The legend, or rather allegory, to which there would seem to be some allusion in the words of Scripture, "Strait is the gate," etc., is of Zoroastrian origin. Compare the _Zend-Avesta_, Yasna xix. 6 (_Sacred Books of the East_, edited by F. Max Muller, 1887, xxxi. 261), "With even threefold (safety and with speed) I will bring his soul over the Bridge of Kinvat," etc.] [88] {110} A vulgar error: the Koran allots at least a third of Paradise to well-behaved women; but by far the greater number of Mussulmans interpret the text their own way, and exclude their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they cannot discern "any fitness of things" in the souls of the other sex, conceiving them to be superseded by the Houris. [Sale, in his _Preliminary Discourse_ ("Chandos Classics," p. 80), in dealing with this question, notes "that there are several passages in the Koran which affirm that women, in the next life, will not only be punished for their evil actions, but will also receive the rewards of their good deeds, as well as the men, and that in this case God will make no distinction of sexes." A single quotation will suffice: "God has promised to believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow, to dwell therein for aye; and goodly places in the garden of Eden."--_The Qur'ân_, translated by E. H. Palmer, 1880, vi. 183.] [89] An Oriental simile, which may, perhaps, though fairly stolen, be deemed "plus Arabe qu'en Arabie." [Gulnár (the heroine of the _Corsair_ is named Gulnare) is Persian for a pomegranate flower.] [90] Hyacinthine, in Arabic "Sunbul;" as common a thought in the Eastern poets as it was among the Greeks. [S. Henley (_Vathek_, 1893, p. 208) quotes two lines from the _Solima_ (lines 5, 6) of Sir W. Jones-- "The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair That wanton with the laughing summer-air;" and refers Milton's "Hyacinthine locks" (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 301) to Lucian's _Pro Imaginibus_, cap. v.] [91] {111} "Franguestan," Circassia. [Or Europe generally--the land of the Frank.] [92] [Lines 504-518 were inserted in the second revise of the Third Edition, July 31, 1813.] [93] {113} [Parnassus.] [94] "In the name of God;" the commencement of all the chapters of the Koran but one [the ninth], and of prayer and thanksgiving. ["Bismillah" (in full, _Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahiem_, i.e. "In the name of Allah the God of Mercy, the Merciful") is often used as a deprecatory formula. Sir R. Burton (_Arabian Nights_, i. 40) cites as an equivalent the "remembering Iddio e' Santí," of Boccaccio's _Decameron_, viii. 9. The MS. reads, "Thank Alla! now the peril's past."]