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The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10




[FN#231] A notable instance of Roman superficiality,
incuriousness and ignorance. Every old Egyptian city had its
idols (images of metal, stone or wood), in which the Deity became
incarnate as in the Catholic host; besides its own symbolic
animal used as a Kiblah or prayer-direction (Jerusalem or
Meccah), the visible means of fixing and concentrating the
thoughts of the vulgar, like the crystal of the hypnotist or the
disk of the electro-biologist. And goddess Diana was in no way
better than goddess Pasht. For the true view of idolatry see
Koran xxxix. 4. I am deeply grateful to Mr. P. le Page Renouf
(Soc. of Biblic. Archaeology, April 6, 1886) for identifying the
Manibogh, Michabo or Great Hare of the American indigenes with
Osiris Unnefer ("Hare God"). These are the lines upon which
investigation should run. And of late years there is a notable
improvement of tone in treating of symbolism or idolatry: the
Lingam and the Yoni are now described as "mystical
representations, and perhaps the best possible impersonal
representatives of the abstract expressions paternity and
maternity" (Prof. Monier Williams in "Folk-lore Record" vol. iii.
part i. p. 118).

[FN#232] See Jotham's fable of the Trees and King Bramble
(Judges lxi. 8) and Nathan's parable of the Poor Man and his
little ewe Lamb (2 Sam. ix. 1).

[FN#233] Herodotus (ii. c. 134) notes that "AEsop the fable-writer
( ) was one of her (Rhodopis) fellow slaves".
Aristophanes (Vespae, 1446) refers to his murder by the Delphians
and his fable beginning, "Once upon a time there was a fight;"
while the Scholiast finds an allusion to The Serpent and the Crab
in Pax 1084; and others in Vespae 1401, and Aves 651.

[FN#234] There are three distinct Lokmans who are carefully
confounded in Sale (Koran chapt. xxxi.) and in Smith's Dict. of
Biography etc. art. AEsopus. The first or eldest Lokman, entitled
Al-Hakim (the Sage) and the hero of the Koranic chapter which
bears his name, was son of Ba'ura of the Children of Azar,
sister's son of Job or son of Job's maternal aunt; he witnessed
David's miracles of mail-making and when the tribe of 'Ad was
destroyed, he became King of the country. The second, also called
the Sage, was a slave, an Abyssinian negro, sold to the
Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, synchronous with
the Persian Kay Kaus and Kay Khusrau, also Pythagoras the Greek
(!) His physique is alluded to in the saying, "Thou resemblest
Lokman (in black ugliness) but not in wisdom" (Ibn Khallikan i.
145). This negro or negroid, after a godly and edifying life,
left a volume of "Amsal," proverbs and exempla (not fables or
apologues); and Easterns still say, "One should not pretend to
teach Lokman"--in Persian, "Hikmat ba Lokman amokhtan." Three of
his apothegms dwell in the public memory: "The heart and the
tongue are the best and worst parts of the human body." "I
learned wisdom from the blind who make sure of things by touching
them" (as did St. Thomas); and when he ate the colocynth offered
by his owner, "I have received from thee so many a sweet that
'twould be surprising if I refused this one bitter." He was
buried (says the Tarikh Muntakhab) at Ramlah in Judaea, with the
seventy Prophets stoned in one day by the Jews. The youngest
Lokman "of the vultures" was a prince of the tribe of Ad who
lived 3,500 years, the age of seven vultures (Tabari). He could
dig a well with his nails; hence the saying, "Stronger than
Lokman" (A. P. i. 701); and he loved the arrow-game, hence, "More
gambling than Lokman" (ibid. ii. 938). "More voracious than
Lokman" (ibid i. 134) alludes to his eating one camel for
breakfast and another for supper. His wife Barakish also appears
in proverb, e.g. "Camel us and camel thyself" (ibid. i. 295) i.e.
give us camel flesh to eat, said when her son by a former husband
brought her a fine joint which she and her husband relished.
Also, "Barakish hath sinned against her kin" (ibid. ii. 89). More
of this in Chenery's Al-Hariri p. 422; but the three Lokmans are
there reduced to two.

[FN#235] I have noticed them in vol. ii. 47-49. "To the Gold
Coast for Gold."

