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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




Lesbia quid docuit Sappho nisi amare puellas?

Suidas supports Ovid. Longinus eulogises the (a
term applied only to carnal love) of the far-famed Ode to
Atthis:--

Ille mi par esse Deo videtur * * *
(Heureux! qui pres de toi pour toi seule soupire * * *
Blest as th' immortal gods is he, etc.)

By its love symptoms, suggesting that possession is the sole cure
for passion, Erasistratus discovered the love of Antiochus for
Stratonice. Mure (Hist. of Greek Literature, 1850) speaks of the
Ode to Aphrodite (Frag. 1) as "one in which the whole volume of
Greek literature offers the most powerful concentration into one
brilliant focus of the modes in which amatory concupiscence can
display itself." But Bernhardy, Bode, Richter, K. O. Mueller and
esp. Welcker have made Sappho a model of purity, much like some
of our dull wits who have converted Shakespeare, that most
debauched genius, into a good British bourgeois.

[FN#365] The Arabic Sabhakah, the Tractatrix or Subigitatrix who
has been noticed in vol. iv. 134. Hence to Lesbianise ( )
and tribassare ( ); the former applied to the love of
woman for woman and the latter to its mecanique: this is either
natural, as friction of the labia and insertion of the clitoris
when unusually developed, or artificial by means of the fascinum,
the artificial penis (the Persian "Mayajang"); the patte de chat,
the banana-fruit and a multitude of other succedanea. As this
feminine perversion is only glanced at in The Nights I need
hardly enlarge upon the subject.

[FN#366] Plato (Symp.) is probably mystical when he accounts for
such passions by there being in the beginning three species of
humanity, men, women and men-women or androgynes. When the latter
were destroyed by Zeus for rebellion, the two others were
individually divided into equal parts. Hence each division seeks
its other half in the same sex, the primitive man prefers men and
the primitive woman women. C'est beau, but--is it true? The idea
was probably derived from Egypt which supplied the Hebrews with
androgynic humanity, and thence it passed to extreme India, where
Shiva as Ardhanari was male on one side and female on the other
side of the body, combining paternal and maternal qualities and
functions. The first creation of humans (Gen. i. 27) was
hermaphrodite (=Hermes and Venus), masculum et foeminam creavit
eos--male and female created He them--on the sixth day, with the
command to increase and multiply (ibid. v. 28), while Eve the
woman was created subsequently. Meanwhile, say certain
Talmudists, Adam carnally copulated with all races of animals.
See L'Anandryne in Mirabeau's Erotika Biblion, where Antoinette
Bourgnon laments the undoubling which disfigured the work of God,
producing monsters incapable of independent self-reproduction
like the vegetable kingdom.

[FN#367] De la Femme, Paris, 1827.

[FN#368] Die Lustseuche des Alterthum's, Halle, 1839.

[FN#369] See his exhaustive article on (Grecian) "Paederastie" in
the Allgemeine Encyclopaedie of Ersch and Gruber, Leipzig,
Brockhaus, 1837. He carefully traces it through the several
states, Dorians, AEolians, Ionians, the Attic cities and those of
Asia Minor. For these details I must refer my readers to M.
Meier; a full account of these would fill a volume not the
section of an essay.

[FN#370] Against which see Henri Estienne, Apologie pour
Herodote, a society satire of xvith century, lately reprinted by
Liseux.

[FN#371] In Sparta the lover was called or x
and the beloved as in Thessaly or x.

[FN#372] The more I study religions the more I am convinced that
man never worshipped anything but himself. Zeus, who became
Jupiter, was an ancient king, according to the Cretans, who were
entitled liars because they showed his burial-place. From a
deified ancestor he would become a local god, like the Hebrew
Jehovah as opposed to Chemosh of Moab; the name would gain
amplitude by long time and distant travel, and the old island
chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who
possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some
fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a
symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be
raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply
signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it
rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastia of the
Gods see Bayle under Chrysippe.

[FN#373] See Dissertation sur les idees morales des Grecs et sur
les dangers de lire Platon. Par M. Aude, Bibliophile, Rouen,
Lemonnyer, 1879. This is the pseudonym of the late Octave
Delepierre, who published with Gay, but not the Editio
Princeps--which, if I remember rightly, contains much more
matter.

[FN#374] The phrase of J. Matthias Gesner, Comm. Reg. Soc.
Gottingen i. 1-32. It was founded upon Erasmus' "Sancte Socrate,
ore pro nobis," and the article was translated by M. Alcide
Bonmaire, Paris, Liseux, 1877.

