2. Abou Delef el Ijli, a well-known soldier of the time, renowned for his liberality and
culture. His introduction here is probably an anachronism, as he does not appear to have served
under Haroun er Reshid, but under his sons El Mamoun and El Mutessim Billah.
3. i.e. the part thereof which he had scratched or buffeted, in Oriental fashion, for
separation or other chagrin.
5. Or divan extending round all three sides of the recess. Var. "A couch of ivory and ebony,
whereon was that which befitted it of mattresses and cushions, and on it five damsels."--Breslau.
15. i.e. is afflicted with epilepsy. See note, Vol. VIII. p. 179. {see Vol. 8, FN#132} The
Boulac and Macnaghten Editions give the princess's malady, in error, as daa es sudaa
(meagrims), instead of daa es sera (epilepsy), as in the Breslau Text.
16. Lit. the possessor, i.e. the demon by whom she was supposed to be possessed.
17. Likening poverty to death, in true Oriental fashion.
18. i.e. by selling it for thirty thousand dinars, when, by holding back, he might have got a
million for it.
19. The customary formula of reply of the Oriental seller to a purchaser of superior rank
meaning, "I leave the price to thy generosity."
20. A gratuity given to the porter, on taking possession of a room or house. Cf. the French
denier á Dieu, given to the concierge on like occasions.
21. The Arabs apply the word udm (here translated "seasoning"), in the same sense as the
Scotch word "kitchen," to anything savoury eaten with bread or rice.
25. Syn. water-pots (cawadis) belonging to a water-wheel. The whole of this description of
the pavilion and its environs is very confused and (probably) corrupt. The story of Ibrahim and
Jemileh is omitted from the Breslau Text of the work, and I cannot therefore avail myself of this
latter for the purpose of collation and correction, as in innumerable other instances.
27. According to Muslim tradition, when the gates of heaven are opened (as on the Night of
Power), all prayers are granted. See note, Vol. V. p. 314, {see Vol. 5, FN#73} where, by the
way, the 26th night of Ramazan is (by a clerical error, not discovered in time for correction)
omitted from the list of nights one of which is supposed to be the Night of Power.
33. Aboulabbas el Mutezid Billah, sixteenth Khalif of the Abbasid dynasty, A.D. 892-902.
34. Hemdan ibn Hemdoun, a well-known noble and warrior of the time, founder of the great
house of the Benou Hemdan, the chiefs of which attained to such power and eminence under El
Mutezid's successors, as Princes of Mosul, Aleppo, etc.
35. The Khalif was apparently accompanied by other attendants, besides Ibn Hemdoun.
36. Tenth Khalif of the house of Abbas, A.D. 849-861.
40. i.e. scented him with the fragrant smoke of burning aloes-wood or ambergris.
41. i.e. the Khalif hath a headache and I cannot leave him, and thou knowest the rank I hold
in his favour.
42. Son and third successor of El Mutawekkil and thirteenth Khalif of the house of Abbas,
A.D. 866-9.
43. i.e. for the sake of earning a reward from God for thy good deed.
44. i.e. my abstention from women on religious grounds.
45. Munatsireh. This clause may also perhaps be rendered, "about whom there is no dispute"
(munatsereh), i.e. who is not at present in question.
46. Ahmed ibn Abi Duwad (Dawud is an error of the text), a well-known man of letters and
jurist of the time. He was Cadi of the Cadis (i.e. Chancellor) under El Mutawekkil and his two
immediate predecessors El Mutesim and El Wathic Billah (Vathek).
48. Lit. repent of. The practice of music, vocal and instrumental, is deprecated by the strict
Muslim, in accordance with a tradition in which the Prophet is said to have expressed
disapproval of these arts.
49. i.e. do not absent thyself from us. The Arabic idiom is almost exactly equivalent to our
colloquial phrase, "to cut any one."
50. See note, Vol. IV. p. 289. {see Vol. 4, FN#174}
51. i.e. of the Turkish body-guard, first enrolled by El Mutesim, El Mutawekkil's father and
predecessor, a corps of mercenaries to whose disorderly and overbearing behaviour may be
attributed a great part of the troubles and dissensions which led to the ultimate fall of the
Khalifate.
52. Brother of El Muntesir (who died of remorse a few months after his father's murder), and
twelfth Khalif of the house of Abbas, A.D. 862-6.
57. This line in the original contains one of the word-jingles of which Orientals are so fond,
i.e. lou-lou (pearl), Li! Li! (Mine! Mine!) and La! La! (No! No!).
58. Specially bright in the eyes of the Muslim, as by its appearance putting an end to the long
fast of Ramazan.
59. Var. "Persian" (Macnaghten). The inhabitants of Northern Africa have always had the
reputation of being debauched.