[FN#236] I can hardly accept the dictum that the Katha Sarit
Sagara, of which more presently, is the "earliest representation
of the first collection."

[FN#237] The Pehlevi version of the days of King Anushirwan (A.D.
531-72) became the Humayun-nameh ("August Book") turned into
Persian for Bahram Shah the Ghaznavite: the Hitopadesa
("Friendship-boon") of Prakrit, avowedly compiled from the
"Panchatantra," became the Hindu Panchopakhyan, the Hindostani
Akhlak-i-Hindi ("Moralities of Ind") and in Persia and Turkey the
Anvar-i-Suhayli ("Lights of Canopus"). Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac
writers entitle their version Kalilah wa Damnah, or Kalilaj wa
Damnaj, from the name of the two jackal-heroes, and Europe knows
the recueil as the Fables of Pilpay or Bidpay (Bidya-pati, Lord
of learning?) a learned Brahman reported to have been Premier at
the Court of the Indian King Dabishlim.

[FN#238] Diet. Philosoph. S. V. Apocrypha.

[FN#239] The older Arab writers, I repeat, do not ascribe fables
or beast-apologues to Lokman; they record only "dictes" and
proverbial sayings.

[FN#240] Professor Taylor Lewis: Preface to Pilpay.

[FN#241] In the Katha Sarit Sagara the beast-apologues are more
numerous, but they can be reduced to two great nuclei; the first
in chapter lx. (Lib. x.) and the second in the same book chapters
lxii-lxv. Here too they are mixed up with anecdotes and acroamata
after the fashion of The Nights, suggesting great antiquity for
this style of composition.

[FN#242] Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. 266 et seq. The
fabliau is interesting in more ways than one. Anepu the elder
(Potiphar) understands the language of cattle, an idea ever
cropping up in Folk-lore; and Bata (Joseph), his "little
brother," who becomes a "panther of the South (Nubia) for rage"
at the wife's impudique proposal, takes the form of a bull--
metamorphosis full blown. It is not, as some have called it, the
"oldest book in the world;" that name was given by M. Chabas to a
MS. of Proverbs, dating from B.C. 2200. See also the "Story of
Saneha," a novel earlier than the popular date of Moses, in the
Contes Populaires of Egypt.

[FN#243] The fox and the jackal are confounded by the Arabic
dialects not by the Persian, whose "Rubah" can never be mistaken
for "Shaghal." "Sa'lab" among the Semites is locally applied to
either beast and we can distinguish the two only by the fox being
solitary and rapacious, and the jackal gregarious and a
carrion-eater. In all Hindu tales the jackal seems to be an
awkward substitute for the Grecian and classical fox, the Giddar
or Kola (Cants aureus) being by no means sly and wily as the
Lomri (Vulpes vulgaris). This is remarked by Weber (Indische
Studien) and Prof. Benfey's retort about "King Nobel" the lion is
by no means to the point. See Katha Sarit Sagara, ii. 28.

I may add that in Northern Africa jackal's gall, like jackal's
grape (Solanum nigrum = black nightshade), ass's milk and melted
camel-hump, is used aphrodisiacally as an unguent by both sexes.
See. p. 239, etc., of Le Jardin parfume du Cheikh Nefzaoui, of
whom more presently.

[FN#244] Rambler, No. lxvii.

[FN#245] Some years ago I was asked by my old landlady if ever in
the course of my travels I had come across Captain Gulliver.

[FN#246] In "The Adventurer" quoted by Mr. Heron, "Translator's
Preface to the Arabian Tales of Chaves and Cazotte."

[FN#247] "Life in a Levantine Family" chapt. xi. Since the able
author found his "family" firmly believing in The Nights, much
has been changed in Alexandria; but the faith in Jinn and Ifrit,
ghost and vampire is lively as ever.

[FN#248] The name dates from the second century A. H. or before
A. D. 815.

[FN#249] Dabistan i. 231 etc.

[FN#250] Because Si = thirty and Murgh = bird. In McClenachan's
Addendum to Mackay's Encyclopaeedia of Freemasonry we find the
following definition: "Simorgh. A monstrous griffin, guardian of
the Persian mysteries."

