A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 (of 17)

The Arab "Banj" and Hindú "Bhang" (which I use as most familiar) both derive from the old Coptic "Nibanj" meaning a preparation of hemp (Cannabis sativa seu Indica); and here it is easy to recognise the Homeric "Nepenthe." Al-Kazwini explains the term by "garden hemp" (Kinnab bostáni or Sháhdánaj). On the other hand not a few apply the word to the henbane (hyoscyamus niger) so much used in mediæval Europe. The Kámús evidently means henbane distinguishing it from "Hashish al haráfísh"=rascals' grass, i. e. the herb Pantagruelion. The "Alfáz Adwiya" (French translation) explains "Tabannuj" by "Endormir quelqu'un en lui faisant avaler de la jusquiame." In modern parlance Tabannuj is=our anæsthetic administered before an operation, a deadener of pain like myrrh and a number of other drugs. For this purpose hemp is always used (at least I never heard of henbane); and various preparations of the drug are sold at an especial bazar in Cairo. See the "powder of marvellous virtue" in Boccaccio, iii., 8; and iv., 10. Of these intoxicants, properly so termed, I shall have something to say in a future page.

The use of Bhang doubtless dates from the dawn of civilisation, whose earliest social pleasures would be inebriants. Herodotus (iv. c. 75) shows the Scythians burning the seeds (leaves and capsules) in worship and becoming drunken with the fumes, as do the S. African Bushmen of the present day. This would be the earliest form of smoking: it is still doubtful whether the pipe was used or not. Galen also mentions intoxication by hemp. Amongst Moslems, the Persians adopted the drink as an ecstatic, and about our thirteenth century Egypt, which began the practice, introduced a number of preparations to be noticed in the course of The Nights.

120

The rubbish heaps which outlie Eastern cities, some (near Cairo) are over a hundred feet high.

121

Arab. "Kurrat al-ayn;" coolness of eyes as opposed to a hot eye ("sakhin") i. e. one red with tears. The term is true and picturesque so I translate it literally. All coolness is pleasant to dwellers in burning lands: thus in Al-Hariri Abu Zayd says of Bassorah, "I found there whatever could fill the eye with coolness." And a "cool booty" (or prize) is one which has been secured without plunging into the flames of war, or simply a pleasant prize.

122

Popularly rendered Caucasus (see Night cdxcvi): it corresponds so far with the Hindu "Udaya" that the sun rises behind it; and the "false dawn" is caused by a hole or gap. It is also the Persian Alborz, the Indian Meru (Sumeru), the Greek Olympus, and the Rhiphæan Range (Veliki Camenypoys) or great starry girdle of the world, etc.

123

Arab. "Mizr" or "Mizar;" vulg. Búzah; hence the medical Lat. Buza, the Russian Buza (millet beer), our "booze," the O. Dutch "buyzen" and the German "busen." This is the old ποθὸς θεῖος of negro and negroid Africa; the beer of Osiris, of which dried remains have been found in jars amongst Egyptian tombs. In Equatorial Africa it is known as "Pombe;" on the Upper Nile "Merissa" or "Mirisi" and amongst the Kafirs (Caffers) "Tshuala," "Oala" or "Boyala: " I have also heard of "Buswa" in Central Africa which may be the origin of "Buzah." In the West it became ζῦθος, (Romaic πίῤῥα), Xythum and cerevisia or cervisia, the humor ex hordeo, long before the days of King Gambrinus. Central Africans drink it in immense quantities: in Unyamwezi the standing bedsteads, covered with bark-slabs, are all made sloping so as to drain off the liquor. A chief lives wholly on beef and Pombe which is thick as gruel below. Hops are unknown: the grain, mostly Holcus, is made to germinate, then pounded, boiled and left to ferment. In Egypt the drink is affected chiefly by Berbers, Nubians and slaves from the Upper Nile; but it is a superior article and more like that of Europe than the "Pombe." I have given an account of the manufacture in The Lake Regions of Central Africa, vol. ii., p. 286. There are other preparations, Umm-bulbul (mother nightingale), Dinzáyah and Súbiyah, for which I must refer to the Shaykh El-Tounsy.

124

There is a terrible truth in this satire, which reminds us of the noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier laid, ord et infâme of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.) We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves, as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting him but, when she does, adieu husband and children, honour and religion, life and "soul." Moreover Nature (human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair and foul, dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be like the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half-truth when he backed himself, with an hour's start, against the handsomest man in England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the Italians say, un bel brutto), was the highest recommendation in the eyes of very beautiful women.

125

Every Moslem burial-ground has a place of the kind where honourable women may sit and weep unseen by the multitude. These visits are enjoined by the Apostle: – Frequent the cemetery, 'twill make you think of futurity! Also: – Whoever visiteth the graves of his parents (or one of them) every Friday, he shall be written a pious son, even though he might have been in the world, before that, a disobedient. (Pilgrimage ii., 71.) The buildings resemble our European "mortuary chapels." Saíd, Pasha of Egypt, was kind enough to erect one on the island off Suez, for the "use of English ladies who would like shelter whilst weeping and wailing for their dead." But I never heard that any of the ladies went there.

126

Arab. "Ajal"=the period of life, the appointed time of death: the word is of constant recurrence and is also applied to sudden death. See Lane's Dictionary, s. v.

