Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 4 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 4 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
[FN#158] Arab. "Manjaník;" there are two forms of this word from the Gr. ????a???, or ???a??, and it survives in our mangonel, a battering engine. The idea in the text is borrowed from the life of Abraham whom Nimrod cast by means of a catapult (which is a bow worked by machinery) into a fire too hot for man to approach.
[FN#159] Showing that he was older; otherwise she would have
addressed him, "O my cousin." A man is "young," in Arab speech,
till forty and some say fifty.
[FN#160] The little precatory formula would keep off the Evil
Eye.
[FN#161] Supper comes first because the day begins at sundown.
[FN#162] Calotte or skull-cap; vol. i. 224; viii. 120.
[FN#163] This is a new "fact" in physics and certainly to be
counted amongst "things not generally known." But Easterns have a
host of "dodges" to detect physiological differences such as
between man and maid, virgin and matron, imperfect castratos and
perfect eunuchs and so forth. Very Eastern, mutatis mutandis, is
the tale of the thief-catcher, who discovered a fellow in
feminine attire by throwing an object for him to catch in his lap
and by his closing his legs instead of opening them wide as the
petticoated ones would do.
[FN#164] She did not wish to part with her maidenhead at so cheap
a price.
[FN#165] Arab. "Subú'" (for "Yaum al-Subú'") a festival prepared
on the seventh day after a birth or a marriage or return from
pilgrimage. See Lane (M. E. passim) under "Subooa."
[FN#166] For this Anglo-Indian term, = a running courier, see vol. vii. 340. It is the gist of the venerable Joe Miller in which the father asks a friend to name his seven-months child. "Call him 'Cossid' for verily he hath accomplished a march of nine months in seven months."
[FN#167] Arab. "Madáfi al-Salámah," a custom showing the date of
the tale to be more modern than any in the ten vols. of The
Nights proper.
[FN#168] Master, captain, skipper (not owner): see vols. i. 127;
vi. 112.
[FN#169] Zahr al-Bahr = the surface which affords a passage to man.
[FN#170] Arab. "Batiyah," gen. = a black jack, a leathern flagon.
[FN#171] "Kunáfah" = a vermicelli cake often eaten at breakfast:
see vol. x. 1: "Kunafáni" is the baker or confectioner. Scott (p.
101) converts the latter into a "maker of cotton wallets for
travelling."
[FN#172] In the text (iii. 260) "Mídí," a clerical error for
"Mayyidí," an abbreviation of "Muayyadí," the Faddah, Nuss or
half-dirham coined under Sultan al-Muayyad, A.H. ixth cent. = A.D. xvth.
[FN#173] Arab. "Rub'" (plur. "Arbá'") = the fourth of a "Waybah,"
the latter being the sixth of an Ardabb (Irdabb) = 5 bushels. See
vol. i. 263.
[FN#174] A royal pavilion; according to Shakespear (Hind. Dict.
sub voce) it is a corruption of the Pers. "Sayabán."=canopy.
[FN#175] Arab. "Musajja'" = rhymed prose: for the Saj'a, see vol.
i. 116, and Terminal Essay, vol. x. p. 220. So Chaucer:?
In rhyme or ellès in cadence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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