[FN#375] The subject has employed many a pen, e.g.,Alcibiade
Fanciullo a Scola, D. P. A. (supposed to be Pietro Aretino--ad
captandum?), Oranges, par Juann Wart, 1652: small square 8vo of
pp. 102, including 3 preliminary pp. and at end an unpaged leaf
with 4 sonnets, almost Venetian, by V. M. There is a
re-impression of the same date, a small 12mo of longer format,
pp. 124 with pp. 2 for sonnets: in 1862 the Imprimerie Racon
printed 102 copies in 8vo of pp. iv.-108, and in 1863 it was
condemned by the police as a liber spurcissimus atque execrandus
de criminis sodomici laude et arte. This work produced "Alcibiade
Enfant a l'ecole," traduit pour la premiere fois de l'Italien de
Ferrante Pallavicini, Amsterdam, chez l'Ancien Pierre Marteau,
mdccclxvi. Pallavicini (nat. 1618), who wrote against Rome, was
beheaded, aet. 26 (March 5, 1644), at Avignon in 1644 by the
vengeance of the Barberini: he was a bel esprit deregle, nourri
d'etudes antiques and a Memb. of the Acad. Degl' Incogniti. His
peculiarities are shown by his "Opere Scelte," 2 vols. 12mo,
Villafranca, mdclxiii.; these do not include Alcibiade Fanciullo,
a dialogue between Philotimus and Alcibiades which seems to be a
mere skit at the Jesuits and their Peche philosophique. Then came
the "Dissertation sur l'Alcibiade fanciullo a scola," traduit de
l'Italien de Giambattista Baseggio et accompagnee de notes et
d'une post-face par un bibliophile francais (M. Gustave Brunet,
Librarian of Bordeaux), Paris. J. Gay, 1861--an octavo of pp. 78
(paged), 254 copies. The. same Baseggio printed in 1850 his
Disquisizioni (23 copies) and claims for F. Pallavicini the
authorship of Alcibiades which the Manuel du Libraire wrongly
attributes to M. Girol. Adda in 1859. I have heard of but not
seen the "Amator fornaceus, amator ineptus" (Palladii, 1633)
supposed by some to be the origin of Alcibiade Fanciullo; but
most critics consider it a poor and insipid production.

[FN#376] The word is from numbness, torpor, narcotism: the
flowers, being loved by the infernal gods, were offered to the
Furies. Narcissus and Hippolytus are often assumed as types of
morose voluptas, masturbation and clitorisation for nymphomania:
certain mediaeval writers found in the former a type of the
Saviour, and 'Mirabeau a representation of the androgynous or
first Adam: to me Narcissus suggests the Hindu Vishnu absorbed in
the contemplation of his own perfections.

[FN#377] The verse of Ovid is parallel'd by the song of Al-Zahir
al-Jazari (Ibn Khall. iii. 720).

Illum impuberem amaverunt mares; puberem feminae.
Gloria Deo! nunquam amatoribus carebit.

[FN#378] The venerable society of prostitutes contained three
chief classes. The first and lowest were the Dicteriads, so
called from Diete (Crete), who imitated Pasiphae, wife of Minos,
in preferring a bull to a husband; above them was the middle
class, the Aleutridae, who were the Almahs or professional
musicians, and the aristocracy was represented by the Hetairai,
whose wit and learning enabled them to adorn more than one page
of Grecian history. The grave Solon, who had studied in Egypt,
established a vast Dicterion (Philemon in his Delphica), or
bordel whose proceeds swelled the revenue of the Republic.

[FN#379] This and Saint Paul (Romans i. 27) suggested to
Caravaggio his picture of St. Rosario (in the museum of the Grand
Duke of Tuscany), showing a circle of thirty men turpiter ligati.

[FN#380] Properly speaking, "Medicus" is the third or ring
finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses,

Est pollex Veneris; sed Jupiter indice gaudet,
Saturnus medium; Sol medicumque tenet.

[FN#381] So Seneca uses digito scalpit caput. The modern Italian
does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and
medius to suggest the clitoris.

