[10]. i.e. for fear of the evil eye injuring the palace and, haply, himself.
[11]. The “Sufrah” before explained as acting provision-bag and table-cloth.
[12]. Eastern women in hot weather, lie mother-nude under a sheet here represented by the hair. The Greeks and Romans also slept stripped and in mediæval England the most modest women saw nothing indelicate in sleeping naked by their naked husbands. The “night-cap” and the “night-gown” are comparatively modern inventions.
[13]. Hindu fable turns this simile into better poetry, “She was like a second and a more wondrous moon made by the Creator.”
[14]. “Sun of the Day.”
[15]. Arab. “Shirk” = worshipping more than one God. A theological term here most appropriately used.
[16]. The Bul. Edit. as usual abridges (vol. i. 534). The Prince lands on the palace-roof where he leaves his horse, and finding no one in the building goes back to the terrace. Suddenly he sees a beautiful girl approaching him with a party of her women, suggesting to him these couplets:—
She came without tryst in the darkest hour, ✿ Like full moon lighting horizon’s night:
Slim-formed, there is not in the world her like ✿ For grace of form or for gifts of sprite:
“Praise him who made her from semen-drop,” ✿ I cried, when her beauty first struck my sight: