[FN#216] She had already said to him "Thou art beaten in everything!"
[FN#217] Showing that she was still a Christian.
[FN#218] This is not Badawi sentiment: the honoratioren amongst wild people would scorn such foul play; but amongst the settled Arabs honour between men and women is unknown and such "hocussing" would be held quite fair.
[FN#219] The table of wine, in our day, is mostly a japanned tray with glasses and bottles, saucers of pickles and fruits and, perhaps, a bunch of flowers and aromatic herbs. During the Caliphate the "wine-service" was on a larger scale.
[FN#220] Here the "Bhang" (almost a generic term applied to hellebore, etc.) may be hyoscyamus or henbane. Yet there are varieties of Cannabis, such as the Dakha of South Africa capable of most violent effect. I found the use of the drug well known to the negroes of the Southern United States and of the Brazil, although few of their owners had ever heard of it.
[FN#221] Amongst Moslems this is a reference to Adam who first "sinned against himself,' and who therefore is called " Safíyu'llah," the Pure of Allah. (Pilgrimage iii. 333.)
[FN#222] Meaning, an angry, violent man.
[FN#223] Arab. "Inshád," which may mean reciting the verse of another or improvising one's own. In Modern Egypt "Munshid" is the singer or reciter of poetry at Zikrs (Lane M. E. chaps. xxiv.). Here the verses are quite bad enough to be improvised by the hapless Princess.
[FN#224] The negro skin assumes this dust colour in cold, fear, concupiscence and other mental emotions.
[FN#225] He compares her glance with the blade of a Yamani sword, a lieu commun of Eastern poetry. The weapons are famous in The Nights; but the best sword-cutlery came from Persia as the porcelain from China to Sana'á. Here, however, is especial allusion as to the sword "Samsam" or "Samsamah." It belonged to the Himyarite Tobba, Amru bin Ma'ad Kurb, and came into the hands of Harun al-Rashid. When the Emperor of the Greeks sent a present of superior sword-blades to him by way of a brave, the Caliph, in the presence of the Envoys, took "Samsam" in hand and cut the others in twain as if they were cabbages without the least prejudice to the edge of "Samsam."