60. i.e. a member of the tribe of the Benou Udhreh, see note, Vol. II. p. 227 {see vol.2,
FN#125}.
64. i.e. he was a reciter of erotic verses, always constructed by the Arabs after certain well-known patterns, handed down from the pre-Islamite poets, of which the commonest and most
celebrated was that which introduces the lover halting by the ruins of the camp where his
beloved dwelt aforetime and bewailing its desertion. The invention of this form of opening or (so
to speak) poetic "gambit" is attributed to the greatest of the poets of the Time of Ignorance, i.e..
the princely bard Imrulcaia.
65. The foregoing Cinquains are rendered more than usually obscure by the excessive use, in
the original, of the figure of enaliage, so embarrassingly common in Arabic verse. Owing to this
feature, it cannot with certainty be made out whether certain passages refer to the old man or the
boy spoken of.
67. A play upon the words saki (oblique case of sac, leg) and saki, cupbearer.
68. The Koran (lxciii. 42) calls the Judgment Day "a day [when] shanks shall be uncovered,"
i.e. a day of preparation for great stress or travail, such as a battle or other emergency, to meet
which men roll up their long wide trousers and tuck their skirts within their girdles. The meaning
of the double-entendre in the text is sufficiently obvious.
69. i.e. said, "Peace be on us and on all the righteous servants of God!" terminal formula of
prayer.
70. En niyek; i.e. " I purpose to pray such and such prayers."
74. Adim edh dhauc, lit. Lacking in taste. The French savoir-vivre (which can only be
rendered in English, and that but imperfectly, by some such periphrasis as "knowledge of the
world") exactly expresses the meaning of the word dhauc, as here used.
77. Double-entendre founded upon the rules of Arabic grammar. The meaning is sufficiently
obvious.
78. Tenwin el idsafeh. The nunation (tenwin) is the affixed n (nun), the sign of the indefinite
noun in Arabic grammar, e.g. et taj, the crown, tajun, a crown. (The penultimate u is the
distinctive termination of the nominative case and is dropped in ordinary talk and in prose, but
retained in poetry and in reading the Koran, in which et taj would be pronounced et taju.) It is a
rule of Arabic grammar that the first of two nouns in construction or regimen e.g. "the crown of
the king'') loses both the prefixed article (el, the) and the nunation. Thus in Arabic et taj (the
crown) and el melik (the king) would in construction become (not et taj ul melik or tajun el
melik, but) taj ul melik,(the crown of the king), thus dropping or casting out the nunation. This
explanation will show what is meant by the comparison of the sleeping and unconscious husband
to the cast-out (or dropped) nunation of construction. N.B. el before t becomes et and in
construction, after the nominative, ul.
84. A common formula of leave-taking between two persons who have had business or other
transactions with each other, meaning, "Hold me quit of any claims thou mayst have on me."
85. A town and fortress on the Mediterranean, close to the frontier of Palestine, besieged and
captured by Napoleon in 1799.
88. Comparing his bright face, rising from his collars, to the sun issuing from the sphere of
the darkness.
89. i.e. so richly decorated that it seemed like the chamber of an enchanted treasure, whose
binding spells had been done away, so that it was become open to sight.
90. Maulid,, a religious ceremony or "function," so called because of its resemblance to the
festivals celebrated in honour ff the birth Of Mohammed and the principal saints of Islam. It
consists mainly of recitations of the Koran and the litanies of the names of God, etc.
91. i.e. one who from weariness or illness has broken down midway on the pilgrimage and
has been left behind by the caravan.
105. A common roundabout way of avouching ignorance.
106. It is incumbent on a Muslim to discharge the debts of his dead father, if it be in his
power, and so save the dead from punishment on account thereof. Quoth Mohammed, "God
covers all faults except debt; that is to say, there will be punishment therefor." Also, "A martyr
shall be pardoned every fault but debt." If a dead man were brought to him and he knew that he
had died insolvent and leaving undischarged debts, he was wont to refuse to pray for him.
107. i.e. he did not press his debtors for payment.
114. i.e. ye shall be spared this day's discomfort.
115. Koran xxvi. 88. Children (at least, male children) are to the Arab as much prized an
object of possession as riches, since without them wealth is of no value to him. Mohammed,
therefore, couples wealth and children as the two things wherewith one wards off the ills of this
world, though they are powerless against those of the world to come.
116. Apparently a round hill-encompassed plain (daïreh).
117. Lit. A Chosroän crown, i.e. one such as that worn by the Chosroës or ancient kings of
Persia.