[FN#251] For a poor and inadequate description of the festivals
commemorating this "Architect of the Gods" see vol. iii. 177,
"View of the History etc. of the Hindus" by the learned Dr. Ward,
who could see in them only the "low and sordid nature of
idolatry." But we can hardly expect better things from a
missionary in 1822, when no one took the trouble to understand
what "idolatry" means.

[FN#252] Rawlinson (ii. 491) on Herod. iii. c. 102. Nearchus saw
the skins of these formicae Indicae, by some rationalists explained
as "jackals," whose stature corresponds with the text, and by
others as "pengolens" or ant-eaters (manis pentedactyla). The
learned Sanskritist, H. H. Wilson, quotes the name Pippilika =
ant-gold, given by the people of Little Thibet to the precious
dust thrown up in the emmet heaps.

[FN#253] A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, '86), of whom
more presently, suggests that The Nights assumed essentially
their present shape during the general revival of letters, arts
and requirements which accompanied the Kurdish and Tartar
irruptions into the Nile Valley, a golden age which embraced the
whole of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and
ended with the Ottoman Conquest in A. D. 1527.

[FN#254] Let us humbly hope not again to hear of the golden prime
of

"The good (fellow?) Haroun Alrasch'id,"

a mispronunciation which suggests only a rasher of bacon. Why
will not poets mind their quantities, in lieu of stultifying
their lines by childish ignorance? What can be more painful than
Byron's

"They laid his dust in Ar'qua (for Arqua) where he
died?"

[FN#255] See De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826), vol. i.

[FN#256] See Le Jardin Parfume du Cheikh Nefzaoui Manuel
d'Erotologie Arabe Traduction revue et corrigee Edition privee,
imprime a deux cent.-vingt exemplaires, par Isidore Liseux et ses
Amis, Paris, 1866. The editor has forgotten to note that the
celebrated Sidi Mohammed copied some of the tales from The Nights
and borrowed others (I am assured by a friend) from Tunisian MSS.
of the same work. The book has not been fairly edited: the notes
abound in mistakes, the volume lacks an index, &c., &c. Since
this was written the Jardin Parfume has been twice translated
into English as "The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, a
Manual of Arabian Erotology (sixteenth century). Revised and
corrected translation, Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxvi.: for the Kama
Shastra Society of London and Benares and for private circulation
only." A rival version will be brought out by a bookseller whose
Committee, as he calls it, appears to be the model of literary
pirates, robbing the author as boldly and as openly as if they
picked his pocket before his face.

[FN#257] Translated by a well-known Turkish scholar, Mr. E. J. W.
Gibb (Glasgow, Wilson and McCormick, 1884).

[FN#258] D'Herbelot (s. v. "Asmai"): I am reproached by a dabbler
in Orientalism for using this admirable writer who shows more
knowledge in one page than my critic does in a whole volume.

[FN#259] For specimens see Al-Siyuti, pp. 301 and 304, and the
Shaykh al Nafzawi, pp. 134-35

[FN#260] The word "nakh" (to make a camel kneel) is explained in
vol. ii. 139.

[FN#261] The present of the famous horologium-clepsydra-cuckoo
clock, the dog Becerillo and the elephant Abu Lubabah sent by
Harun to Charlemagne is not mentioned by Eastern authorities and
consequently no reference to it will be found in my late friend
Professor Palmer's little volume "Haroun Alraschid," London,
Marcus Ward, 1881. We have allusions to many presents, the clock
and elephant, tent and linen hangings, silken dresses, perfumes,
and candelabra of auricalch brought by the Legati (Abdalla
Georgius Abba et Felix) of Aaron Amiralmumminim Regis Persarum
who entered the Port of Pisa (A. D. 801) in (vol. v. 178) Recueil
des Histor. des Gaules et de la France, etc., par Dom Martin
Bouquet, Paris, mdccxliv. The author also quotes the lines:--

Persarum Princeps illi devinctus amore
Praecipuo fuerat, nomen habens Aaron.
Gratia cui Caroli prae cunctis Regibus atque
Illis Principibus tempora cara funit.

[FN#262] Many have remarked that the actual date of the decease
is unknown.