[FN#382] What can be wittier than the now trite Tale of the
Ephesian Matron, whose dry humour is worthy of The Nights? No
wonder that it has made the grand tour of the world. It is found
in the neo-Phaedrus, the tales of Musaeus and in the Septem
Sapientes as the "Widow which was comforted." As the "Fabliau de
la Femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son Mari," it tempted
Brantome and La Fontaine; and Abel Remusat shows in his Contes
Chinois that it is well known to the Middle Kingdom. Mr. Walter
K. Kelly remarks, that the most singular place for such a tale is
the "Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor, who
introduces it into his chapt. v.--"Of the Contingencies of Death
and Treating our Dead." But in those days divines were not
mealy-mouthed.

[FN#383] Glossarium eroticum linguae Latinae, sive theogoniae, legum
et morum nuptialium apud Romanos explanatio nova, auctore P. P.
(Parisiis, Dondey-Dupre, 1826, in 8vo). P. P. is supposed to be
Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues, an engineer who made a plan of
Bordeaux and who annotated the Erotica Biblion. Gay writes, "On
s'est servi pour cet ouvrage des travaux inedits de M. Ie Baron
de Schonen, etc. Quant au Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues qu'on
designait comme l'auteur de ce savant volume, son existence n'est
pas bien averee, et quelques bibliographes persistent a penser
que ce nom cache la collaboration du Baron de Schonen et d'Eloi
Johanneau." Other glossicists as Blondeau and Forberg have been
printed by Liseux, Paris.

[FN#384] This magnificent country, which the petty jealousies of
Europe condemn, like the glorious regions about Constantinople,
to mere barbarism, is tenanted by three Moslem races. The
Berbers, who call themselves Tamazight (plur. of Amazigh), are
the Gaetulian indigenes speaking an Africo-Semitic tongue (see
Essai de Grammaire Kabyle, etc., par A. Hanoteau, Paris, Benjamin
Duprat). The Arabs, descended from the conquerors in our eighth
century, are mostly nomads and camel-breeders. Third and last are
the Moors proper, the race dwelling in towns, a mixed breed
originally Arabian but modified by six centuries of Spanish
residence and showing by thickness of feature and a
parchment-coloured skin, resembling the American Octaroon's, a
negro innervation of old date. The latter are well described in
"Morocco and the Moors," etc. (Sampson Low and Co., 1876), by my
late friend Dr. Arthur Leared, whose work I should like to see
reprinted.

[FN#385] Thus somewhat agreeing with one of the multitudinous
modern theories that the Pentapolis was destroyed by discharges
of meteoric stones during a tremendous thunderstorm. Possible,
but where are the stones?

[FN#386] To this Iranian domination I attribute the use of many
Persic words which are not yet obsolete in Egypt. "Bakhshish,"
for instance, is not intelligible in the Moslem regions west of
the Nile-Valley, and for a present the Moors say Hadiyah, regalo
or favor.

[FN#387] Arnobius and Tertullian, with the arrogance of their
caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often
concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to
taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored
"Consuistis in precibus 'Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,' dicere!" These
men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man's
brains and armed him with a despotism of omnipotence which
rendered their creation truly dreadful.

[FN#388] Gallus lit. = a cock, in pornologic parlance is a capon,
a castrato.

[FN#389] The texts justifying or enjoining castration are Matt.
xviii. 8-9; Mark ix. 43-47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St.
Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his
wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained
from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself
after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly
excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D.
250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and
dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the
spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first
appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two
Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former
was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna
and is called by the chronicles Nawje or the Corpse. But in the
early part of the last century (1715-1733) a sect arose in the
circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or
flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this
extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift fuer Ethn. Berlin,
1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.

[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious
"Dead Sea" in the Purchas v. 84.

[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying
men instead of teaching them better. But, "Nous faisons les Dieux
a notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur
la terre." The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the
Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at
Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.

[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarat al-Ashara, a
clump of trees near the village Al-Ghajar (of the Gypsies?) at
the foot of Hermon.

[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the
planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Mueller and
Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn
and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic
Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have
proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the
west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the
Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.

[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of
Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metawali heretics,
a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry
of "Bilad B'sharrah," which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah,
still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the
Sayyidat al-Kabirah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them
of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they
suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt--the Lady's tree--an
Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only
here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of
Kasrawan, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a
peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the
far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the
Kadashah of the Phoenicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary "Handbooks," but amply deserves the study
of the anthropologist.

[FN#395] Some commentators understand "the tabernacles sacred to
the reproductive powers of women;" and the Rabbis declare that
the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.

