Note 318 — THE PORTER AND THE THREE LADIES OF BAGHDAD. (continued 3)

In other copies of these verses the fourth couplet swears "by the scorpions of his brow" i.e. the accroche-cœurs, the beau-catchers, bell-ropes or "aggravators," as the B.P. calls them. In couplet eight the poet alludes to his love's "Unsur," or element, his nature made up of the four classicals, and in the last couplet he makes the nail-paring refer to the moon not the sun.