Note 564 — SHAHRAZAD AND SHAHRYAR.
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
Arab. Al-Fákhir. No wonder that the First Hand who moulded the Man-mud is a lieu commun in Eastern thought. The Pot and the Potter began with the old Egyptians. “Sitting as a potter at the wheel, god Cneph (in Philæ) moulds clay, and gives the spirit of life (the Genesitic ‘breath’) to the nostrils of Osiris.” Then we meet him in the Vedas, the Being “by whom the fictile vase is formed; the clay out of which it is fabricated.” We find him next in Jeremiah (xviii. 2), “Arise and go down unto the Potter’s house,” etc., and in Romans (ix. 20), “Hath not the Potter power over the clay?” He appears in full force in Omar-i-Khayyám (No. xxxvii.):—
For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur’d—“Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”
Lastly the Potter shows in the Kasidah of Hají Abdú al-Yezdi (p. 4):—
“The first of pots the Potter made by Chrysorrhoas’ blue-green wave;
Methinks I see him smile to see what guerdon to the world he gave.”