[228]. In the H. V. he takes the Lamp from his bosom, where he had ever kept it since his misadventure with the African Magician.
[229]. Here the mythical Rukh is mixed up with the mysterious bird Símurgh, for which see vol. x. 130.
[230]. The H. V. adds, “hoping thereby that thou and she and all the household should fall into perdition.”
[231]. Rank mesmerism, which has been practised in the East from ages immemorial. In Christendom Santa Guglielma worshipped at Brunate, “works many miracles, chiefly healing aches of head.” In the H. V. Alaeddin feigns that he is ill and fares to the Princess with his head tied up.
[232]. Mr. Morier in “The Mirza” (vol. i. 87) says, “Had the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, with all their singular fertility of invention and never-ending variety, appeared as a new book in the present day, translated literally and not adapted to European taste in the manner attempted in M. Galland’s translation, I doubt whether they would have been tolerated, certainly not read with the avidity they are, even in the dress with which he has clothed them, however imperfect that dress may be.” But in Morier’s day the literal translation was so despised that an Eastern book was robbed of half its charms, both of style and idea. My version is here followed by the popular English version from Galland, so that my readers may compare the old with the new.
[233]. This “pointing the moral,” as the reader will observe, belongs to Galland, who had no right to introduce the stale European practice into an Eastern tale.—R. F. B.
[234]. In the MS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Supplement Arabe (No. 2523, vol. ii. fol. 147), the story which follows “Aladdin” is that of the Ten Wazirs, for which see Supp. Nights ii. In Galland the Histoire de Codadad et de ses Frères comes next to the tale of Zayn al-Asnam: I have changed the sequence in order that the two stories directly translated from the Arabic may be together.
[235]. M. Hermann Zotenberg lately informed me that “Khudadad and his Brothers” is to be found in a Turkish MS., “Al-Faraj bȧ’d al-Shiddah”—Joy after Annoy—in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. But that work is a mere derivation from the Persian “Hazár o yek Roz,” for which see my vol. x. p. 499. The name Khudadad is common to most Eastern peoples, the Sansk. Devadatta, the Gr. Θεοδόσιος, Θεοδώρος, Θεοδώρητος and Dorotheus; the Lat. Deodatus, the Ital. Diodato, and Span. Diosdado, the French Dieu-donné, and the Arab.-Persic Alladád, Dívdád and Khudábaksh. Khudá is the mod. Pers. form of the old Khudáí = sovereign, king, as in Máh-i-Khudáí = the sovereign moon, Kám-Khudáí = master of his passions, etc.
[236]. Lit. Homes (or habitations) of Bakr (see vol. v. 66), by the Turks pronounced “Diyár-i-Bekír.” It is the most famous of the four provinces into which Mesopotamia (Heb. Naharaym, Arab. Al-Jàzírah) is divided by the Arabs; viz: Diyár Bakr (capital Amídah); Diyár Modhar (cap. Rakkah or Aracta); Diyár Rabí’ah (cap. Nisibis) and Diyár al-Jazírah or Al-Jazírah (cap. Mosul). As regards the “King of Harrán,” all these ancient cities were at some time the capitals of independent chiefs who styled themselves royalties.
[237]. The Heb. Charran, the Carrhæ of the classics where, according to the Moslems, Abraham was born, while the Jews and Christians make him emigrate thither from “Ur (hod. Mughayr) of the Chaldees.” Hence his Arab. title “Ibrahim al-Harráni.” My late friend Dr. Beke had a marvellous theory that this venerable historic Harrán was identical with a miserable village to the east of Damascus because the Fellahs call it Harrán al-’Awámíd—of the Columns—from some Græco-Roman remnants of a paltry provincial temple. See “Jacob’s Flight,” etc., London, Longmans, 1865.