[507]. These elopements are of most frequent occurrence: see Pilgrimage iii. 52.
[508]. The principal incidents, the loss and recovery of wife and children, occur in the Story of the Knight Placidus (Gesta Romanorum, cx.). But the ecclesiastical tale-teller does not do poetical justice upon any offenders, and he vilely slanders the great Cæsar, Trajan.
[509]. i.e. a long time: the idiom has already been noticed. In the original we have “of days and years and twelvemonths” in order that “A’wám” (years) may jingle with “Ayyám” (days).
[510]. Nothing can be more beautiful than the natural parks which travellers describe on the coasts of tropical seas.
[511]. Arab. “Khayyál,” not only a rider but a good and a hard rider. Hence the proverb “Al-Khayyál kabr maftúh” = uomo a cavallo sepoltura aperta.
[512]. i.e. the crew and the islanders.
[513]. Arab. “Hadas,” a word not easy to render. In grammar Lumsden renders it by “event” and the learned Captain Lockett (Miut Amil) in an awful long note (pp. 195 to 224) by “mode,” grammatical or logical. The value of his disquisition is its proving that, as the Arabs borrowed their romance from the Persians, so they took their physics and metaphysics of grammar and syntax; logic and science in general, from the Greeks.
[514]. We should say the anchors were weighed and the canvas spread.
[515]. The rhymes are disposed in the quaintest way, showing extensive corruption. Mr. Payne has ordered them into couplets with a “bob” or refrain: I have followed suit, preserving the original vagaries of rhymes.
[516]. Arab. “Nuwab,” broken plur. (that is, noun of multitude) of Naubah, the Anglo-Indian Nowbut. This is applied to the band playing at certain intervals before the gate of a Rajah or high official.