120. Enchanted treasures are generally hidden under the earth.
121. Oriental writers, Indian and Persian, as well as Arab, lay great stress upon the extreme
delicacy of the skin of the fair ones celebrated in their works, constantly attributing to their
heroines bodies so sensitive as to brook with difficulty the contact of the finest shift. Several
instances of this will be found in the present collection and we may fairly assume that the skin of
an Eastern beauty, under the influence of constant seclusion and the unremitting use of cosmetics
and the bath, would in time attain a pitch of delicacy and sensitiveness such as would in some
measure justify the seemingly extravagant statements of their poetical admirers, of which the
following anecdote (quoted by Ibn Khellikan from the historian Et Teberi) is a fair specimen.
Ardeshir ibn Babek (Artaxerxes I.), the first Sassanian King of Persia (A.D. 226-242), having
long unsuccessfully besieged El Hedr, a strong city of Mesopotamia belonging to the petty King
Es Satiroun, at last obtained possession of it by the treachery of the owner's daughter Nezireh
and married the latter, this having been the price stipulated by her for the betrayal to him of the
place. "It happened afterwards that, one night, as she was unable to sleep and turned from side
to side in the bed, Ardeshir asked her what prevented her from sleeping. She replied, 'I never
yet slept on a rougher bed than this; I feel something irk me.' He ordered the bed to be changed,
but she was still unable to sleep. Next morning, she complained of her side, and on examination,
a myrtle-leaf was found adhering to a fold of the skin, from which it had drawn blood.
Astonished at this circumstance, Ardeshir asked her if it was this that had kept her awake and
she replied in the affirmative. 'How then,' asked he, 'did your father bring you up?' She
answered, 'He spread me a bed of satin and clad me in silk and fed me with marrow and cream
and the honey of virgin bees and gave me pure wine to drink.' Quoth Ardeshir, 'The same return
which you made your father for his kindness would be made much more readily to me;' and
bade bind her by the hair to the tail of a horse, which galloped off with her and killed her." It
will be remembered that the true princess, in the well-known German popular tale, is discovered
by a similar incident to that of the myrtle-leaf.
122. "Indeed, those [who are destined to be the inhabitants] of Paradise shall that day (i.e. the
Judgment Day) rejoice in occupations, they and their wives, in shade, leant upon thrones: therein
shall they have fruit and what they desire. 'Peace!' a word from a compassionate Lord.'--Koran
xxxvi. 55-8.
123. i.e. the ancient kings of Persia. The word is here (as elsewhere) used to denote powerful
monarchs in general.
124. i.e. after the fashion of a king, with his courtiers and grandees ranged about him in their
several stations, as in a divan or court of state.
134. See notes, Vol. VII. pp. 119, 159. {see Vol. 7, here &
FN#35}
135. A person who dies by drowning, according to Muslim theology, becomes one of "the
noble army of martyrs," whose souls dwell, till the Judgment Day, in the crops of green birds
that feed upon the fruits of Paradise.
137. i.e. in the power acquired by the regular praying of the foredawn prayer.
138. "The Arab fashion (musafiheh) of shaking hands. They apply the palms of the right
hands close to one another, without squeezing the fingers, and then raise the hand to the
forehead."--Burton's Pilgrimage.
139. i.e. it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.
143. Zerabin (pl. of zerboun), lit. slaves' shoes or sandals (as Vol. III. p. 211, l. 21, {here}); but the
word is here evidently used in its modern sense of stout shoes or boots.
144. Lit. dung (urreh). The meaning "shrew" is modern and tropical.
145. i.e. black, like the book in which her actions were recorded and which would be
presented to her on the Day of Judgment. See antè, Vol. VIII. p. 94, note 2. {see Vol. 8, FN#67}
148. Lit. with trouble scattering itself abroad from his body.
149. i.e. the sweet yellow syrup which exudes from ripe dates, when hung up. This is the
ordinary meaning of "drip-honey"; but in the present case it appears to mean treacle, as it is
afterwards spoken of as "cane-honey."
151. The Arabs consider it a breach of manners, in telling a story, textually to repeat an
imprecation, lest some person present apply it to himself, and therefore commonly substitute
"the remote one" (el baid???) for the pronoun or name of the person cursed, an expression
equivalent to our vulgar "present company excepted." I have substituted the similar English
expression "some one," which sufficiently renders the Arabic idiom.
152. i.e. the police: see note, Vol. VI. p. 2. {see Vol. 6, FN#1}
162. Fetourat, lit. a sort of fritters or (Fr.) gâteaux feuilletés, commonly used by the
inhabitants of Cairo and other Oriental cities for the slight meal called fetour or breakfast, here
probably meaning pastry in general.
163. There seems some mistake here in the text. The story-teller probably meant to say, "I fear
lest my baggage be long in coming."
164. Formula of refusal, equivalent to the Spanish "Perdonéme usted por amor de Dios,
hermano!"
174. Apparently the name of the princess. Dunya (the world, or the fortune of the world) is not
an infrequent name for an Arab beauty. See antè, passim.
