Note 191 — ALAEDDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP. (continued 3)

i.e. his astrolabe, his “Zíj” or table of the stars, his almanack, etc. For a highly fanciful derivation of the “Arstable” see Ibn Khallikán (iii. 580). He makes it signify “balance or lines (Pers. ‘Astur’) of the sun,” which is called “Láb” as in the case of wicked Queen Láb (The Nights, vol. vii. 296). According to him the Astrolabe was suggested to Ptolemy by an armillary sphere which had accidentally been flattened by the hoof of his beast: this is beginning late in the day, the instrument was known to the ancient Assyrians. Chardin (Voyages ii. 149) carefully describes the Persian variety of—

“The cunning man hight Sidrophil

(as Will. Lilly was called). Amongst other things he wore at his girdle an astrolabe not bigger than the hollow of a man’s hand, often two to three inches in diameter and looking at a distance like a medal.” These men practised both natural astrology = astronomy, as well as judicial astrology which foretells events and of which Kepler said that “she, albeit a fool, was the daughter of a wise mother, to whose support and life the silly maid was indispensable.” Isidore of Seville (A.D. 600–636) was the first to distinguish between the two branches, and they flourished side by side till Newton’s day. Hence the many astrological terms in our tongue, e.g. consider, contemplate, disaster, jovial, mercurial, saturnine, etc.