[FN#340] Arab "Sirwбl." In Al-Hariri it is a singular form (see No. ii. of the twelve riddles in Ass. xxiv.), but Mohammed said to his followers "Tuakhkhizъ" (adopt ye) "Sarбwнlбt." The latter is regularly declinable but the broken form Sarбwнl is imperfectly declinable on account of its "heaviness," as are all plurals whose third letter is an Alif followed by i or н in the next syllable.
[FN#341] Arab. "Matarik" from mitrak or mitrakah a small wooden shield coated with hide. This even in the present day is the policeman's equipment in the outer parts of the East.
[FN#342] Arab. "Sabнyah" for which I prefer Mr. Payne's "young lady" to Lane's "damsel"; the latter should be confined to Jбriyah as both bear the double sense of girl and slave (or servant) girl. "Bint" again is daughter, maid or simply girl.
[FN#343] The sense of them is found in vol. ii. 41.
[FN#344] Here the text is defective, but I hardly like to supply the omission. Mr. Payne introduces from below, "for that his charms were wasted and his favour changed by reason of the much terror and affliction he had suffered." The next lines also are very abrupt and unconnected.
[FN#345] Arab. "Yб Maulбya!" the term is still used throughout Moslem lands; but in Barbary where it is pronounced "Moolбee" Europeans have converted it to "Muley" as if it had some connection with the mule. Even in Robinson Crusoe we find "muly" or "Moly Ismael" (chapt. ii.); and we hear the high-sounding name Maulб-i-Idrнs, the patron saint of the Sunset Land, debased to "Muley Drнs."
[FN#346] Lane omits this tale because "it is very similar, but inferior in interest, to the Story told by the Sultan's Steward." See vol. i. 278.
[FN#347] Sixteenth Abbaside A.H. 279–289 (=A.D. 891–902). "He was comely, intrepid, of grave exterior, majestic in presence, of considerable intellectual power and the fiercest of the Caliphs of the House of Abbas. He once had the courage to attack a lion" (Al-Siyuti). I may add that he was a good soldier and an excellent administrator, who was called Saffбh the Second because he refounded the House of Abbas. He was exceedingly fanatic and died of sensuality, having first kicked his doctor to death, and he spent his last moments in versifying.
[FN#348] Hamdъn bin Ismб'нl, called the Kбtib or Scribe, was the first of his family who followed the profession of a Nadнm or Cup-companion. His son Ahmad (who is in the text) was an oral transmitter of poetry and history. Al-Siyъti (p. 390) and De Slane I. Khall (ii. 304) notice him.
[FN#349] Probably the Caliph had attendants, but the text afterwards speaks of them as two. Mac. Edit. iv. p. 558, line 2; and a few lines below, "the Caliph and the man with him."