175. A common similitude for a slender and graceful youth of either sex. The allusion is lo the
slenderness of the upper part of the body, springing as it were) from the heavy buttocks, as a
sapling springs from a mound of sand.
183. Aalaj, pl. of ilj, lit. a sturdy foreign unbeliever. The true believer may not assist in the
making of wine, Mohammed having cursed its presser, its drinker, its carrier, its seller and its
buyer.
184. As if it were a bride. See Vol. VII. p. 333, notes 3 and 5. {see Vol. 7,
FN#88 & FN#90}
185. See notes, Vol. VIII. pp. 65, 74. {see Vol. 8,
FN#26 & FN#46}
189. It was common with debauchees of the type of Abou Nuwas to employ girls dressed as
boys (and known from that circumstance as ghulamiyeh or she-boys) as cupbearers at their
carouses.
190. Abdallah ibn d Mutezz, a prince of the house of Abbas, son of El Mutezz Billah, the 13th
Khalif of that dynasty, and great-great-grandson of Haroun er Reshid. He was one of the most
renowned poets of the third century of the Hegira and died A.D. 908, being strangled by the
partisans of his youthful nephew El Muctedi Billah, 18th Khalif of the Abbaside dynasty, against
whose authority he had revolted, at the instigation of the powerful and turbulent house of the
Benou Hemdan (see ante, note, p. 47 {see Vol. 9, FN#33). As the nominee of the latter, he was
proclaimed Khalif, under the title of El Murteza Billah, but only enjoyed the dignity for
twenty-four hours, at the end of which time El Muctedi was reinstated by his supporters.
191. Jeziret ibn Omar, an island and town on the Tigris, about a hundred and fifty miles north
of Mosul. Some versions of the poem, from which these verses are quoted, substitute El Mutireh,
a village near Samara (a town on the Tigris, 60 miles north of Baghdad), for El Jezireh, i.e.
Jeziret ibn Omar.
192. The convent of Abdoun (long since disappeared) was situate on the east bank of the
Tigris, whose waters alone separated it from the island. It was so called from a celebrated
statesman of the same name, who caused it to be erected and whose favourite place of recreation
it was.
193. Lit. koholed with languor or voluptuous grace (ghunj), i.e. naturally possessing, that
liquid, languorous softness, which it is the aim of the use of kohl to simulate.
198. Mashallah! The old English exclamation "Cock's 'ill!" (i.e. God's will, thus corrupted
for the purpose of evading the statute of 3 Jac. I. against profane swearing) exactly corresponds
to the Arabic.
200. Galland's MS. consisted (as he himself tells us in his dedication) of four volumes, three
only of which are extant, bringing down the work to the 282nd Night, towards the middle of the
story of Camaralzaman. Taking the lost volume as equal in size to the three others (which
contain about 140 pages each), the remainder of Camaralzaman and the stories of Gamen and the
Enchanted Horse, together with one-fifth part of the added tales, would account for the whole of
its contents, leaving four-fifths of the interpolations or three-tenths of the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainments" unaccounted for, allowance made for the voyages of Sindbad, which do not
belong to the original work and Galland's copy of which is extant in a separate form, divided
into voyages only, the French translator being responsible for the arbitrary division into (twenty-one) nights. It may be observed that, in the Breslau edition, which corresponds more nearly with
the MS, used by Galland than any other of the printed texts, the story of the Enchanted Horse
immediately succeeds that of Camaralzaman (Kemerezzeman and Budour) and is itself followed,
after an interval of some fifty nights, by the story of Ganem.
201. Galland may be presumed to have come by the MS. of Sindbad during his long residence
in Asia Minor, but that of the Thousand and One Nights he himself tells us, in his dedicatory
epistle to the Marquise d'O, he did not procure from the East ("il a fallu le faire venir de Syrie")
till after his return to France, when he first became aware of the existence of the work.
205. Scott claimed to have revised and corrected Galland's version; but I cannot find that he
has done so in any one instance, and Forster's translation from the French is equally faulty,
although this translator also (if I remember aright) professes to have revised the work.
206. i.e. perfectly made and handsome, or, as we should say, "pictures."
213. i.e. the night on which the Nile rises to the statute-height of sixteen cubits.
214. This appears to refer to the ceremony of cutting the dam of the canal.
215. i.e. Er Rauzeh, the well-known island so called.
216. Galland has here mistaken the meaning of sahil Misr, the river-side of Cairo (to which
town the whole description is confined) and supposing it to mean the sea-coast of Egypt, has
introduced a digression about Damietta, Rosetta and other sea-side towns.
217. This metaphor, based upon the appearance produced by the level rays of the setting sun is
a favourite one with Arab writers.
219. Surname of Queen Humai. It is probable, as suggested by Mr. Lane, that this identity of
name was the cause of the composition of the Hezar Efsan being attributed to her instance.
