"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 Phoenician 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.">[
149 ([return])
[ The text reads "Rafa' " (he raised) "al-Bashkhánah" which in Suppl. Nights (ii. 119) is a hanging, a curtain. Apparently it is a corruption of the Pers. "Paskhkhánah," a mosquito-curtain.]
150 ([return])
[ The father suspected that she had not gone to bed a clean maid.]
151 ([return])
[ Arab. Aysh = Ayyu Shayyin and Laysh = li ayyi Shayyin. This vulgarism, or rather popular corruption, is of olden date and was used by such a purist as Al-Mutanabbi in such a phrase as "Aysh Khabara-k?" = how art thou? See Ibn Khallikan, iii. 79.]
152 ([return])
[ In the H. V. the Minister sends the Chob-dár= = rod- bearer, mace-bearer, usher, etc.]