The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I. / Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

by Unknown

Note [14.] "The Ornament of the Good," or—"of the Comely," is an appellation of the Arabian prophet, who is related to have said, "The sun never riseth until it hath saluted me." "The sun's saluting the Ornament of the Good," or "Comely," is, therefore, a phrase not unfrequently used by Muslims merely to signify its rising.

Note [15.]—On the Rewards of Men of Literature and Science. It has long been a common custom of Eastern princes to bestow dresses of honour upon men of literature and science, as well as upon their great officers and other servants. These dresses were of different kinds for persons of different classes or professions. The most usual kind was an ample coat. With dresses of this description were often given gold-embroidered turbans; and sometimes, to Emeers (or great military officers), neck-rings or collars (called ṭóḳs), some of which were set with jewels; as also, bracelets, and swords ornamented with precious stones, &c.; and to Wezeers, instead of the ṭóḳ, a necklace of jewels.[151]—The following striking record will convey an idea of the magnificence of some of these dresses of honour; or, in other words, of the liberality of a Muslim prince, and, at the same time, of the very precarious nature of his favour. A person, chancing to look at a register kept by one of the officers of Hároon Er-Rasheed, saw in it the following entry:—"Four hundred thousand pieces of gold, the price of a dress of honour for Jaạfar, the son of Yaḥyà, the Wezeer."—A few days after, he saw beneath this written,—"Ten ḳeeráṭs, the price of naphtha and reeds, for burning the body of Jaạfar, the son of Yaḥyà."[152]—The ḳeeráṭ of Baghdád was the twentieth part of a deenár, or piece of gold.

Arab princes and other great men have generally been famous for highly respecting, and liberally rewarding, men of literature and science, and especially poets. El-Mamoon and many others are well known to us for their patronage of the learned. Er-Rasheed carried his condescension to them so far as to pour the water on the hands of a blind man, Aboo-Mo'áwiyeh, one of the most learned persons of his time, previously to his eating with him, to shew his respect for science.[153] An anecdote of a Khaleefeh ordering the mouth of a learned man to be filled with jewels, I have related in a former note. To cram the mouth with sugar or sweetmeats for a polite or eloquent speech, or piece of poetry, has been more commonly done; but the usual presents to learned men were, and are, dresses of honour and sums of money. Ibn-'Obeyd El-Bakhteree, an illustrious poet and traditionist, who flourished in the reign of El-Musta'een, is said to have received so many presents, that, after his death, there were found, among the property which he left, a hundred complete suits of dress, two hundred shirts, and five hundred turbans.[154] A thousand pieces of gold were often given, and sometimes ten, twenty, or thirty, thousand, and even more, for a few verses; nay, for a single couplet.

The prodigality of Arab princes to men of learning may be exemplified by the following anecdote:—Ḥammád, surnamed Er-Ráwiyeh, or the famous reciter, having attached himself to the Khaleefeh El-Weleed, the son of 'Abd-el-Melik, and shewn a contrary feeling towards his brother Hishám, on the accession of the latter fled to El-Koofeh. While there, a letter arrived from Hishám, commanding his presence at Damascus: it was addressed to the governor, who, being ordered to treat him with honour, gave him a purse containing a thousand pieces of gold, and despatched him with the Khaleefeh's messenger. On his arrival at Damascus, he was conducted before Hishám, whom he found in a splendid saloon, seated under a pavilion of red silk, surmounted by a dome of yellow brocade, attended by two female slaves of beauty unsurpassed, each holding a crystal ewer of wine. His admission during the presence of members of the King's ḥareem, the reader will remark as a very unusual and high honour: the mention of the wine may also surprise him; but this is a subject upon which much may be said, and which will be considered on a future occasion. After Ḥammád had given the salutation, and the Khaleefeh had returned it, the latter told him that he had sent for him to ask respecting a couplet of which he (the Khaleefeh) could only remember that it ended with the word "ibreeḳ," which signifies "a ewer." The reciter reflected a while, and the lines occurred to his mind, and he repeated them. Hishám cried out, in delight, that the lines were those he meant; drank a cup of wine, and desired one of the female slaves to hand a cup to Ḥammád. She did so; and the draught, he says, deprived him of one-third of his reason. The Khaleefeh desired him to repeat the lines again, and drank a second cup; and Ḥammád was deprived of another third of his reason in the same manner; and said, "O Prince of the Faithful, two-thirds of my reason have departed from me." Hishám laughed, and desired him to ask what he would before the remaining third should have gone; and the reciter said, "One of these two female slaves." The Khaleefeh laughed again, and said, "Nay, but both of them are thine, and all that is upon them, and all that they possess, and, beside them, fifty thousand pieces of gold."—"I kissed the ground before him," says Ḥammád, "and drank a third cup, and was unconscious of what happened after: I did not awake till the close of the night, when I found myself in a handsome house, surrounded by lighted candles, and the two female slaves were putting in order my clothes and other things: so I took possession of the property, and departed, the happiest of the creatures of God."[155]

