[70]. Arab. “Amm” = father’s brother, courteously used for “father-in-law,” which suggests having slept with his daughter, and which is indecent in writing. Thus by a pleasant fiction the husband represents himself as having married his first cousin.
[71]. i.e. a calamity to the enemy: see vol. ii. [87] and passim.
[72]. Both texts read “Asad” (lion) and Lane accepts it: there is no reason to change it for “Hásid” (Envier), the Lion being the Sultan of the Beasts and the most majestic.
[73]. The Cairene knew his fellow Cairene and was not to be taken in by him.
[74]. Arab “Hizám”: Lane reads “Khizám” = a nose-ring for which see appendix to Lane’s M. E. The untrained European eye dislikes these decorations and there is certainly no beauty in the hoops which Hindu women insert through the nostrils, camel-fashion, as if to receive the cord-acting bridle; But a drop-pearl hanging to the septum is at least as pretty as the heavy pendants by which some European women lengthen their ears.
[75]. Arab. “Shamtá,” one of the many names of wine, the “speckled” alluding to the bubbles which dance upon the freshly filled cup.
[76]. i.e. in the cask. These “merry quips” strongly suggest the dismal toasts of our not remote ancestors.
[77]. Arab. “A’láj” plur. of “’Ilj” and rendered by Lane “the stout foreign infidels.” The next line alludes to the cupbearer who was generally a slave and a non-Moslem.
[78]. As if it were a bride. See vol. vii. [198]. The stars of Jauzá (Gemini) are the cupbearer’s eyes.
[79]. i.e. light-coloured wine.