220. In this latter part of his theory, Von Hammer was right in the conclusion to which he
came, but mistaken in the premisses on which he based it. The Hahim bi-amrillah, who is twice
mentioned in the 1001 Nights (see Vol. IV. pp. 140 {here} and 226 {here}.
See also Vol. 4, FN#67), is, as is manifest
from internal evidence, not the fainéant Abbaside who held the spiritual headship or Imamate
(the only relic of the once proud empire of the Khalifs left him), from A.D. 1261 to A.D. 1301,
but the celebrated Fatimite of the same name (A.D. 995-1021), the founder of the Druse religion.
No reference of any kind to any of the Abbaside Khalifs of Egypt is to be found in the work.
221. See Vol. V. p. 260, {here} where it will be seen that Es Sindibad is given as the name of
the sage who plays a principal part in the external fable of "The Malice of Women," the Arabic
version of the aforesaid "Story of a King, his Seven Viziers, his Son and his Favourite."
222. This is a mistake of De Sacy's; tobacco is mentioned once and coffee and firearms
several times. Some scholars hold that the passages in which this occurs have been interpolated
by copyists; but it appears to me that this supposition is negatived (except in one instance) by the
general character of the stories in question, which bear manifest signs of a comparatively modern
origin.
223. The Enchanted Horse is probably the oldest story in the collection that cannot be traced
to a separate origin: it appears to be of Persian extraction and may perhaps be a survival from the
Hezar Efsan, in which connection it is worth while to note that, to the best of my knowledge, it is
the only story in the whole work in which (except in the case of "There is no power and no virtue
but in God!" and "I crave help from God the supreme!" which occur once each only and which
are probably interpolations) the common Muslim formulas, such as "There is no god but God,"
"We are God's and to Him we return," "I take refuge with God," etc., etc., which so abound in
Arahic fiction proper, are conspicuous by their absence.
224. Queen Humai belonged to the earlier dynasty of the Kayanians; but her father (and
husband) Behman was known as Abou Sasan or father of Sasan, he having a son of that name.
Hence perhaps the confusion of dynastic names.
227. The barber says (Vol. I. p.
316), "I left Baghdad on his account and wandered in many
countries till I came to this city and happened on him with you." It may be well to mention here
that the city in question is called "Bassora" in the Calcutta (unfinished) Edition and that of
Breslau, but by Galland's MS. and the Boulac and Macnaghten Editions either a city of China or
of Kashghar.
228. The mistake probably arose from the similarity of the two names, which in the Arabic
character might easily be read or written, one for the other, by a careless copyist.
229. The words (which the Breslau edition and Galland's MS. put into the mouth of the
barber), "the Khalif was then in Baghdad," would seem to imply that the story was written after
the fall of the Khalifate; but this is the only vestige of an allusion to the fact.
230. Not its author, as erroneously stated by Caussin de Perceval, who draws from this
misreading the inference that the work was composed in the early half of the 16th century.
232. This mention of cannon does not, however, occur in three out of the five texts upon
which my remarks are founded, and may, therefore, very possibly be the interpolation of a later
copyist, but the general style of the story of Bedreddin prohibits us from ascribing to it an earlier
origin than that of the rest of the original work. See post as to the date of introduction of firearms
into the East.
233. According to a Turkish writer (the author of the Jihan Numa or World-demonstrator)
coffee was discovered in A.H. 656 (A.D. 1258) by a holy man of Mocha and used as a remedy
for the itch.
234. Edward III. is said to have adopted the use of cannon on the report of the Earls of Derby
and Salisbury, who were present at the siege of Algesiras in 1342, when the Arabs repelled the
beleaguering army of Alfonso XI. by means of cannon, which wrought immense havoc among
the besiegers.
235. Sind and Chinese Tartary formed part of the empire of the Ommiade Khalifs and after the
conquest, in the first century of the Hegira, of Turkestan, regular commercial communication
was established with China by the overland caravan route from Aleppo through Samarcand.
Diplomatic relations, also, were early established between the successsors of Mohammed and
the sovereigns of Cathay, and the Khalif el Mensour (second of the Abbaside dynasty) was on
such terms of alliance with the Emperor Sou-Tsong (a prince of the great Thang dynasty, whose
reign was glorified by the most famous of Chinese poets, Li-tai-pé, the Hafiz of the Flowery
Land) as to despatch to his aid against a rebel a succour of four thousand Arab troops, who
afterwards settled in China, where their descendants are, it is said, still to be traced.
236. See note, Vol. III. p. 194. {see Vol. 3, FN#63}
237. i.e. Irak Arabi, Irak Farsi, Mesopotamia, Syria, etc.
239. A comparison of the Boulac and Macnaghten Editions with that of Breslau (admittedly,
with the exception of the Wortley-Montague MS., the latest of the known texts of the complete
work), will show how far this gradual invasion of corruption and alteration can extend.
