Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
[FN#148] So in Chavis and Cazotte: Gauttier and Heron prefer
(vol. i. 38) "Chamama." They add, "That dæmon incarnate gave out
himself that Satan was his father and the devil Camos (?) his
brother." The Arab word is connected with shamma = he smelt, and
suggests the policeman smoking plots.
[FN#149] i.e. concealing the secret sins of the people. This
sketch of the cad policeman will find many an original in the
London force, if the small householder speak the truth.
[FN#150] Qui n'ait un point de contact aver l'une de ces
catégories--(Houdas).
[FN#151] In the old translations "The Hazen" (Kházin =
treasurer?) which wholly abolishes the double entendre.
[FN#152] In text "Darbisí al-báb" from the Persian, "Dar bastan"
= to tie up, to shut.
[FN#153] In text "Ghaush" for "Ghaushah" = noise, row.
[FN#154] "Akkál bula'hu" i.e. commit all manner of abominations.
"To eat skite" is to talk or act foolishly.
[FN#155] In the old translations "Ilamir Youmis."
[FN#156] In text "Dabbús bazdaghání," which I have translated as
if from the Pers. "Bazdagh"
= a file. But it may be a clerical error for "Bardawáni," the
well-known city in Hindostan whose iron was famous.
[FN#157] "Nahs" means something more than ill-omened, something
nasty, foul, uncanny: see vol. i. 301.
[FN#158] In Chavis, Heron and Co. there are two ladders to scale
the garden wall and descend upon the house-terrace which
apparently they do not understand to be the roof.
[FN#159] Arab. "Al-Káfi'ah" = garde-fou, rebord d'une terrasse--
(Houdas).
[FN#160] Our vulgar "Houri": see vols. i. 90; iii. 233. There are
many meanings of Hawar; one defines it as intense darkness of the
black of the eye and corresponding whiteness; another that it is
all which appears of the eye (as in the gazelle) meaning that the
blackness is so large as to exclude the whiteness; whilst a third
defines "Haurá" as a woman beautiful in the "Mahájir" (parts
below and around the eyes which show when the face is veiled),
and a fourth as one whose whiteness of eye appears in contrast
with the black of the Kohl-Powder. See Chenery's Al-Hariri, pp.
354-55.
[FN#161] Arab. "Zalamah" = tyrants, oppressors (police and
employés): see vols. i. 273, and vi. 214.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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