The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 02 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 02 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
[FN#526] The cup is that between the lady's legs.
[FN#527] A play upon "Sák" = calf, or leg, and "Sákí," a cup- bearer. The going
round (Tawáf) and the running (Sa'i) allude to the circumambulation of the
Ka'abah, and the running between Mount Safá and Marwah (Pilgrimage ii. 58, and
iii. 343). A religious Moslem would hold the allusion highly irreverent.
[FN#528] Lane (i. 614) never saw a woman wearing such kerchief which is
deshabille. It is either spread over the head or twisted turband-wise.
[FN#529] The "Kasabah" was about two fathoms of long measure, and sometimes 12
½ feet; but the length has been reduced.
[FN#530] "Bat and ball," or hockey on horseback (Polo) is one of the earliest
Persian games as shown by every illustrated copy of Firdausi's "Shahnámeh."
This game was played with a Kurrah or small hand-ball and a long thin bat
crooked at the end called in Persian Chaugán and in Arabic Saulaján. Another
sense of the word is given in the Burhán-i-Káti translated by Vullers (Lex.
Persico-Latinum), a large bandy with bent head to which is hung an iron ball,
also called Kaukabah (our "morning-star") and like the umbrella it denotes the
grandees of the court. The same Kaukabah particularly distinguished one of the
Marquesses of Waterford. This Polo corresponds with the folliculus, the
pallone, the baloun-game (moyen âge) of Europe, where the horse is not such a
companion of man; and whereof the classics sang:—
Folle decet pueros ludere, folle senes.
In these days we should spell otherwise the "folle" of seniors playing at the
ball or lawn-tennis.
[FN#531] "Dalíl" means a guide; `'Dalílah," a woman who misguides, a bawd. See
the Tale of Dalílah the Crafty, Night dcxcviii.
[FN#532] i.e. she was a martyr.
[FN#533] Arab. "Ghashím" a popular and insulting term, our "Johnny
Raw." Its use is shown in Pilgrimage i. 110.
[FN#534] Bathers pay on leaving the Hammam; all enter without paying.
[FN#535] i.e. she swore him upon his sword and upon the Koran: a loaf of bread
is sometimes added. See Lane (i. 615).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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