The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Vol. 1 (1885) - Page 17

NUR AL-DIN ALI AND THE MAIDEN ANIS AL-JALIS

Shahrazad said:—I have heard, O fortunate King of deep intelligence, that among the Kings of Bassorah there was a King who loved the poor and needy and cared for his subjects. He gave his wealth to all who believed in Mohammed (whom Allah bless and save!), and he was just as one of the poets described him:—

A King who, when enemy hosts invade, ❈ Receives them with lance-thrusts and sword-swings;

He writes his name on chests in thin red lines, ❈ And scatters the cavalry in wild confusion.

¹ In addition to note 2, p. 2, and note 2, p. 14, vol. 1, I may add that “Shahrázád,” in the Shams al-Loghat The Sun of Languages, is the proper name of a King. L. Langlès (The Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor and the Deception of Women original: "Les Voyages de Sindibâd Le Marin et La Ruse des Femmes", first added to Savary’s Grammar and reprinted 1814) explains it as “the cypress, the beauty of the city”; and he is followed by Kazimirski (Enis el-Djelis, Paris, 1847). Ouseley (Oriental Collections) makes Shahrazad = town-born; and others see it as an Arabic form of Chehr-azad (“free of face” or “noble of countenance”), the nickname original: "petit nom" of Queen Humay, for whom see the final Essay. The name of the sister—whom the Fihrist The Index turns into a Kahramanah, or nurse, commonly written Dunyazad—would mean “child of gold pieces,” “freed by gold pieces,” or “one who has no need of gold pieces”: Din-zad = child of faith; and Daynazad, proposed by Langlès, “free from debt (!)” I have adopted Macnaghten’s Dunyazad. “Shahryar,” which Scott horribly writes “Shier-ear,” is translated by the Shams as “King of the world,” “absolute monarch,” and “the court of Anushirwan,” while the Burhan-i-Qati The Decisive Proof defines it as a King of Kings and the proper name of a town. Shahr-baz is also the name of a town in Samarkand.

² Arabic “Malik,” used here as in our storybooks: “Pompey was a wise and powerful King,” says the Gesta Romanorum The Deeds of the Romans. This King is, as will appear, a Regent or Governor under Harun al-Rashid. In the next tale, he is the Viceroy of Damascus, where he is also called “Sultan.”

³ The Bulaq Edition gives the lines as follows:—

The spear was his pen, and the hearts of his enemies ❈ His paper, and he dipped it in blood for ink;

Therefore our ancestors called the spear Khattiyah, ❈ Meaning, I think, that one shall write with it.

The pun is in “Khattiyah,” which can mean a female writer and also a spear, from Khatt-Hajar, a region in the province of Al-Bahrayn (Persian Gulf) and Oman. This is where the best Indian bamboos were landed and fashioned into lances. Imr al-Kays (Mu’allakah v. 4.) sings of “our dark spears firmly made of Khattiyan cane”; Al-Busiri of “the brown lances of Khatt”; see also Lebid v. 50 and Hamasah pp. 26, 231: Antar mentions the “Spears of Khatt” and “Rudaynian lances.” Rudaynah is said to have been the...

VOL. II.