That o’er all countries it may be proclaimed, ✿ This is the Place and thou art Ibrahim.[[209]]
Thereupon the Caliph turned to his Minister and said to him, “O Ja’afar, bring me thy sister, the Lady Dunya, daughter of the Wazir Yahya bin Khalid!” “I hear and I obey,” answered he and fetched her without let or delay. Now when she stood before the Caliph he said to her, “Dost thou know who this is?”; and she replied, “O Commander of the Faithful, how should women have knowledge of men?”[[210]] So the Caliph smiled and said, “O Dunya, this is thy beloved, Mohammed bin Ali the Jeweller. We are acquainted with his case, for we have heard the whole story from beginning to end, and have apprehended its inward and its outward; and it is no more hidden from me, for all it was kept in secrecy.” Replied she, “O Commander of the Faithful, this was written in the Book of Destiny; I crave the forgiveness of Almighty Allah for the wrong I have wrought, and pray thee to pardon me of thy favour.” At this the Caliph laughed and, summoning the Kazi and witnesses, renewed the marriage-contract between the Lady Dunya and her husband, Mohammed Ali son of the Jeweller whereby there betided them, both her and him the utmost felicity, and to their enviers mortification and misery. Moreover, he made Mohammed Ali one of his boon-companions, and they abode in joy and cheer and gladness, till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer of societies. And men also relate the pleasant tale of
[186]. Arab. “Harrák,” whence probably our “Carack” and “Carrack” (large ship), in dictionaries derived from Carrus Marinus.
[187]. Arab. “Gháshiyah” = lit. an étui, a cover; and often a saddle-cover carried by the groom.
[188]. Arab. “Sharáb al-tuffáh” = melapio or cider.
[189]. Arab. “Mudawwarah,” which generally means a small round cushion, of the Marocco-work well known in England. But one does not strike a cushion for a signal; so we must revert to the original sense of the word “something round,” as a circular plate of wood or metal, a gong, a “bell” like that of the Eastern Christians.
[190]. Arab. “Túfán” (from the root tauf, going round) a storm, a circular gale, a cyclone; the term universally applied in Al-Islam to the “Deluge,” the “Flood” of Noah. The word is purely Arabic; with a quaint likeness to the Gr. τυφῶν, in Pliny typhon, whirlwind, a giant (Typhœus) whence “Typhon” applied to the great Egyptian god “Set.” The Arab word extended to China and was given to the hurricanes which the people call “Tae-foong,” great winds, a second whimsical resemblance. But Sir John Davis (ii. 383) is hardly correct when he says, “the name typhoon, in itself a corruption of the Chinese term, bears a singular (though we must suppose an accidental) resemblance to the Greek τυφῶν.”
[191]. Plurale majestatis acting superlative; not as Lane supposes (ii. 224) “a number of full moons, not only one.” Eastern tongues abound in instances beginning with Genesis (i. 1), “Gods (he) created the heaven,” etc. It is still preserved in Badawi language and a wildling greatly to the astonishment of the citizens will address his friend “Yá Rijál” = O men!
[192]. Arab. “Hásid” = an envier: in the fourth couplet “Azúl” (Azzál, etc.) = a chider, blamer; elsewhere “Lawwám” = accuser, censor, slanderer; “Wáshí” = whisperer, informer; “Rakib” = spying, envious rival; “Ghábit” = one emulous without envy; and “Shámit” = a “blue” (fierce) enemy who rejoices over another’s calamities. Arabic literature abounds in allusions to this unpleasant category of “damned ill-natured friends;” and Spanish and Portuguese letters, including Brazilian, have thoroughly caught the trick. In the Eastern mind the “blamer” would be aided by the “evil eye.”