[FN#374] Syn. “his clemency required.”

[FN#375] i.e. shall he reserved for him alone.

[FN#376] i.e. the marriage trousseau.

[FN#377] Lit.  “Except that, O my son, the Vizier bespoke him a privy word (kelam sirriyy) ere he promised me; then, after the Vizier bespoke him a word privily (sirran), he promised me to (ila) three months.”

[FN#378] Lit. an ill presence (mehhdser sau).  This expression has occurred before in the Nights, where I have, in deference to the authority of the late M. Dozy (the greatest Arabic scholar since Silvestre de Sacy) translated it “a compend of ill,” reading the second word as pointed with dsemmeh (i.e. sou, evil, sub.) instead of with fetheh (i.e. sau, evil, adj.), although in such a case the strict rules of Arabic grammar require sou to be preceded by the definite article (i.e. mehhdseru’s sou).  However, the context and the construction of the phrase, in which the present example of the expression occurs, seem to show that it is not here used in this sense.

[FN#379] Night DXLIX.

[FN#380] Lit. (as before) “promised her to” (ila).

[FN#381] Lit. “to” (ila), as before.

[FN#382] i.e. the delay.

[FN#383] Lit. “he thanked his mother and thought (or made) much of her goodness (istekthera bi-kheiriha, a common modern expression, signifying simply ‘he thanked her’) for her toil.”  Burton, “Then he thanked his parent, showing her how her good work had exceeded her toil and travail "

[FN#384] Lit.  “Wonder took her at this wonder and the decoration.”  Burton amplifies, “She wondered at the marvellous sight and the glamour of the scene.”  Me judice, to put it in the vernacular, she simply wondered what the dickens it was all about.

[FN#385] Min wectiha.  Burton, “And for some time, O my son, I have suspected.”  See ante, p. 134. {see FN#378}

[FN#386] Lit. “fever seized him of his chagrin.”

[FN#387] Night DL.

[FN#388] Lit. “promised me to” (ila), as before.

[FN#389] Eshaa; or, if we take the word as pointed with kesreh (i.e. ishaa), we may read, with Burton, “to pass the rest of the evening,” though this expression seems to me hardly in character with the general tone of the Ms.

[FN#390] Musterah.

[FN#391] Sic (el gheir).

[FN#392] Night DLI.

[FN#393] Min doun khiyaneh i.e. without offering her any affront.  Burton, “and he did no villain deed.”

[FN#394] Galland adds, “et passe dans une garde-robe o—­ il s’etoit deshabille le soir.”  Something of the kind appears to have dropped out of the present Ms.

[FN#395} Night DLII.

[FN#396] Lit. “with the eye of anger.”  Ghedseb (anger) and its synonym ghaits are frequently used in the Nights in this sense; see especially Vol.  II. of my translation, p. 234, " she smiled a sad smile,” lit. a “smile of anger,” (twice) and p. 258, “my anguish redoubled,” lit.  “I redoubled in anger.”