[FN#396] Dog" is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and
the Catamite, and thus they understand the "price of a dog" which
could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have
noticed it in one of the derivations of cinaedus and can only
remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.

[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some,
"King's mother": she founded the sect of Communists who rejected
marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their
splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians
followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the
Turlupins, long infested Savoy.

[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous
development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.

[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2-11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught
the "Art of le Thalaba" to his son Pan who wandered about the
mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed
it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.

[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the "he"
in Arabic poetry denotes a "she"; but the Arab, when
uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is
a Badawi.

[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the
masculine.

[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptae, youths or
girls who wiped the gymnast's perspiring body with swan-down, a
practice renewed by the professors of "Massage"; Unctores who
applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or
shampooers; Dropacistae, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the
hair, etc., etc., etc.

[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect.
2, No. 1602):

The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of
jewelry;
The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar's worth his lord,
Ali.

[FN#404] For "Sindi" Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99)
has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjabi peasant, and others vary the saying
ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.

[FN#405] See "Sind Revisited" i. 133-35.

[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs,
the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in
the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however
refused to undergo the operation.

[FN#407] Relation des decouvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p.
137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci's letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and
Paro's Recherches philosophiques sur les Americains.

[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the These de
Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, "Frictiones per coitum
productae magnum mucosae membranae vaginalis turgorem, ac simul
hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quaeritatam
afferunt."

[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins
of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in
phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.

[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as
"counterfeit hair for women's privy parts. See Bailey's Dict."
The Bailey of 1764, an "improved edition," does not contain the
word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.

[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes
to Mr. Albert Tootle's excellent translation of "The Captivity of
Hans Stade of Hesse:" London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.

[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes
200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct.
1873.

[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America,
by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.

[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were
probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraibes) of the Brazil: they
will be noticed in page 211.

[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries,
a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.

[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.

[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.

[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.

[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.

[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Serie de la Curiosite
Litteraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.

[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der
Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen
zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.

[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius
Arbiter, the "Larissa" story of Theophile Viand. His cousin, the
Sevigne, highly approved of it. See Bayle's objections to
Rabutin's delicacy and excuses for Petronius' grossness in his
"Eclaircissement sur les obscenites" (Appendice au Dictionnaire
Antique).

[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle
for Boulgre, an "indorser," derived from the Bulgarus or
Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo--liar. Bougre and
Bougrerie date (Littre) from the xiiith century. I cannot,
however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the
xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians
were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and
several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fete
in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de
Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three
hundred men (including fifty "Bugres" or Tupis) with parroquets
and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The
procession is given in the four-folding woodcut "Figure des
Bresiliens" in Jean de Prest's Edition of 1551.

[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadesch (pp. 93 et seq.),
Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues
of Bordeaux, before noticed.

[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw
in the mouth, a la Palmerston.

[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly
paid and have given the reason.

[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to,
p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.

[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the
following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide
diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so
many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have
been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar and
Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law
which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with
the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii.,
Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland
and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i.,
xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the
Composer), D'Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Conde,
Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Valliere, De
Soleinne, Count D'Avaray, Saint Megrin, D'Epernon, Admiral de la
Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the
Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievee,
Theodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambaceres, Marquis de
Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D'Orsay. For others refer to the
three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded
to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices
will supply the names.

[FN#429] 0f this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii.
43), "There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their
character. Abu al-Atahiyah wrote pious poems himself being an
atheist; Abu Hukayma's verses proved his impotence, yet he was
more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Hazim praised
contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abu Nowas hymned
the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a
baboon."

[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet
injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour
an author's unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a
popular Review books which have been printed and not published is
hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of
literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper "The
Reviewer Reviewed" which will, amongst other things, explain the
motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the
Edinburgh.

[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of
Gladwin's "Dissertations on Rhetoric," etd., Calcutta, 1801.

[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife,
| to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for
worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to
love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it
becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose
style. In that delightful old French the Saj'a frequently
appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books:
e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.

[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration
(Ibn Khall. ii., 316).

[FN#434] He called himself "Nabiyun ummi" = illiterate prophet;
but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable
to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists,
were "Aatini dawata wa kalam" (bring me ink-case and pen); upon
which the Shi'ah or Persian sectaries base, not without
probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the
name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the
intention, exclaimed, "The Prophet is delirious; have we not the
Koran?" thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that
may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even
when not "under inspiration." The vulgar idea would arise from a
pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.

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