[114]. Rain and bounty, I have said, are synonymous.
[115]. About £2 10s.
[116]. i.e. what is thy news.
[117]. Bresl. Edit., vol. vi. pp. 188–9, Night ccccxxxiv.
[118]. Of this masterful personage and his énergie indomptable I have spoken in vol. iv. 3, and other places. I may add that he built Wásit city A.H. 83 and rendered eminent services to literature and civilization amongst the Arabs. When the Ommiade Caliph Abd al-Malik was dying he said to his son Walid, “Look to Al-Hajjaj and honour him for, verily, he it is who hath covered for you the pulpits; and he is thy sword and thy right hand against all opponents; thou needest him more than he needeth thee and when I die summon the folk to the covenant of allegiance; and he who saith with his head—thus, say thou with thy sword—thus” (Al-Siyuti, p. 225) yet the historian simply observes, “the Lord curse him.”
[119]. i.e. given through his lieutenant.
[120]. “Necks” per synecdochen for heads. The passage is a description of a barber-surgeon in a series of double-entendres; the “nose-pierced” (Makhzúm) is the subject who is led by the nose like a camel with halter and ring and the “breaker” (háshim) may be a breaker of bread as the word originally meant, or breaker of bones. Lastly the “wealth” (mál) is a recondite allusion to the hair.
[121]. Arab. “Kadr” which a change of vowel makes “Kidr” = a cooking-pot. The description is that of an itinerant seller of boiled beans (Fúl mudammas) still common in Cairo. The “light of his fire” suggests à double-entendre some powerful Chief like masterful King Kulayb. See vol. ii. 77.
[122]. Arab. “Al-Sufúf,” either ranks of fighting-men or the rows of threads on a loom. Here the allusion is to a weaver who levels and corrects his threads with the wooden spathe and shuttle governing warp and weft and who makes them stand straight (behave aright). The “stirrup” (rikáb) is the loop of cord in which the weaver’s foot rests.
[123]. “Adab.” See vols. i. 132, and ix. 41.