[443]. Bresl. Edit., vol. xii. p. 383 (Night mi). The king is called as usual “Shahrbán,” which is nearly synonymous with Shahryár.
[444]. i.e. the old Sindibad-Námeh (see vol. vi. 122), or “The Malice of Women” which the Bresl. Edit. entitles, “Tale of the King and his Son and his Wife and the Seven Wazirs.” Here it immediately follows the Tale of Al-Abbas and Mariyah and occupies pp. 237–383 of vol. xii. (Nights dcccclxxix-m).
[445]. i.e. Those who commit it.
[446]. The connection between this pompous introduction and the story which follows is not apparent. The “Tale of the Two Kings and the Wazir’s Daughters” is that of Shahrazad told in the third person, in fact a rechauffé of the Introduction. But as some three years have passed since the marriage, and the dénoûement of the plot is at hand, the Princess is made, with some art I think, to lay the whole affair before her husband in her own words, the better to bring him to a “sense of his duty.”
[447]. Bresl. Edit. vol. xii. pp. 384–412.
[448]. This clause is taken from the sequence, where the elder brother’s kingdom is placed in China.
[449]. For the Tobbas = “Successors” or the Himyaritic kings, see vol. i. 216.
[450]. Kayásirah, opp. to Akásirah, here and in many other places.
[451]. See vol. ii. 77. King Kulayb (“little dog”) al-Wá’il, a powerful chief of the Banu Ma’ad in the Kasín district of Najd, who was connected with the war of Al-Basús. He is so called because he lamed a pup (kulayb) and tied it up in the midst of his Himà (domain, place of pasture and water), forbidding men to camp within sound of its bark or sight of his fire. Hence “more masterful than Kulayb,” A.P. ii. 145, and Al-Hariri Ass. xxvi. (Chenery, p. 448). This angry person came by his death for wounding in the udder a trespassing camel (Sorab) whose owner was a woman named Basús. Her friend (Jasús) slew him; and thus arose the famous long war between the tribes Wá’il Bakr and Taghlib. It gave origin to the saying, “Die thou and be an expiation for the shoe-latchet of Kulayb.”
[452]. Arab. “Mukhaddarát,” maidens concealed behind curtains and veiled in the Harem.