For who lives longest him most ills molest.
Then see him, here he lies on bier for bed:—
Who will a shroud bestow on stranger dead?
A fair measure of the difference between Eastern and Western manners is afforded by such a theme being treated by their gravest writers and the verses being read and heard by the gravest and most worshipful men, whilst amongst us Preston and Chenery do not dare even to translate them. The latter, indeed, had all that immodest modesty for which English professional society is notable in this xixth century. He spoiled by needlessly excluding from a scientific publication (Mem. R.A.S.) all of my Proverbia Communia Syriaca (See Unexplored Syria, i. 364) and every item which had a shade of double entendre. But Nemesis frequently found him out: during his short and obscure rule in Printing House Square The Thunderer was distinguished by two of the foulest indecencies that ever appeared in an English paper.
[376]. I borrow the title from the Bresl. Edit. x. 204. Mr. Payne prefers “Ali Noureddin and the Frank King’s Daughter.” Lane omits also this tale because it resembles Ali Shar and Zumurrud (vol. iv. [187]) and Alá al-Din Abu al-Shámát (vol. iv. [29]), “neither of which is among the text of the collection.” But he has unconsciously omitted one of the highest interest. Dr. Bacher (Germ. Orient. Soc.) finds the original in Charlemagne’s daughter Emma and his secretary Eginhardt as given in Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen. I shall note the points of resemblance as the tale proceeds. The correspondence with the King of France may be a garbled account of the letters which passed between Harun al-Rashid and Nicephorus, “the Roman dog.”
[377]. Arab. “Allaho Akbar,” the Moslem slogan or war-cry. See vol. ii. [89].
[378]. The gate-keeper of Paradise. See vol. iii. [15], 20.
[379]. Negroes. Vol. iii. 75.
[380]. Arab. “Nakat,” with the double meaning of to spot and to handsel especially dancing and singing women; and, as Mr. Payne notes in this acceptation it is practically equivalent to the English phrase “to mark (or cross) the palm with silver.” I have translated “Anwá” by Pleiads; but it means the setting of one star and simultaneous rising of another foreshowing rain. There are seven Anwá (plur. of nawa) in the Solar year viz. Al-Badri (Sept.-Oct.); Al-Wasmiyy (late autumn and December); Al-Waliyy (to April); Al-Ghamír (June); Al-Busriyy (July); Bárih al-Kayz (August) and Ahrák al-Hawá extending to September 8. These are tokens of approaching rain, metaphorically used by the poets to express “bounty.” See Preston’s Hariri (p. 43) and Chenery upon the Ass. of the Banu Haram.