A whimsical story is told of a king, who denied to poets those rewards to which usage had almost given them a claim. This king, whose name is not recorded, had the faculty of retaining in his memory an ode after having only once heard it; and he had a memlook who could repeat an ode that he had twice heard, and a female slave who could repeat one that she had heard thrice. Whenever a poet came to compliment him with a panegyrical ode, the King used to promise him that, if he found his verses to be his original composition, he would give him a sum of money equal in weight to what they were written upon. The poet, consenting, would recite his ode; and the King would say, "It is not new; for I have known it some years;" and would repeat it as he had heard it; after which he would add, "And this memlook also retains it in his memory;" and would order the memlook to repeat it; which, having heard it twice, from the poet and the king, he would do. The King would then say to the poet, "I have also a female slave who can repeat it;" and on his ordering her to do so, stationed behind the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard: so the poet would go away empty-handed. The famous poet El-Aṣma'ee, having heard of this proceeding, and guessing the trick, determined upon outwitting the King; and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words; but this was not his only preparative measure; another will be presently explained; and a third was, to assume the dress of a Bedawee, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a lithám (a piece of drapery) in accordance with a custom of Arabs of the desert. Thus disguised, he went to the palace, and, having asked permission, entered, and saluted the King, who said to him, "Whence art thou, O brother of the Arabs, and what dost thou desire?" The poet answered, "May God increase the power of the King! I am a poet of such a tribe, and have composed an ode in praise of our lord the Sulṭán."—"O brother of the Arabs," said the King, "hast thou heard of our condition?"—"No," answered the poet; "and what is it, O King of the age?"—"It is," replied the King, "that if the ode be not thine, we give thee no reward; and if it be thine, we give thee the weight in money of what it is written upon."—"How," said El-Aṣma'ee, "should I assume to myself that which belongs to another, and knowing, too, that lying before kings is one of the basest of actions? But I agree to this condition, O our lord the Sulṭán." So he repeated his ode. The King, perplexed, and unable to remember any of it, made a sign to the memlook—but he had retained nothing; and called to the female slave, but she also was unable to repeat a word. "O brother of the Arabs," said he, "thou hast spoken truth, and the ode is thine without doubt: I have never heard it before: produce, therefore, what it is written upon, and we will give thee its weight in money, as we have promised."—"Wilt thou," said the poet, "send one of the attendants to carry it?"—"To carry what?" asked the King; "is it not upon a paper here in thy possession?"—"No, O our lord the Sulṭán," replied the poet; "at the time I composed it I could not procure a piece of paper upon which to write it, and could find nothing but a fragment of a marble column left me by my father; so I engraved it upon this; and it lies in the court of the palace." He had brought it, wrapped up, on the back of a camel. The King, to fulfil his promise, was obliged to exhaust his treasury; and to prevent a repetition of this trick (of which he afterwards discovered El-Aṣma'ee to have been the author), in future rewarded the poets according to the usual custom of kings.[156]

The following case is also related as an exception to the common custom of great men, with regard to the bestowal of rewards on poets:—"A poet praised a governor in some verses, and the latter ordered an ass's barda'ah (or stuffed saddle) and girth to be given to him. The poet went away with them on his shoulder; and, being asked what he had got, answered, 'I have praised our honoured lord in the best of my verses, and he hath bestowed on me some of the most magnificent articles of his apparel.'"[157]

Note [16.]—On the Bath. The ḥammám, or bath, is a favourite resort of both men and women of all classes among the Muslims who can afford the trifling expense which it requires; and (it is said) not only of human beings, but also of evil genii; on which account, as well as on that of decency, several precepts respecting it have been dictated by Moḥammad. It is frequented for the purpose of performing certain ablutions required by the religion, or by a regard for cleanliness, and for its salutary effects, and for mere luxury.

The following description of a public bath will convey a sufficient notion of those in private houses, which are on a smaller scale, and generally consist of only two or three chambers. The public bath comprises several apartments, with mosaic or tesselated pavements, composed of white and black marble, and pieces of fine red tile, and sometimes other materials. The inner apartments are covered with domes, having a number of small, round, glazed apertures, for the admission of light. The first apartment is the meslakh, or disrobing room, which has, in the centre, a fountain of cold water, and, next the walls, wide benches or platforms, encased with marble. These are furnished with mattresses and cushions for the higher and middle classes, and with mats for the poorer sort. The inner division of the building, in the more regularly planned baths, occupies nearly a square: the central and chief portion of it is the principal apartment, or ḥarárah, which generally has the form of a cross. In its centre is a fountain of hot water, rising from a base encased with marble, which serves as a seat. One of the angles of the square is occupied by the beyt-owwal, or antechamber of the ḥarárah: in another, is the fire over which is the boiler; and each of the other two angles is generally occupied by two small chambers: in one of these is a tank filled with warm water, which pours down from a spout in the dome: in the other are two taps, side by side; one of hot, and the other of cold water, with a small trough beneath, before which is a seat. The inner apartments are heated by the steam which rises from the fountain and tanks, and by the contiguity of the fire; but the beyt-owwal is not so hot as the ḥarárah, being separated from it by a door. In cold weather, the bather undresses in the former, which has two or three raised seats, like those of the meslakh.

With a pair of wooden clogs to his feet, and having a large napkin round his loins, and generally a second wound round his head like a turban, a third over his chest, and a fourth covering his back, he enters the ḥarárah, the heat of which causes him immediately to perspire profusely. An attendant of the bath removes from him all the napkins excepting the first; and proceeds to crack the joints of his fingers and toes, &c., and several of the vertebræ of the back and neck; kneads his flesh; and rubs the soles of his feet with a coarse earthen rasp, and his limbs and body with a woollen bag which covers his hand as a glove; after which, the bather, if he please, plunges into one of the tanks. He is then thoroughly washed with soap and water, and fibres of the palm-tree, and shaved, if he wish it, in one of the small chambers which contain the taps of hot and cold water; and returns to the beyt-owwal. Here he generally reclines upon a mattress, and takes some light refreshment, while one of the attendants rubs the soles of his feet, and kneads the flesh of his body and limbs, previously to his resuming his dress. It is a common custom, now, to take a pipe and a cup of coffee during this period of rest.