127

"The dying Badawi to his tribe" (and lover) appears to me highly pathetic. The wild people love to be buried upon hill-slopes whence they can look down upon the camp; and they still call out the names of kinsmen and friends as they pass by the grave-yards. A similar piece occurs in Wetzstein (p. 27, "Reisebericht ueber Hauran," etc.): —

O bear with you my bones where the camel bears his load ✿ And bury me before you, if buried I must be;
And let me not be buried 'neath the burden of the vine ✿ But high upon the hill whence your sight I ever see!
As you pass along my grave cry aloud and name your names ✿ The crying of your names shall revive the bones of me:
I have fasted through my life with my friends, and in my death, ✿ I will feast when we meet, on that day of joy and glee.

128

The Akásirah (plur. of Kasrá=Chosroës) is here a title of the four great dynasties of Persian Kings. 1. The Peshdadian or Assyrian race, proto-historics for whom dates fail; 2. The Káyánián (Medes and Persians) who ended with the Alexandrian invasion in B.C. 331; 3. The Ashkánián (Parthenians or Arsacides) who ruled till A.D. 202; and 4. The Sassanides which have already been mentioned. But strictly speaking "Kisri" and "Kasra" are titles applied only to the latter dynasty and especially to the great King Anushirwan. They must not be confounded with "Khusrau" (P.N. Cyrus, Ahasuerus? Chosroës?); and yet the three seem to have combined in "Cæsar," Kaysar and Czar. For details especially connected with Zoroaster see vol. I, p. 380 of the Dabistan or School of Manners, translated by David Shea and Anthony Troyer, Paris, 1843. The book is most valuable, but the proper names are so carelessly and incorrectly printed that the student is led into perpetual error.

129

The words are the very lowest and coarsest; but the scene is true to Arab life.

130

Arab. "Hayhát: " the word, written in a variety of ways is onomatopoetic, like our "heigh-ho!" it sometimes means "far from me (or you) be it!" but in popular usage it is simply "Alas."

131

Lane (i., 134) finds a date for the book in this passage. The Soldan of Egypt, Mohammed ibn Kala'ún, in the early eighth century (Hijrah=our fourteenth), issued a sumptuary law compelling Christians and Jews to wear indigo-blue and saffron-yellow turbans, the white being reserved for Moslems. But the custom was much older and Mandeville (chapt. ix.) describes it in A.D. 1322 when it had become the rule. And it still endures; although abolished in the cities it is the rule for Christians, at least in the country parts of Egypt and Syria. I may here remark that such detached passages as these are absolutely useless for chronology: they may be simply the additions of editors or mere copyists.

132

The ancient "Mustapha"=the Chosen (prophet, i. e. Mohammed), also titled Al-Mujtabá, the Accepted (Pilgrimage, ii., 309). "Murtazá"=the Elect, i. e. the Caliph Ali is the older "Mortada" or "Mortadi" of Ockley and his day, meaning "one pleasing to (or acceptable to) Allah." Still older writers corrupted it to "Mortis Ali" and readers supposed this to be the Caliph's name.

133

The gleam (zodiacal light) preceding the true dawn; the Persians call the former Subh-i-kázib (false or lying dawn) opposed to Subh-i-sádik (true dawn) and suppose that it is caused by the sun shining through a hole in the world-encircling Mount Kaf.

134

So the Heb. "Arún"=naked, means wearing the lower robe only;=our "in his shirt."

135

Here we have the vulgar Egyptian colloquialism "Aysh" (= Ayyu shayyin) for the classical "Má" = what.

136

"In the name of Allah!" here said before taking action.

137

Arab. "Mamlúk" (plur. Mamálik) lit. a chattel; and in The Nights a white slave trained to arms. The "Mameluke Beys" of Egypt were locally called the "Ghuzz." I use the convenient word in its old popular sense;

'Tis sung, there's a valiant Mameluke

In foreign lands ycleped (Sir Luke) —

    Hudibras.

And hence, probably, Molière's "Mamamouchi"; and the modern French use "Mamaluc." See Savary's Letters, No. xl.

138

The name of this celebrated successor of Nineveh, where some suppose The Nights were written, is orig. Μεσοπύλαι (middle-gates) because it stood on the way where four great highways meet. The Arab. form "Mausil" (the vulgar "Mosul") is also significant, alluding to the "junction" of Assyria and Babylonia. Hence our "muslin."

139

This is Mr. Thackeray's "nose-bag." I translate by "walking-shoes" the Arab "Khuff" which are a manner of loose boot covering the ankle; they are not usually embroidered, the ornament being reserved for the inner shoe.

140

i. e. Syria (says Abulfeda) the "land on the left" (of one facing the east) as opposed to Al-Yaman the "land on the right." Osmani would mean Turkish, Ottoman. When Bernard the Wise (Bohn, p. 24) speaks of "Bagada and Axiam" (Mabillon's text) or "Axinarri" (still worse), he means Baghdad and Ash-Shám (Syria, Damascus), the latter word puzzling his Editor. Richardson (Dissert. lxxii) seems to support a hideous attempt to derive Shám from Shámat, a mole or wart, because the country is studded with hillocks! Al-Shám is often applied to Damascus-city whose proper name Dimishk belongs to books: this term is generally derived from Dimáshik b. Káli b. Málik b. Sham (Shem). Lee (Ibn Batútah, 29) denies that ha-Dimishki means "Eliezer of Damascus."