[25]. Arab. “Yá Kisrawi!” = O subject of the Kisrá or Chosroë; the latter explained in vol. i., 75. “Fars” is the origin of “Persia”; and there is a hit at the prodigious lying of the modern race, whose forefathers were so famous as truth-tellers. “I am a Persian, but I am not lying now,” is a phrase familiar to every traveller.
[26]. There is no such name: perhaps it is a clerical error for “Har jáh” = (a man of) any place. I know an Englishman who in Persian called himself “Mirza Abdullah-i-Híchmakáni” = Master Abdullah of Nowhere.
[27]. The Bresl. Edit. (loc. cit.) gives a comical description of the Prince assuming the dress of an astrologer-doctor, clapping an old book under his arm, fumbling a rosary of beads, enlarging his turband, lengthening his sleeves and blackening his eyelids with antimony. Here, however, it would be out of place. Very comical also is the way in which he pretends to cure the maniac by “muttering unknown words, blowing in her face, biting her ear,” etc.
[28]. Arab. “Sar’a” = falling sickness. Here again we have in all its simplicity the old nursery idea of “possession” by evil spirits.
[29]. Arab. “Nafahát” = breathings, benefits, the Heb. Neshamah opp. to Nephesh (soul) and Ruach (spirit). Healing by the breath is a popular idea throughout the East and not unknown to Western Magnetists and Mesmerists. The miraculous cures of the Messiah were, according to Moslems, mostly performed by aspiration. They hold that in the days of Isa physic had reached its highest development, and thus his miracles were mostly miracles of medicine; whereas, in Mohammed’s time, eloquence had attained its climax and accordingly his miracles were those of eloquence, as shown in the Koran and Ahádís.
UNS AL-WUJUD AND THE WAZIR’S DAUGHTER AL-WARD FI’L-AKMAM OR ROSE-IN-HOOD.[[30]]
There was once, in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, a King of great power and lord of glory and dominion galore; who had a Wazir Ibrahim hight, and this Wazir’s daughter was a damsel of extraordinary beauty and loveliness, gifted with passing brilliancy and the perfection of grace, possessed of abundant wit, and in all good breeding complete. But she loved wassail and wine and the human face divine and choice verses and rare stories; and the delicacy of her inner gifts invited all hearts to love, even as saith the poet, describing her:—
Like moon she shines amid the starry sky, ✿ Robing in tresses blackest ink outvie.
The morning-breezes give her boughs fair drink, ✿ And like a branch she sways with supple ply:
She smiles in passing us. O thou that art ✿ Fairest in yellow robed, or cramoisie,