240. This title is wrongly cited by El Meccari or perhaps disfigured by some copyist. See post.
241. Houdej means "camel-litter," and this name was probably given to the palace in question
in compliment to the Bedouin favourite for whom it was built.
253. Taken, so far at least as the main incidents extend, bodily from the Annals of Et Teberi.
254. The frequent occurrence of Persian names (e.g. Kundemir, King of Cufa, Merdas, Chief
of the Benou Kehtan, the Arabs par excellence, Jawamerd and Courejan, vizier and son of
Julned ben Kerker, King of Yemen, etc.) may perhaps be taken to indicate a Persian Muslim as
the composer or arranger of the story.
256. The word khetatif usually means "hooks" ; but the context shows that it is here applied,
by a common figure of synecdoche, to the quarrel or hook-bow.
257. A curious confirmation of this reading is found in De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe,
where, in quoting from a poem composed in honour of the Buyide prince Seifeddauleh by the
great Cufan poet El Mutenebbi (A.D. 915-965), he renders the words kisiy el benadic
(pellet-bows) "arquebuses," thus showing that he considered the two meanings synonymous. The
verse in which the words occur runs thus (the poet is speaking of the military skill of his hero),
"The great mangonels in his hand attain minute objects (i.e. marks) such as bade the
pellet-bows."
258. e.g. the mention, as a well-known text-book, of the Simples of Ibn Beitar, who died A.D.
1243.
264. Of which, by the way, it is remarkable that no mention is made in the Nights.
265. By the early part of the thirteenth century they had brought weight-clocks to great
perfection, as is evident from (inter alia) the account given by Trithemius of the elaborate
astronomical "horologe" presented by the Eyoubite Sultan El Melik el Kamil of Egypt to the
Emperor Frederick II. in the year 1232, and which not only struck the hours and told the day,
month and year, but (like the Strasburg machine) showed the phases of the sun and moon and the
revolutions of the other planets.
266. It seems doubtful whether the statement that a clock was in 1288 erected at Westminster
can be received as authentic.
267. This invention is generally ascribed to Richard Harris, A.D. 1641.
268. I may as well mention here that the word cahweh (coffee) occurs in several other places
in the Nights, of which I have taken no notice, as it is evident, from the context, that the word is
either a copyist's interpolation or is to be taken in the old Arabic sense of "wine." The word
(cahweh) appears to have been one of the most ancient of the Arabic names of wine and is
found, in that sense, in many early poets, such as Abou Nuwas and others ; taken literally, it
means "an excitant" or "appetizer," and in this sense the name was, on the introduction of coffee,
transferred from wine to the new stimulant.
270. These first two stories appear to be the composition of the same author.
271. The only later Khalifs mentioned in the Nights are the thirty-sixth (of the house of
Abbas) El Mustensir (A.D. 1225-1242) and (by implication.) the thirty-seventh and last, El
Mustesim Bidah (A.D. 1242-1258), in whose reigns the scene of the Barber's Story and that of
the Tailur (see Vol. I.) is laid, the intervening three centuries and a quarter being wholly
unrepresented in the work, so far as the Khalifate of Baghdad is concerned.
274. The other reading "well-advised" is equally applicable, for his advisers and ministers
were the greatest and wisest that ever governed an Eastern empire.
275. His gifts were, however, always liable to be resumed with interest at the donor's caprice.
276. He is said to have been in the habit of roasting his Jewish prisoners over a slow fire, to
make them disgorge, and to have, on more than one occasion, caused his captives, old men,
women and children, to be torn to pieces by his dogs.
277. See note, Vol. II. p. 284. {There no note on this page.}
278. The vast empire held by the Ommiade Khalifs comprised (in Asia) Arabia, Syria,
Mesopotamia, Irak Arabi, Palestine, parts of Anatolia, Karamania and Armenia, Persia,
Turkestan, Beloochistan, Afghanistan and Sind, (in Africa) Egypt, Fez, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers
and Morocco, and (in Europe) Spain and nearly half of France, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta
and other Mediterranean islands and certain districts of Italy, that is to say, the greater part of the
then known world.
281. A khilaah or dress of honour (lit. that which one takes off from one's own person to
bestow upon a messenger of good tidings or any one else whom it is desired specially to honour)
included, however, a horse, a sword, a girdle and other articles, according to the rank of the
recipient and might more aptly be termed a complete equipment of honour.
289. Mohammed was the nephew of Abbas, the founder of the family of that name, and
Haroun was therefore his cousin, many times removed.
290. As a lineal descendant of Ali and Fatimeh, the Prophet's daughter, he was the son, i.e.
grandson, many times removed, of Mohammed.
