[FN#245] Here I translate "Nahбs"=brass, as the "kumkum" (cucurbite) is made of mixed metal, not of copper.
[FN#246] Mansur al-Nimrн, a poet of the time and a protйgй of
Yahya's son, Al-Fazl.
[FN#247] This was at least four times Mansur's debt.
[FN#248] Intendant of the Palace to Harun al-Rashid. The Bres. Edit. (vii. 254) begins They tell that there arose full enmity between Ja'afar Barmecide and a Sahib of Misr" (Wazir or Governor of Egypt). Lane (ii. 429) quotes to this purpose amongst Arab; historians Fakhr al-Din. (De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe i., p. 26, edit. ii.)
[FN#249] Arab. "Armanнyah" which Egyptians call after their mincing fashion "Irminiyeh" hence "Ermine" (Mus Ponticus). Armaniyah was much more extensive than our Armenia, now degraded to a mere province of Turkey, and the term is understood to include the whole of the old Parthian Empire.
[FN#250] Even now each Pasha-governor must keep a "Wakнl" in
Constantinople to intrigue and bribe for him at head-quarters.
[FN#251] The symbol of generosity, of unasked liberality, the "black hand" being that of niggardness.
[FN#252] Arab. Rбh =pure (and old) wine. Arabs, like our classics, usually drank their wine tempered. So Imr al-Keys in his Mu'allakah says, "Bring the well tempered wine that seems to be saffron-tinctured; and, when water-mixed, o'erbrims the cup." (v. 2.)
[FN#253] There is nothing that Orientals relish more than these "goody-goody" preachments; but they read and forget them as readily as Westerns.
[FN#254] Lane (ii. 435) ill-advisedly writes "Sher," as "the word is evidently Persian signifying a Lion." But this is only in the debased Indian dialect, a Persian, especially a Shirazi, pronounces "Shнr." And this is how it is written in the Bresl. Edit., vii. 262. "Shбr" is evidently a fancy name, possibly suggested by the dynastic name of the Ghurjistan or Georgian Princes.