[FN#263] See Al-Siyuti (p. 305) and Dr. Jonathan Scott's "Tales,
Anecdotes, and Letters," (p. 296).

[FN#264] I have given (vol. i. 188) the vulgar derivation of the
name; and D'Herbelot (s. v. Barmakian) quotes some Persian lines
alluding to the "supping up." Al-Mas'udi's account of the
family's early history is unfortunately lost. This Khalid
succeeded Abu Salamah, first entitled Wazir under Al-Saffah (Ibn
Khallikan i. 468).

[FN#265] For his poetry see Ibn Khallikan iv. 103.

[FN#266] Their flatterers compared them with the four elements.

[FN#267] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii.

[FN#268] Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abu Hashim
Masrur, the Sworder of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated
with Ja'afar in many nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived
the Caliph. Fakhr al-Din (p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of
Ja'afar; and gives further details concerning the execution.

[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258-260;
translated in the Mr. Payne's "Tales from the Arabic," vol. i.
189 and headed "Al-Rashid and the Barmecides." It is far less
lively and dramatic than the account of the same event given by
Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.

[FN#270] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxi.

[FN#271] See Dr. Jonathan Scott's extracts from Major Ouseley's
"Tarikh-i-Barmaki."

[FN#272] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii. For the liberties Ja'afar took
see Ibn Khallikan, i. 303.

[FN#273] Ibid. chapt. xxiv. In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find
signs of Ja'afar's suspected heresy. For Al-Rashid's hatred of
the Zindiks see Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the
religious troubles ibid. p. 362 and passim.

[FN#274] Biogr. Dict. i. 309.

[FN#275] This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests
the Dame aux Camelias.

[FN#276] i. e. Perdition to your fathers, Allah's curse on your
ancestors.

[FN#277] See vol. iv. 159, "Ja'afar and the Bean-seller;" where
the great Wazir is said to have been "crucified;" and vol. iv.
pp. 179, 181. Also Roebuck's Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, "This
also is through the munificence of the Barmecides."

[FN#278] I especially allude to my friend Mr. Payne's admirably
written account of it in his concluding Essay (vol. ix.). From
his views of the Great Caliph and the Lady Zubaydah I must differ
in every point except the destruction of the Barmecides.

[FN#279] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. 261-62.

[FN#280] Mr. Grattan Geary, in a work previously noticed, informs
us (i. 212) "The Sitt al-Zobeide, or the Lady Zobeide, was so
named from the great Zobeide tribe of Arabs occupying the country
East and West of the Euphrates near the Hindi'ah Canal; she was
the daughter of a powerful Sheik of that Tribe." Can this explain
the "Kasim"?

[FN#281] Vol. viii. 296.

[FN#282] Burckhardt, "Travels in Arabia" vol. i. 185.

[FN#283] The reverse has been remarked by more than one writer;
and contemporary French opinion seems to be that Victor Hugo's
influence on French prose, was on the whole, not beneficial.

[FN#284] Mr. W. S. Clouston, the "Storiologist," who is preparing
a work to be entitled "Popular Tales and Fictions; their
Migrations and Transformations," informs me the first to adapt
this witty anecdote was Jacques de Vitry, the crusading bishop of
Accon (Acre) who died at Rome in 1240, after setting the example
of "Exempla" or instances in his sermons. He had probably heard
it in Syria, and he changed the day-dreamers into a Milkmaid and
her Milk-pail to suit his "flock." It then appears as an
"Exemplum" in the Liber de Donis or de Septem Donis (or De Dono
Timoris from Fear the first gift) of Stephanus de Borbone, the
Dominican, ob. Lyons, 1261: it treated of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2 and 3), Timor, Pietas, Scientia, Fortitudo,
Consilium, Intellectus et Sapientia; and was plentifully
garnished with narratives for the use of preachers.

[FN#285] The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (new series,
vol. xxx. Sept.-Dec. 1830, London, Allens, 1839); p. 69 Review of
the Arabian Nights, the Mac. Edit. vol. i., and H. Torrens.

[FN#286] As a household edition of the "Arabian Nights" is now
being prepared, the curious reader will have an opportunity of
verifying this statement.

[FN#287] It has been pointed out to me that in vol. ii. p. 285,
line 18 "Zahr Shah" is a mistake for Sulayman Shah.

