A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. Volume 6 (of 17). Народное творчество
King Zú al-Karnayn Iskandar who, when he went to the conquest of Mauritania, found by the way thirsty deserts and wastes and wilds and dug therein water-pits and built cisterns.” Quoth Musa, “Allah rejoice thee with good news!” and quoth the Shaykh, “Come, let us go look upon yonder palace and its marvels, for it is an admonition to whoso will be admonished.” So the Emir went up to the palace, with the Shaykh and his officers, and coming to the gate, found it open. Now this gate was builded with lofty columns and porticoes whose walls and ceilings were inlaid with gold and silver and precious stones; and there led up to it flights of steps, among which were two wide stairs of coloured marble, never was seen their like; and over the doorway was a tablet whereon were graven letters of gold in the old ancient Ionian character. “O Emir,” asked the Shaykh, “shall I read?”; and Musa answered, “Read and God bless thee!; for all that betideth us in this journey dependeth upon thy blessing.” So the Shaykh, who was a very learned man and versed in all tongues and characters, went up to the tablet and read whatso was thereon and it was verse like this:—
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1
Lane (vol. iii. 1) calls our old friend “Es-Sindibád of the Sea,” and Benfey derives the name from the Sanskrit “Siddhapati” = lord of sages. The etymology (in Heb. Sandabar and in Greek Syntipas) is still uncertain, although the term often occurs in Arab stories; and some look upon it as a mere corruption of “Bidpai” (Bidyápati). The derivation offered by Hole (Remarks on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, by Richard Hole, LL.D. London, Cadell, 1797) from the Persian ábád (a region) is impossible. It is, however, not a little curious that this purely Persian word (= a “habitation”) should be found in Indian names as early as Alexander’s day, e.g. the “Dachina bades” of the Periplus is “Dakhshin-ábád,” the Sanskr. being “Dakshinapatha.”
2
A porter like the famous Armenians of Constantinople. Some edits call him “Al-Hindibád.”
3
Arab. “Karawán” (Charadrius œdicnemus, Linn.): its shrill note is admired by Egyptians and hated by sportsmen.
4
This ejaculation, still popular, averts the evil eye. In describing Sindbad the Seaman the Arab writer seems to repeat what one reads of Marco Polo returned to Venice.
5
Our old friend must not be confounded with the eponym of the “Sindibád-námah;” the Persian book of Sindbad the Sage. See Night dlxxviii.
6
The first and second are from Eccles. chapts. vii. 1, and ix. 4. The Bul. Edit. reads for the third, “The grave is better than the palace.” None are from Solomon, but Easterns do not “verify quotations.”
7
1
Lane (vol. iii. 1) calls our old friend “Es-Sindibád of the Sea,” and Benfey derives the name from the Sanskrit “Siddhapati” = lord of sages. The etymology (in Heb. Sandabar and in Greek Syntipas) is still uncertain, although the term often occurs in Arab stories; and some look upon it as a mere corruption of “Bidpai” (Bidyápati). The derivation offered by Hole (Remarks on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, by Richard Hole, LL.D. London, Cadell, 1797) from the Persian ábád (a region) is impossible. It is, however, not a little curious that this purely Persian word (= a “habitation”) should be found in Indian names as early as Alexander’s day, e.g. the “Dachina bades” of the Periplus is “Dakhshin-ábád,” the Sanskr. being “Dakshinapatha.”
2
A porter like the famous Armenians of Constantinople. Some edits call him “Al-Hindibád.”
3
Arab. “Karawán” (Charadrius œdicnemus, Linn.): its shrill note is admired by Egyptians and hated by sportsmen.
4
This ejaculation, still popular, averts the evil eye. In describing Sindbad the Seaman the Arab writer seems to repeat what one reads of Marco Polo returned to Venice.
5
Our old friend must not be confounded with the eponym of the “Sindibád-námah;” the Persian book of Sindbad the Sage. See Night dlxxviii.
6
The first and second are from Eccles. chapts. vii. 1, and ix. 4. The Bul. Edit. reads for the third, “The grave is better than the palace.” None are from Solomon, but Easterns do not “verify quotations.”
7
Arab. “Kánún”; a furnace, a brasier before noticed (vol. v., p. ); here a pot full of charcoal sunk in the ground, or a little hearth of clay shaped like a horse-shoe and opening down wind.
8
These fish-islands are common in the Classics, e.g. the Pristis of Pliny (xvii. 4), which Olaus Magnus transfers to the Baltic (xxi. 6) and makes timid as the whales of Nearchus. C. J. Solinus (Plinii Simia) says, “Indica maria balænas habent ultra spatia quatuor jugerum.” See also Bochart’s Hierozoicon (i. 50) for Job’s Leviathan (xli. 16–17). Hence Boiardo (Orl. Innam, lib. iv.) borrowed his magical whale and Milton (P.L. i.) his Leviathan deemed an island. A basking whale would readily suggest the Kraken and Cetus of Olaus Magnus (xxi. 25). Al-Kazwíni’s famous treatise on the “Wonders of the World” (Ajáib al-Makhlúkát) tells the same tale of the “Sulahfah” tortoise, the colossochelys, for which see Night dl.
9
Sindbad does not say that he was a shipwrecked man, being a model in the matter of “travellers’ tales,” i.e. he always tells the truth when an untruth would not serve him.
10
Lane (iii. 83) would make this a corruption of the Hindu “Maharáj” = great Rajah: but it is the name of the great autumnal fête of the Guebres; a term composed of two good old Persian words “Mihr” (the sun, whence “Mithras”) and “ján” = life. As will presently appear, in the days of the Just King Anushirwán, the Persians possessed Southern Arabia and East Africa south of Cape Guardafui (Jird Háfún.) On the other hand, supposing the word to be a corruption of Maharaj, Sindbad may allude to the famous Narsinga kingdom in Mid-south India whose capital was Vijayanagar; or to any great Indian Rajah even he of Kachch (Cutch), famous in Moslem story as the Balhará (Ballaba Rais, who founded the Ballabhi era; or the Zamorin of Camoens, the Samdry Rajah of Malabar). For Mahrage, or Mihrage, see Renaudot’s “Two Mohammedan Travellers of the Ninth Century.” In the account of Ceylon by Wolf (English Transl. p. 168) it adjoins the “Ilhas de Cavalos” (of wild horses) to which the Dutch merchants sent their brood-mares. Sir W. Jones (Description of Asia, chapt. ii.) makes the Arabian island Soborma or Mahráj = Borneo.
11
Arab. “Sáis”; the well-known Anglo-Indian word for a groom or rather a “horsekeeper.”
