Note 53 — ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES.[38]
Richard Francis Burton translation
In Arab. “Káma” = he rose, which, in vulgar speech especially in Egypt, = he began. So in Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes” (p. 124) “Kámat al-Sibhah dhákat fí yad akhí-h” = the chaplet began (lit. arose) to wax tight in his brother’s hand. This sense is shadowed forth in classical Arabic.