Note 145
Solomon's signet ring has before been noticed.
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Notes to The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 — Page 7
698 notes in Richard Francis Burton translation. Follow a thought back to its place in the book.
698 notes
Note 146
The "high-bosomed" damsel, with breasts firm as a cube, is a favourite with Arab tale tellers. Fanno baruffa is the Italian term for hard breasts pointing outwards.
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A large hollow navel is looked upon not only as a beauty, but in children it is held a promise of good growth.
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Arab. "Ka'ah," a high hall opening upon the central court: we shall find the word used for a mansion, barrack, men's quarters, etc.
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Babel = Gate of God (El), or Gate of Ilu (P. N. of God), which the Jews ironically interpreted "Confusion." The tradition of Babylonia being the very centre of witchcraft and encha…
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Arab. "Kámat Alfíyyah" = like the letter Alif, a straight perpendicular stroke. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the origin of every alphabet (not syllabarium) known to man, one form w…
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I have not attempted to order this marvellous confusion of metaphors so characteristic of The Nights and the exigencies of Al-Saj'a = rhymed prose.
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Here and elsewhere I omit the "kála (dice Turpino)" of the original: Torrens preserves "Thus goes the tale" (which it only interrupts). This is simply letter-wise and sense-foolish…
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Of this worthy more at a future time.
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i.e., sealed with the Kazi or legal authority's seal of office.
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"Nothing for nothing" is a fixed idea with the Eastern woman: not so much for greed as for a sexual point d' honneur when dealing with the adversary—man.
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She drinks first, the custom of the universal East, to show that the wine she had bought was unpoisoned. Easterns, who utterly ignore the "social glass" of Western civilisation dri…
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Arab. "Húr al-Ayn," lit. (maids) with eyes of lively white and black, applied to the virgins of Paradise who will wive with the happy Faithful. I retain our vulgar "Houri," warning…
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Arab. "Zambúr," whose head is amputated in female circumcision. See Night cccclxxiv.
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Ocymum basilicum noticed in Introduction, the bassilico of Boccaccio iv. 5. The Book of Kalilah and Dimnah represents it as "sprouting with something also whose smell is foul and d…
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i. e. common property for all to beat.
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"A digit of the moon" is the Hindú equivalent.
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Better known to us as Caravanserai, the "Travellers' Bungalow" of India: in the Khan, however, shelter is to be had, but neither bed nor board.
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Arab. "Zubb." I would again note that this and its synonyms are the equivalents of the Arabic, which is of the lowest. The tale-teller's evident object is to accentuate the contras…
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"ln the name of Allah," is here a civil form of dismissal.
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Lane (i. 124) is scandalised and naturally enough by this scene, which is the only blot in an admirable tale admirably told. Yet even here the grossness is but little more pronounc…
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So Sir Francis Walsingham's "They which do that they should not, should hear that they would not."
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The old "Calendar," pleasantly associated with that form of almanac. The Mac. Edit. has Karandaliyah," a vile corruption, like Ibn Batutah's "Karandar" and Torrens' "Kurundul:" so …
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The "Kalandar" disfigures himself in this manner to show "mortification."
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