[146]. The happy idea of the wedding night in the water-closet is repeated from the tale of Nur al-Dín Ali Hasan (vol. i. 221), and the mishap of the Hunchback bridegroom.
[147]. For the old knightly practice of sleeping with a drawn sword separating man and maid, see vol. vii. 353 and Mr. Clouston’s “Popular Tales and Fictions,” vol. i. 316. In Poland the intermediary who married by procuration slept alongside the bride in all his armour. The H. V. explains, “He (Alaeddin) also lay a naked sword between him and the Princess, so she might perceive that he was ready to die by that blade should he attempt to do aught of villainy by the bride.”
[148]. Galland says: Ils ne s’aperçurent que de l’ébranlement du lit et que de leur transport d’un lieu à l’autre: c’était bien assez pour leur donner une frayeur qu’il est aisé d’imaginer.
[149]. Galland very unnecessarily makes the Wazir’s son pass into the wardrobe (garderobe) to dress himself.
[150]. Professional singing and dancing girls: properly the word is the fem. of ’Álim = a learned man; but it has been anglicised by Byron’s
“The long chibouque’s dissolving cloud supply,
Where dance the Almahs to wild minstrelsy.”—(The Corsair, ii. 2.)
They go about the streets with unveiled faces and are seldom admitted into respectable Harems, although on festal occasions they perform in the court or in front of the house; but even this is objected to by the Mrs. Grundy of Egypt. Lane (M. E. chap. xviii) derives with Saint Jerome the word from the Heb. or Phœnician Almah = a virgin, a girl, a singing-girl; and thus explains “Alámoth” in Psalms xlvi, and I Chron. xv. 20. Parkhurst (s.v. ’Alamah) = an undeflowered virgin, renders Job xxxix. 30, “the way of a man with a maid” (bi-álmah). “The way of a man in his virgin state, shunning youthful lust and keeping himself pure and unspotted.”
[151]. The text reads “Rafa’” (he raised) “al-Bashkhánah” which in Suppl. Nights (ii. 165) is a hanging, a curtain. Apparently it is a corruption of the Pers. “Pashkhánah,” a mosquito-curtain.
[152]. The father suspected that she had not gone to bed a clean maid.