That way impatience sent it; but thou’lt find
No track of it, alas! is left behind.
Page [74]. “Women, for their own purposes, often devise falsehoods, and are very expert in artifice and fraud.”—It was a saying of Muhammad that “women are deficient in judgment and religion,” which induces their co-religionists of the other sex to believe that they are more inclined than men to practise whatever is unlawful. When woman was created, the Devil, we are told, was delighted, and said: “Thou art half of my host, and thou art the depositary of my secret, and thou art my arrow, with which I shoot, and miss not.”[[68]] The Turkish Tales of the Forty Viziers (another romance of the Sindibād cycle—see Introduction) chiefly refer to the craft and malice of women. In the present story, however, female artifice is not employed for wicked ends.
Page [74]. “The King of `Irāk.”—There are two `Irāks; one is a division of Arabia to the south of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Towards the north-east it is watered by the branches of the Euphrates, and is consequently fertile and well inhabited, having many cities and towns, of which Basra is the principal; to the south-west it is a barren desert. By Orientals it is called `Irāk `Arabi, to distinguish it from the other `Irāk, (`Irāk `Ajami) a province of Persia, bounded on the north by Ghilān and Mazinderān, on the east by Khurāsān, on the south by Farsistān, and on the west by `Irāk `Arabi. This province contains part of ancient Media and Parthia. It is nearly a hundred and fifty leagues in length, and one hundred and twenty in breadth; partly mountainous and sterile, having vast sandy plains; but the greater part fruitful and populous. Isfahān is the capital.[[69]] It is of Persian `Irāk that the poet Nizāmī thus speaks:
`Irāk, the delightful, be thy darling,
For great is the fame of its redundancy;
And every rose which enraptureth the soul
Distilleth its balmy drops upon `Irāk!
Page [74]. Abyssinia, or Habashat (that is, “a mixture,” or “confusion”), forms an extensive country of Eastern Africa, the boundaries of which are not well defined. The natives call their country Manghesta Ityopia, or Kingdom of Ethiopia.
Page [75]. “When they disclosed the object of their mission, he became angry”—at the presumption of an unbeliever (who attributed partners to God) asking in marriage the daughter of one of the faithful. The conversion of Abyssinia to Christianity was prior to the fourth and continued even as late as the twelfth century. The Coptic patriarch of Cairo is still the nominal head of the Church, but the episcopal office is confined to the Abūnā, the resident head, and author, of the Abyssinian priesthood.—Gibbon.