[45] I have thought it best to leave the uncivil remark of the owner of the black ass in the inimitable simplicity of the uncivil remark of the original.
[46] In Belletēte this courtier is said to be Firdausī of Tūs, and he is made to tell Mahmūd the following story of the khoja and the abdal, for which the Sultan rewards him with a purse of gold.
[47] A kind of religious mendicant.
[48] The original is somewhat more explicit here; Vālidesi qizin muhrini teftīsh eyledi, chun muhrini muhrlu buldi, qizin iki guzinden updi.
[49] Hasan of Basra was a very pious and learned man. He died in 110 (A.D. 728).
[50] The dervish’s cloak.
[51] El-Ma’mūn, the son of Hārūn-er-Reshīd, was proclaimed caliph in 198 (A.D. 813); he died in 218 (A.D. 833).
[52] Koran, xi. 48.
[53] The point of this story is lost in the translation. To let fly a falcon at game, is, in Turkish, to swing a falcon; the king says to the abdal, “Swing the falcon,” meaning, let it fly at the bird; but the abdal understands him literally, and swings the falcon round his head.