[Dozy (Supp. aux Dict.  Arabes) has [Arabic] [naqqare] “petit tambour ou timbale, bassin de cuivre ou de terre recouvert d’une peau tendue,” and “grosses timbales en cuivre portees sur un chameau ou un mulet.”—­Devic (Dict.  Etym.) writes:  “Bas Latin, nacara; bas grec, [Greek:  anachara].  Ce n’est point comme on l’a dit, l’Arabe [Arabic] naqir ou [Arabic] naqoer, qui signifient trompette, clairon, mais le persan [Arabic] en arabe, [Arabic] naqara, timbale.”  It is to be found also in Abyssinia and south of Gondokoro; it is mentioned in the Sedjarat Malayu.

In French, it gives nacaire and gnacare from the Italian gnacare.  “Quatre jouent de la guitare, quatre des castagnettes, quatre des gnacares.” (MOLIERE, Pastorale Comique.)—­H.  C.]

[Illustration:  Nakkaras. (From an Indian original.)]

NOTE 4.—­This description of a fight will recur again and again till we are very tired of it.  It is difficult to say whether the style is borrowed from the historians of the East or the romancers of the West.  Compare the two following parallels.  First from an Oriental history:—­

“The Ear of Heaven was deafened with the din of the great Kurkahs and Drums, and the Earth shook at the clangour of the Trumpets and Clarions.  The shafts began to fall like the rain-drops of spring, and blood flowed till the field looked like the Oxus.” (J.  A. S. ser.  IV. tom. xix. 256)

Next from an Occidental Romance:—­

  “Now rist grete tabour betyng,
  Blaweyng of pypes, and ek trumpyng,
  Stedes lepyng, and ek arnyng,
  Of sharp speres, and avalyng
  Of stronge knighttes, and wyghth meetyng;
  Launces breche and increpyng;
  Knighttes fallyng, stedes lesyng;
  Herte and hevedes thorough kervyng;
  Swerdes draweyng, lymes lesyng
  Hard assaylyng, strong defendyng,
  Stiff withstondyng and wighth fleigheyng. 
  Sharp of takyng armes spoylyng;
  So gret bray, so gret crieyng,
  Ifor the folk there was dyeyng;
  So muche dent, noise of sweord,
  The thondur blast no myghte beo hirde,
  No the sunne hadde beo seye,
  For the dust of the poudre!
  No the weolkyn seon be myght,
  So was arewes and quarels flyght.”
      —­King Alisaunder, in Weber, I. 93-94.

And again:—­

  “The eorthe quaked heom undur,
  No scholde mon have herd the thondur.” 
      —­Ibid. 142.

Also in a contemporary account of the fall of Acre (1291):  “Renovatur ergo bellum terribile inter alterutros ... clamoribus interjectis hine et inde ad terrorem; ita ut nec Deus tonans in sublime coaudiri potuisset.” (De Excidio Acconis, in Martene et Durand, V. 780.)

NOTE 5.—­“Car il estoit homme au Grant Kaan.” (See note 2, ch. xiv., in Prologue.)