The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 · Richard Francis Burton translation

Note 607
Tale of the Tailor.

Arab. "Yá Khálati" =mother's sister; a familiar address to the old, as uncle or nuncle (father's brother) to a man. The Arabs also hold that as a girl resembles her mother so a boy follows his uncle (mother's brother): hence the address "Ya tayyib al-Khál!" = O thou nephew of a good uncle. I have noted that physically this is often fact.

ITS PLACE IN THE BOOK

… wilt shall be thine." Thereupon she began, "Yesterday I went to the young lady who, seeing me broken in spirit and shedding tears from reddened eyes, asked me, 'O naunty[FN#607] mine, what ails thee, that I see thy breast so straitened?'; and I answered her, weeping bitterly, 'O my lady, I am just come from the house of a youth who loves thee and who is about to die for sake of thee!' Quoth she (and her heart was softened), '…

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