[FN#54] Arab. "Nafs Ammárah," corresponding with our canting term "The Flesh." Nafs al-Nátíkah is the intellectual soul or function; Nafs al-Ghazabíyah = the animal function and Nafs al Shahwáníyah = the vegetative property.
[FN#55] The lines occur in vol. ii. 331: I have quoted Mr. Payne. Here they are singularly out of place.
[FN#56] Not the "green gown" of Anglo-India i.e. a white ball-dress with blades of grass sticking to it in consequence of a "fall backwards."
[FN#57] These lines occur in vol. i. 219: I have borrowed from Torrens (p. 219).
[FN#58] The appearance of which ends the fast and begins the Lesser Festival. See vol. i. 84.
[FN#59] See note, vol. i. 84, for notices of the large navel; much appreciated by Easterns.
[FN#60] Arab. "Shá'ir Al-Walahán" = the love-distraught poet; Lane has "a distracted poet." My learned friend Professor Aloys Sprenger has consulted, upon the subject of Al-Walahán the well-known Professor of Arabic at Halle, Dr. Thorbeck, who remarks that the word (here as further on) must be an adjective, mad, love-distraught, not a "lakab" or poetical cognomen. He generally finds it written Al-Shá'ir al-Walahán (the love-demented poet) not Al-Walahán al-Shá'ir = Walahán the Poet. Note this burst of song after the sweet youth falls in love: it explains the cause of verse-quotation in The Nights, poetry being the natural language of love and battle.
[FN#62] Here Lane proposes a transposition, for "Wa-huwá (and he) fi'l-hubbi," to read "Fi 'l-hubbi wa huwa (wa-hwa);" but the latter is given in the Mac. Edit.
[FN#63] For the pun in "Sabr"=aloe or patience. See vol. i. 138. In Herr Landberg (i. 93) we find a misunderstanding of the couplet--
"Aw'ákibu s-sabri (Kála ba'azuhum) Mahmúdah: Kultu, 'khshi an takhirriní.'"
"The effects of patience" (or aloes) quoth one "are praiseworthy!" Quoth I, "Much I fear lest it make me stool." Mahmúdah is not only un laxatif, but a slang name for a confection of aloes.
[FN#64] Arab. "Akúna fidá-ka." Fidá = ransom, self-sacrifice and Fidá'an = instead of. The phrase, which everywhere occurs in The Nights, means, "I would give my life to save thine "
[FN#65] Thus accounting for his sickness, improbably enough but in flattering way. Like a good friend (feminine) she does not hesitate a moment in prescribing a fib.