Note 433
i.e. He was not a Eunuch, as the people guessed.
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Notes to The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 — Page 19
698 notes in Richard Francis Burton translation. Follow a thought back to its place in the book.
698 notes
Note 434
In Arab. "this night" for the reason before given.
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Meaning especially the drink prepared of the young leaves and florets of Cannabis Sativa. The word literally means "day grass" or "herbage." This intoxicant was much used by magici…
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Torrens, being an Irishman, translates "and woke in the morning sleeping at Damascus."
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Arab. "Labbayka," the cry technically called "Talbiyah" and used by those entering Meccah (Pilgrimage iii. 125-232). I shall also translate it by "Adsum." The full cry is:— Here am…
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The staple abuse of the vulgar is cursing parents and relatives, especially feminine, with specific allusions to their "shame." And when dames of high degree are angry, Nature, in …
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A great beauty in Arabia and the reverse in Denmark, Germany and Slav-land, where it is a sign of being a were-wolf or a vampire. In Greece also it denotes a "Brukolak" or vampire.…
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This is not physiologically true: a bride rarely conceives the first night, and certainly would not know that she had conceived. Moreover the number of courses furnished by the bri…
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Torrens (Notes, xxiv.) quotes "Fleisher" upon the word "Ghamghama" (Diss. Crit. De Glossis Habichtionis), which he compares with "Dumduma" and Humbuma," determining them to be onom…
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This may mean either "it is of Mosul fashion" or, it is of muslin.
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To the English reader these lines would appear the reverse of apposite; but Orientals have their own ways of application, and all allusions to Badawi partings are effective and aff…
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In those days the Arabs and the Portuguese recorded everything which struck them, as the Chinese and Japanese in our times. And yet we complain of the amount of our modern writing!…
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This is mentioned because it is the act preliminary to naming the babe.
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Arab. "Kahramánát" from Kahramán, an old Persian hero who conversed with the Simurgh-Griffon. Usually the word is applied to women-at-arms who defend the Harem, like the Urdu-began…
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Meaning he grew as fast in one day as other children in a month.
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Arab. Al-Aríf; the tutor, the assistant-master.
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Arab. "Ibn harám," a common term of abuse; and not a factual reflection on the parent. I have heard a mother apply the term to her own son.
Read the noteNote 450
Arab. "Khanjar" from the Persian, a syn. with the Arab. "Jambiyah." It is noticed in my Pilgrimage iii., pp. 72,75. To "silver the dagger" means to become a rich man. From "Khanjar…
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Again we have "Dastur" for Izn."
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Arab. "Iklím"; the seven climates of Ptolemy.
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Arab. "Al-Ghadir," lit. a place where water sinks, a lowland: here the drainage-lakes east of Damascus into which the Baradah (Abana?) discharges. The higher eastern plain is "Al-G…
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The "Plain of Pebbles" still so termed at Damascus; an open space west of the city.
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Every Guide-book, even the Reverend Porter's "Murray," gives a long account of this Christian Church 'verted to a Mosque.
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Arab. "Nabút"; Pilgrimage i. 336.
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