[FN#227] Easterns during purgation are most careful and deride the want of precaution in Europeans. They do not leave the house till all is passed off, and avoid baths, wine and women which they afterwards resume with double zest. Here "breaking the seal" is taking the girl's maidenhead.
[FN#228] Johannes, a Greek favoured by Al-Mutawakkil and other
Abbaside Caliphs.
[FN#229] Lady of Shaykhs, elders in the faith and men of learning
[FN#230] = A.D. 1166.
[FN#231] Koran iv. 38. I have before noted what the advantages are.
[FN#232] Koran ii. 282, "of those whom ye shall choose for witnesses."
[FN#233] Koran iv. 175, "Whereas if there be two sisters, they inherit only two-thirds between them."
[FN#234] The secondary meaning is "Fα'il" = the active sodomite and "Mafa'ϊl" = the passive, a catamite: the former is not an insulting word, the latter is a most injurious expression. "Novimus et qui te!"
[FN#235] It is an unpleasant fact that almost all the poetry of Hαfiz is addressed to youths, as we see by the occasional introduction of Arabic (e.g., Afαka'llαh). Persian has no genders properly so called, hence the effect is less striking. Sa'di, the "Persian Moralist" begins one of the tales, "A certain learned man fell in love with a beautiful son of a blacksmith," which Gladwin, translating for the general, necessarily changed to "daughter."
[FN#236] The famous author of the Anthology called Al-Hamαsah.