The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries
Ocymum basilicum noticed in Introduction; the bassilico of Boccaccio
iv. 5. The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah represents it as "sprouting
with something also whose smell is foul and disgusting and the sower
at once sets to gather it and burn it with fire." (The Fables of
Bidpai translated from the later Syriac version by I. G. N.
Keith-Falconer, etc., etc., etc., Cambridge University Press, 1885).
Here, however, Habk is a pennyroyal (_mentha puligium_), and probably
alludes to the pecten.
Footnote 160:
_i.e._ common property for all to beat.
Footnote 161:
"A digit of the moon" is the Hindú equivalent.
Footnote 162:
Better known to us as Caravanserai, the "Travellers' Bungalow" of
India: in the Khan, however, shelter is to be had, but neither bed
nor board.
Footnote 163:
Arab. "Zubb." I would again note that this and its synonyms are the
equivalents of the Arabic, which is of the lowest. The tale-teller's
evident object is to accentuate the contrast with the tragical
stories to follow.
Footnote 164:
"In the name of Allah," is here a civil form of dismissal.
Footnote 165:
Lane (i. 124) is scandalized and naturally enough by this scene,
which is the only blot in an admirable tale admirably told. Yet even
here the grossness is but little more pronounced than what we find in
our old drama (_e.g._, Shakspeare's King Henry V.) written for the
stage, whereas tales like The Nights are not read or recited before
both sexes. Lastly "nothing follows all this palming work:" in Europe
the orgie would end very differently. These "nuns of Theleme" are
physically pure: their debauchery is of the mind, not the body.
Galland makes them five, including the two doggesses.
Footnote 166:
So Sir Francis Walsingham's "They which do that they should not,
should hear that they would not."
Footnote 167:
The old "Calendar," pleasantly associated with that form of almanac.
The Mac. Edit. has "Karandaliyah," a vile corruption, like Ibn
Batutah's "Karandar" and Torrens' "Kurundul:" so in English we have
the accepted vulgarism of "Kernel" for Colonel. The Bul. Edit. uses
for synonym "Su'ulúk"=an asker, a beggar. Of these mendicant monks,
for such they are, much like the Sarabaites of mediæval Europe, I
have treated, and of their institutions and its founder, Shaykh
Sharif Bu Ali Kalandar (ob. A.H. 724=1323-24), at some length in my
"History of Sindh," chapt. viii. See also the Dabistan (i, 136) where
the good Kalandar exclaims:—
If the thorn break in my body, how trifling the pain!
But how sorely I feel for the poor broken thorn!
D'Herbelot is right when he says that the Kalandar is not generally
approved by Moslems: he labours to win free from every form and
observance and he approaches the Malámati who conceals all his good
deeds and boasts of his evil doings—our "Devil's hypocrite."
Footnote 168:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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