A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 (of 17). Richard Francis Burton
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the woman's womb, is mixed with her seed and her blood: when it thickens and curdles the Spirit moves it and it turns about like liquid cheese; then it solidifies, its arteries are formed, its limbs constructed and its joints distinguished. If the babe is a male, his face is placed towards his mother's back; if a female, towards her belly. (P. 262, Mr. I. G. N. Keith-Falconer's translation.) But there is a curious prolepsis of the spermatozoa-theory. We read (Koran chapt. vii.), "Thy Lord drew forth their posterity from the loins of the sons of Adam;" and the commentators say that Allah stroked Adam's back and extracted from his loins all his posterity, which shall ever be, in the shape of small ants; these confessed their dependence on God and were dismissed to return whence they came." From this fiction it appears (says Sale) that the doctrine of pre-existence is not unknown to the Mohammedans; and there is some little conformity between it and the modern theory of generatio ex animalculis in semine marium. The poets call this Yaum-i-Alast=the Day of Am-I-not (-your Lord)? which Sir William Jones most unhappily translated "Art thou not with thy Lord?" (Alasta bi Rabbi-kum); and they produce a grand vision of unembodied spirits appearing in countless millions before their Creator.
173
The usual preliminary of a wrestling bout.
174
In Eastern wrestling this counts as a fair fall. So Ajax fell on his back with Ulysses on his breast (Iliad xxxii., 700, etc.).
175
So biting was allowed amongst the Greeks in the ἀνακλινοπάλη, the final struggle on the ground.
176
Supposed to be names of noted wrestlers. "Kayim" (not El-Kim as Torrens has it) is a term now applied to a juggler or "professor" of legerdemain who amuses people in the streets with easy tricks (Lane, M. E., chapt. xx.).
177
Lit. "laughed in his face" which has not the unpleasant meaning it bears in English.
178
Arab. "Abu riyáh"=a kind of child's toy. It is the "Ρόμβος" of the Greeks, our "bull-roarer" well known in Australia and parts of Africa.
179
The people of the region south of the Caspian which is called "Sea of Daylam." It has a long history; for which see D'Herbelot,
180
Coptic convents in Egypt still affect these drawbridges over the keep-moat.
181
Koran iv., xxii. etc., meaning it is lawful to marry women taken in war after the necessary purification although their husbands be still living. This is not permitted with a free woman who is a True Believer. I have noted that the only concubine slave-girls mentioned in the Koran are these "captives possessed by the right hand."
182
The Amazonian dame is a favourite in folk-lore and is an ornament to poetry from the Iliad to our modern day. Such heroines, apparently unknown to the Pagan Arabs, were common in the early ages of Al-Islam as Ockley and Gibbon prove, and that the race is not extinct may be seen in my Pilgrimage (iii. 55) where the sister of Ibn Rumi resolved to take blood revenge for her brother.
183
And Solomon said, "O nobles, which of you will bring me her throne?" A terrible genius (
184
Arab. "Fass," fiss or fuss; the gem set in a ring; also applied to a hillock rounded