has
lately been opened to travellers and has now lost the mystery
which enschrouded it. In Hafiz and the Persian poets it is the
embodiment of remoteness and secrecy; as we till the last quarter
century spoke of the "deserts of Central Africa."

[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 admondum 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 onomatopœia 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. "Jáwawshiyah," 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 fíi-makáanin 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:--

" ' , ' ."

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 shikíkán" = 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 Adwiyh" (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. v. 156: 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.