[365]. Arab. “Hazrat,” esp. used in India and corresponding with our mediæval “præsentia vostra.”
[366]. This wholesale slaughter by the tale-teller of worshipful and reverend men would bring down the gallery like a Spanish tragedy in which all the actors are killed.
[367]. They are called indifferently “Ruhbán” = monks or “Batárikah” = patriarchs. See vol. ii. [89].
[368]. Arab. “Khilál.” The toothpick, more esteemed by the Arabs than by us, is, I have said, often used by the poets as an emblem of attenuation without offending good taste. Nizami (Layla u Majnún) describes a lover as “thin as a toothpick.” The “elegant” Hariri (Ass. of Barkaid) describes a toothpick with feminine attributes, “shapely of shape, attractive, provocative of appetite, delicate as the leanest of lovers, polished as a poniard and bending as a green bough.”
[369]. From Bresl. Edit. x. 194.
[370]. Trébutien (vol. ii. [344] et seq.) makes the seven monks sing as many anthems, viz. (1) Congregamini; (2) Vias tuas demonstra mihi; (3) Dominus illuminatis; (4) Custodi linguam; (5) Unam petii a Domino; (6) Nec adspiciat me visus, and (7) Turbatus est a furore oculus meus. Dánis the Abbot chaunts Anima mea turbata est valdè.
[371]. A neat and characteristic touch: the wilful beauty eats and drinks before she thinks of her lover. Alas for Masrur married.
[372]. The unfortunate Jew, who seems to have been a model husband (Orientally speaking), would find no pity with a coffee-house audience because he had been guilty of marrying a Moslemah. The union was null and void therefore the deliberate murder was neither high nor petty treason. But, The Nights, though their object is to adorn a tale, never deliberately attempt to point a moral and this is one of their many charms.
[373]. These lines have repeatedly occurred. I quote Mr. Payne.