[FN#288] I have lately found these lovers at Schloss Sternstein
near Cilli in Styria, the property of my excellent colleague, Mr.
Consul Faber, dating from A. D. 1300 when Jobst of Reichenegg and
Agnes of Sternstein were aided and abetted by a Capuchin of
Seikkloster.

[FN#289] In page 226 Dr. Steingass sensibly proposes altering the
last hemistich (lines 11-12) to

At one time showing the Moon and Sun.

[FN#290] Omitted by Lane for some reason unaccountable as usual.
A correspondent sends me his version of the lines which occur in
The Nights (vol. v. 106 and 107):--

Behold the Pyramids and hear them teach
What they can tell of Future and of Past:
They would declare, had they the gift of speech,
The deeds that Time hath wrought from first to last
* * * *
My friends, and is there aught beneath the sky
Can with th' Egyptian Pyramids compare?
In fear of them strong Time hath passed by
And everything dreads Time in earth and air.

[FN#291] A rhyming Romance by Henry of Waldeck (flor. A. D. 1160)
with a Latin poem on the same subject by Odo and a prose version
still popular in Germany. (Lane's Nights iii. 81; and Weber's
"Northern Romances.")

[FN#292] e. g. 'Ajaib al-Hind (= Marvels of Ind) ninth century,
translated by J. Marcel Devic, Paris, 1878; and about the same
date the Two Mohammedan Travellers, translated by Renaudot. In
the eleventh century we have the famous Sayyid al-ldrisi, in the
thirteenth the 'Ajaib al-Makhlukat of Al-Kazwini and in the
fourteenth the Kharidat al-Ajaib of Ibn Al-Wardi. Lane (in loco)
traces most of Sindbad to the two latter sources.

[FN#293] So Hector France proposed to name his admirably
realistic volume "Sous le Burnous" (Paris, Charpentier, 1886).

[FN#294] I mean in European literature, not in Arabic where it is
a lieu commun. See three several forms of it in one page (505) of
Ibn Kallikan, vol. iii.

[FN#295] My attention has been called to the resemblance between
the half-lie and Job (i. 13- 19).

[FN#296] Boccaccio (ob. Dec. 2, 1375), may easily have heard of
The Thousand Nights and a Night or of its archetype the Hazar
Afsanah. He was followed by the Piacevoli Notti of Giovan
Francisco Straparola (A. D. 1550), translated into almost all
European languages but English: the original Italian is now rare.
Then came the Heptameron ou Histoire des amans fortunez of
Marguerite d'Angouleme, Reyne de Navarre and only sister of
Francis I. She died in 1549 before the days were finished: in
1558 Pierre Boaistuan published the Histoire des amans fortunez
and in 1559 Claude Guiget the "Heptameron." Next is the Hexameron
of A. de Torquemada, Rouen, 1610; and, lastly, the Pentamerone or
El Cunto de li Cunte of Giambattista Basile (Naples 1637), known
by the meagre abstract of J. E. Taylor and the caricatures of
George Cruikshank (London 1847-50). I propose to translate this
Pentamerone direct from the Neapolitan and have already finished
half the work.