291. Er Reshid's apologists claim for him that he was generous and a patron of art (claims of
which my readers are qualified to judge, without further remark on my part) and that his
(alleged) intercourse with Charlemagne proves him to have been superior in enlightenment to his
contemporaries of the Muslim world. The legend of the diplomatic rapprochement between the
two monarchs is of exceedingly doubtful authenticity; but, supposing it to be in every respect
founded upon fact, it is evident to a student of Muslim history that Haroun's overtures to the
Western Emperor were dictated by no motives of policy more enlightened than the desire to
embarrass his hated enemy Nicephorus, Emperor of Constantinople, against whom he seems to
have cherished a peculiar spite.
292. He was born in A.D. 753, ten years before Li-tai-pé's death. Some accounts, however,
date his birth nine years later.
293. The garden of an Eastern mansion is usually situate within the interior court of the
building; but the palaces of Baghdad, in the time of the Khalifs, appear (so far, at least, as
concerned those in the suburbs, such as Rusafeh on the eastern bank of the Tigris, which
consisted almost entirely of the pleasure-houses of the nobility) to have been surrounded by
pleasaunces and plantations, in addition to those they enclosed.
294. It is curious to note that (according to modern travellers) the introduction of coffee and
tobacco seems to have resulted in the extinction of drunkenness, even in Egypt, always the most
debauched part of the Muslim world, thus insensibly effecting a reform which no rigour of
prohibition, no severity of punishment, had availed to bring about.
295. She is reported to have owned a hundred slave-girls, each of whom knew the Koran by
heart and had the task of repeating a tenth part thereof daily, so that her palace resounded with a
perpetual humming, like that of bees. It is said that the report of this princess's piety and
munificence still lingers among the Bedouins, by whom her name is even now held in reverence
as that of a saint.
296. Cordova and Grenada, which the brilliant culture of the Khalifs of Spain afterwards
raised to the first place, were as yet in their infancy.
297. According to some historians, the Tartar conqueror Hulagou slew no less than eighteen
hundred thousand of the inhabitants on the capture of the city in 1258. This number is possibly
exaggerated, but no chronicler puts the number of the victims at less than eight hundred
thousand.
298. Opinion, however, differs as to the origin of this name, which is said by some authorities
to refer to the sacred character of the city, as the seat of the Imam or spiritual head of the Faith,
and by others to have been given to the capital as a sort of talisman in memory of one of the
seven "gardens" of the Muslim Paradise. It may also have been a mystic or hieratic name, as
Valeria was that of ancient Rome.
299. Bermek, the father of Khalid, was a Magian of Khorassan and the officiating minister of
the great fire-temple, the Noubehar, at Balkh, where his ancestors had long held the same office.
(It is even stated by El Mesoudi that Bermek was the title, not the name, of the high-priest of the
fire, but this statement does not appear to be supported.) As tenders of the sacred fire and
guardians of the temple, the family ranked among the chief grandees of the realm, and according
to one author (the poet Mohammed ben Munadhir), who speaks of the Barmecides as "the
descendants of the kings of the house of Bermek," it could lay claim to royal descent. Bermek is
said to have had dealings with the later Ommiade Khalifs and to have stood high in their favour,
but the first of the family to come into unequivocal prominence is his son Khalid.
300. He was brought up by Jaafer, whom Haroun appointed his governor, whilst his other son
El Amin was is like manner committed to Fezl's charge.
301. Nunquam nocere sustulit, says Suetonius; "he could never bear to do harm." No feeling is
more continually excited by the study of history, ancient and modern, than one of poignant regret
that so many great and beneficent rulers should altogether have lacked that power of salutary
severity, that (alas! in the interests of humanity, involved is the first condition of government,
the summary suppression of "la coquins et les lâches," too often) necessary brutality, which
carries men of far inferior genius, such as Bismarck, triumphantly over all opposition and
enables a Narvaez to die peaceably is his bed, happy in the comfortable assurance that he has no
enemies to forgive, having industriously shot them all.
302. The following are a few of the sayings of the Barmecides, as culled from contemporary
historians. "The joy of him who is promised a favour is not equal to mine in granting one." "As
for the man to whom I have done no good, I have still the choice before me [whether to favour
him or no] ; but him whom I have obliged, I am for ever engaged to serve." "Spend, when
fortune inclineth to thee,--for her bounty cannot then be exhausted,--and when she turneth away,
for she will not abide with thee." "The benefactor who remindeth of a service rendered alloyeth
the value thereof, and he who forgetteth a favour received is guilty of ingratitude and neglect of
duty." "When a man's conduct towards his brethren is changed on obtaining authority, we know
that authority is greater than he" (i.e. that he is too small for his dignity). "Injustice is
disgraceful; an unwholesome pasture-ground is that of injustice."
