[FN#256] “Chamber” is becoming a dangerous word in English.  Roars of laughter from the gods greeted the great actor’s declamation, “The bed has not been slept in!  Her little chamber is empty!”

[FN#257] Choice Gift of the breast (or heart).

[FN#258] From the Calc.  Edit. (1814-18), Nights cxcvi.-cc., vol. ii., pp. 367-378.  The translation has been compared and collated with that of Langles (Paris, 1814), appended to his Edition of the Voyages of Sindbad.  The story is exceedingly clever and well deserves translation.

[FN#259] It is regretable that this formula has not been preserved throughout The Nights:  it affords, I have noticed, a pleasing break to the long course of narrative.

[FN#260] Arab.  “Banat-al-hawa” lit. daughters of love, usually meaning an Anonyma, a fille de joie; but here the girl is of good repute, and the offensive term must be modified to a gay, frolicsome lass.

[FN#261] Arab.  “Jabhat,” the lintel opposed to the threshold.

[FN#262] Arab.  “Ghatti,” still the popular term said to a child showing its nakedness, or a lady of pleasure who insults a man by displaying any part of her person.

[FN#263] She is compared with a flashing blade (her face) now drawn from its sheath (her hair) then hidden by it.

[FN#264] The “Muajjalah” or money paid down before consummation was about L25; and the “Mu’ajjalah” or coin to be paid contingent on divorce was about L75.  In the Calc.  Edit ii. 371, both dowers are L35.

[FN#265] All the blemishes which justify returning a slave to the slave-dealer.

[FN#266] Media:  see vol. ii. 94.  The “Daylamite prison” was one of many in Baghdad.

[FN#267] See vol. v. 199.  I may remark that the practice of bathing after copulation was kept up by both sexes in ancient Rome.  The custom may have originated in days when human senses were more acute.  I have seen an Arab horse object to be mounted by the master when the latter had not washed after sleeping with a woman.

[FN#268] On the morning after a happy night the bridegroom still offers coffee and Halwa to friends.

[FN#269] i.e.  More bewitching.

[FN#270] Arab.  “Sharifi” more usually Ashrafi, the Port.  Xerafim, a gold coin = 6s.-7s.

[FN#271] The oft-repeated Koranic quotation.

[FN#272] Arab. “’Irk”:  our phrase is “the apple of the eye.”

[FN#273] Meaning that he was a Sayyid or a Sharif.

[FN#274] i.e. than a Jew or a Christian.  So the Sultan, when appealed to by these religionists, who were as usual squabbling and fighting, answered, “What matter if the dog tear the hog or the hog tear the dog”?

[FN#275] The “Shari’at” forbidding divorce by force.

[FN#276] i.e. protect my honour.

[FN#277] For this proverb see vol. v. 138. 1 have remarked that “Shame” is not a passion in Europe as in the East; the Western equivalent to the Arab.  “Haya’ ’would be the Latin “Pudor.”