[FN#297] Translated and well annotated by Prof. Tawney, who,
however, affects asterisks and has considerably bowdlerised
sundry of the tales, e. g. the Monkey who picked out the Wedge
(vol. ii. 28). This tale, by the by, is found in the Khirad Afroz
(i. 128) and in the Anwar-i-Suhayli (chapt. i.) and gave rise to
the Persian proverb, "What has a monkey to do with carpentering?"
It is curious to compare the Hindu with the Arabic work whose
resemblances are as remarkable as their differences, while even
more notable is their correspondence in impressioning the reader.
The Thaumaturgy of both is the same: the Indian is profuse in
demonology and witchcraft; in transformation and restoration; in
monsters as wind-men, fire-men and water-men, in air-going
elephants and flying horses (i. 541-43); in the wishing cow,
divine goats and laughing fishes (i. 24); and in the speciosa
miracula of magic weapons. He delights in fearful battles (i.
400) fought with the same weapons as the Moslem and rewards his
heroes with a "turband of honour" (i. 266) in lieu of a robe.
There is a quaint family likeness arising from similar stages and
states of society: the city is adorned for gladness, men carry
money in a robe-corner and exclaim "Ha! good!" (for "Good, by
Allah!"), lovers die with exemplary facility, the "soft-sided"
ladies drink spirits (i. 61) and princesses get drunk (i. 476);
whilst the Eunuch, the Hetaira and the bawd (Kuttini) play the
same preponderating parts as in The Nights. Our Brahman is strong
in love-making; he complains of the pains of separation in this
phenomenal universe; he revels in youth, "twin-brother to mirth,"
and beauty which has illuminating powers; he foully reviles old
age and he alternately praises and abuses the sex, concerning
which more presently. He delights in truisms, the fashion of
contemporary Europe (see Palmerin of England chapt. vii), such as
"It is the fashion of the heart to receive pleasure from those
things which ought to give it," etc. etc. What is there the wise
cannot understand? and so forth. He is liberal in trite
reflections and frigid conceits (i. 19, 55, 97, 103, 107, in fact
everywhere); and his puns run through whole lines; this in fine
Sanskrit style is inevitable. Yet some of his expressions are
admirably terse and telling, e. g. Ascending the swing of Doubt:
Bound together (lovers) by the leash of gazing: Two babes looking
like Misery and Poverty: Old Age seized me by the chin: (A lake)
first assay of the Creator's skill: (A vow) difficult as standing
on a sword-edge: My vital spirits boiled with the fire of woe:
Transparent as a good man's heart: There was a certain convent
full of fools: Dazed with scripture-reading: The stones could not
help laughing at him: The Moon kissed the laughing forehead of
the East: She was like a wave of the Sea of Love's insolence (ii.
127), a wave of the Sea of Beauty tossed up by the breeze of
Youth: The King played dice, he loved slave-girls, he told lies,
he sat up o' nights, he waxed wroth without reason, he took
wealth wrongously, he despised the good and honoured the bad (i.
562); with many choice bits of the same kind. Like the Arab the
Indian is profuse in personification; but the doctrine of
pre-existence, of incarnation and emanation and an excessive
spiritualism ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery run
mad. Thus we have Immoral Conduct embodied; the God of Death;
Science; the Svarga-heaven; Evening; Untimeliness, and the
Earth-bride, while the Ace and Deuce of dice are turned into a
brace of Demons. There is also that grotesqueness which the
French detect even in Shakespeare, e. g. She drank in his
ambrosial form with thirsty eyes like partridges (i. 476) and it
often results from the comparison of incompatibles, e. g. a row
of birds likened to a garden of nymphs; and from forced
allegories, the favourite figure of contemporary Europe. Again,
the rhetorical Hindu style differs greatly from the sobriety,
directness and simplicity of the Arab, whose motto is Brevity
combined with precision, except where the latter falls into "fine
writing." And, finally, there is a something in the atmosphere of
these Tales which is unfamiliar to the West and which makes them,
as more than one has remarked to me, very hard reading.

[FN#298] The Introduction (i. 1-5) leads to the Curse of
Pushpadanta and Malyavan who live on Earth as Vararuchi and
Gunadhya and this runs through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the
Story of Udayana to whom we must be truly grateful as our only
guide: he and his son Naravahanadatta fill up the rest and end
with lib. xviii. Thus the want of the clew or plot compels a
division into books, which begin for instance with "We worship
the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha" (lib. x. i.) a reverend and
awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen mainly suggesting the
"Zoo." The "Bismillah" of The Nights is much more satisfactory.

[FN#299] See pp. 5-6 Avertissement des Editeurs, Le Cabinet des
Fees, vol. xxxviii: Geneva 1788. Galland's Edit. of mdccxxvi ends
with Night ccxxxiv and the English translations with ccxxxvi and
cxcvii. See retro p. 82.

[FN#300] There is a shade of difference in the words; the former
is also used for Reciters of Traditions--a serious subject. But
in the case of Hammad surnamed Al-Rawiyah (the Rhapsode) attached
to the Court of Al-Walid, it means simply a conteur. So the
Greeks had Homeristae = reciters of Homer, as opposed to the
Homeridae or School of Homer.

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