303. To this prince, much more aptly than to his capricious and unprincipled father, might the
epithets of "Good" and "Great" be applied; beside his many virtues, he had a much more real
love and a deeper apprehension of the liberal arts and sciences than Er Reshid and did infinitely
more than the latter to encourage and reward culture and learning; and this may probably be in
great part attributed to the beneficent influence exercised over him by the teachings of his
governor Jaafer.
304. Abbaseh was Haroun's elder sister and owed her great favour with him to the manner in
which, during El Hadi's lifetime, she had exerted her influence over the latter to secure her
younger brother's life and liberty.
305. Some accounts mention one child only, but most say two.
307. Arabic historians are far from precise on this point.
308. Jaafer appears to have had some presentiment of approaching danger, which depressed
his spirits and made him reluctant to engage in the carouse to which the Khalif urged him.
309. Some authorities name Mesrour, but Yasir was certainly the executioner, though Mesrour
might have been present as his superior officer and chief "Sword of the Khalif's Vengeance."
310. Jaafer was thirty-seven years old at the time of his death.
311. i.e. the prison of the Zenadikeh or atheists ; see post.
312. He had received two hundred lashes, inflicted with such unsparing brutality that the
doctor who tended him supposed from the state of his back that he had suffered at least a
thousand strokes.
314. He is said to have frequently repeated the following verses of a contemporary poet in
prison: "We address our complaints to God in our sufferings, for it is His hand which removeth
pain and affliction. We have quitted the world and yet we still exist therein ; we are not of the
living, neither are we of the dead. When the gaoler chances to enter our cell, we wonder and
exclaim, `This man has come from the world.'"
315. i.e. Kern es Serat (i.e. the fork or place of junction of the Serat), see ante, pp. 1 et seq.
317. Another account of this matter is to the effect that, when he found himself dying, he
upbraided his physician for failing to cure him, to which the latter replied that, if he had taken
his advice and abstained from immoderate indulgence in women, he would not have come to
such extremity, but that he was now beyond the reach of art, at which Er Reshid was so
exasperated that he clapped him in prison and bade put him to death. The Khalit's chamberlain,
who was his friend, took upon himself to respite Jebril, and meanwhile Haroun died Jebril (who
was El Amin's creature) was suspected of poisoning him. El Amin took him into his service on
his father's death, and when El Mamoun succeeded to the Khalifate, he imprisoned the physician
on that suspicion. El Amin is said to have feared that his father would deprive him of the
succession in favour of the more deserving, though less favoured, Mamoun.
319. In many of the stories of this class (and indeed in the Nights generally, whenever roguery
of any kind is in question) the crafty, perfidious old woman (such as Dhat ed Dewahi or Delileh)
who assumes the character of a devotee and avails herself of this disguise to strip, rob, kidnap
and murder her dupes or her enemies, is a familiar figure. Women are indeed generally presented
in the work as creatures entirely governed by their sensual instincts, sectaries of the God
Wünsch, lacking reason and religion, although, on the other hand, instances are not wanting in
which female characters (e,g. Abrizeh) are painted in the most heroic colours, or (as Azizeh)
hallowed to all time with the tenderest haloes of sentiment and sacrifice, and the introduction of
such figures as the learned slave-girl Taweddud and the female preacher in the dissertation upon
the relative excellence of the sexes (Vol. IV.) proves the readiness of the Arabs to recognize
moral and intellectual excellence in the weaker sex, whilst, as a compensation for the repulsive
portrait of the hypocritical trickstress, so common in their pages, the authors not unfrequently
present us with instances of sincere devotion and effectual piety on the part of their heroines, as
well as of female saints, whose purity and zeal have gained them the power of working miracles.
323. Remarkable as affording the only instance of a black being favourably mentioned in the
work. The African slave is commonly held up to execration in Arabian fiction as a monster of
brutality and perfidy, lustfulness and ingratitude, and examples of this view of the negro
character abound in the Thousand and One Nights.
324. A story of distinctly Christian origin, possibly suggested by some vague reminiscence of
the hermits of the Thebaid.
331. Rennat el methani. An obscure meaning of methani is "the second; (or other than the
first) strings of lutes," and the clause may therefore, perhaps, be meant to read "the tones of the
lute": but it is quite in Arab character to compare a sweet sound to Koran-reading.
332. Some of the stories, such as the Queen of the Serpents, The Enchanted Horse, Jelyaad
and Shimas and others, mainly of Persian or Indian origin, contain little or none, whilst in others
page after page is occupied by verse, which, for instance, forms nearly a fifth part of the
(Egyptian) stories of Zein d Mewasif and Ali Noureddin and the Frank King's Daughter.
333. In its rudimentary form, it means "a night-place."
334. This is yet more evident, if we consider the full name of the verse, i.e. beit shar, "a line
of verse," syn. "a house of hair," that is to say, the tent made of camel's hair cloth used by the
Bedouins.