[FN#150] A common Oriental game, something like a rude out-door form of back-gammon, in which the players who throw certain numbers are dubbed Sultan and Vizier.

[FN#151] Lit. milk (leben), possibly a copyist’s error for jubn (cheese).

[FN#152] i.e. his forbearance in relinquishing his blood-revenge for his brother.

[FN#153] In the text, by an evident error, Shehriyar is here made to ask Shehrzad for another story and she to tell it him.

[FN#154] Nesiheh.

[FN#155] i.e. the mysterious speaker?

[FN#156] Apparently some famous saint.  The El Hajjaj whose name is familiar to readers of the Thomsand and One Night (see supra, Vol.  I. p. 53, note 2) was anything but a saint, if we may believe the popular report of him.

[FN#157] Breslan Text, vol. xi. pp. 400-473 and vol. xii. pp. 4-50, Nights dccccvli-dcccclvii.

[FN#158] The usual meaning of the Arab word anber (pronounced amber) a ambergris, i.e. the morbid secretion of the sperm-whale; but the context appears to point to amber, i.e. the fossil resin used for necklaces, etc.; unless, indeed, the allusion of the second hemistich is to ambergris, as worn, for the sake of the perfume, in amulets or pomanders (Fr. pomme d’ambre) slung about the neck.

[FN#159] i.e. galena or sulphuret of lead, of which, reduced to powder, alone or in combination with other ingredients, the well-known cosmetic or eye-powder called kohl consists.

[FN#160] See supra, Vol. 1. p. 50, note 2.

[FN#161] Or “accomplishments” (adab).

[FN#162] Title of the Khalif.

[FN#163] i.e.  Isaac of Mosul, the greatest of Arab musicians.

[FN#164] Elder brother of Jaafer; see my “Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,” Vol.  IX. p. 342 et seq.

[FN#165] Yonnus ibn Hebib, a renowned grammarian and philologer of the day, who taught at Bassora and whose company was much sought after by distinguished men of letters and others.  He was a friend of Isaac of Mosul.

[FN#166] Apparently a suburb of Baghdad.

[FN#167] i.e. the principal street of Et Taf.

[FN#168] Or “elegant.”

[FN#169] See supra, Vol.  I. p. 236, note 1.

[FN#170] ?

[FN#171] A passage has apparently dropped out here.  The Khalif seems to have gone away without buying, leaving Ishac behind, whereupon the latter was accosted by another slave-girl, who came out of a cell in the corridor.

[FN#172] Or “have withheld myself.”

[FN#173] For not selling me?

[FN#174] i.e.  Tuhfeh the fool.  Hemca is the feminine form of ahmec, fool.  If by a change in the (unwritten) vowels, we read Humeca, which is the plural form of ahmec, the title will signify, “Gift (Tuhfeh) of fools” and would thus represent a jesting alteration of the girl’s real name (Tuhfet el Culoub, Gift of hearts), in allusion to her (from the slave-merchant’s point of view) foolish and vexatious behaviour in refusing to be sold to the first comer, as set out below.