Note 422 — CŒLEBS THE DROLL AND HIS WIFE AND HER FOUR LOVERS.
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
[This sentence of wholesale extermination passed upon womankind, reminds me of the Persian lines which I find quoted in ’Abdu ’l-Jalíl’s History of the Barmicides:
Agar nek búdí Zan u Ráy-i-Zan
Zan-rá Ma-zan Nám búdí, na Zan
and which I would render Anglicè:
If good there were in Woman and her way,
Her name would signify “Slay not,” not “Slay.”
“Zan” as noun = woman; as imp. of “zadan” = strike, kill, whose negative is “ma-zan.”—St.]