joining them in one; after which he sat down.And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Hundred and Seventy-sixth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Prince Kamar al-Zaman had prayed (conjoining them in one) the prayers of sundown and nightfall, he sat down on the well and began reciting the Koran, and he repeated "The Cow," the "House of Imrán," and "Y. S.;" "The Compassionate," "Blessed be the King," "Unity" and "The two Talismans"[1]; and he ended with blessing and supplication and with saying, "I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the stoned."[2] Then he lay down upon his couch which was covered with a mattress of satin from al-Ma'adin town, the same on both sides and stuffed with the raw silk of Irak; and under his head was a pillow filled with ostrich-down And when ready for sleep, he doffed his outer clothes and drew off his bag-trousers and lay down in a shirt of delicate stuff smooth as wax; and he donned a head-kerchief of azure Marázi[3] cloth; and at such time and on this guise Kamar al-Zaman was like the full-orbed moon, when it riseth on its fourteenth night. Then,
- ↑ The Chapters are: 2, 3, 36, 55, 67 and the two last ("Daybreak" cxiii. and "Men" cxiv.), which are called Al-Mu'izzatáni (vulgar Al-Mu'izzatayn), the "Two Refuge-takings or Preventives," because they obviate enchantment. I have translated the two latter as follows:—
"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of the Day-break ● from mischief of what He did make ● from mischief of moon eclipse-showing ● and from mischief of witches on cord-knots blowing ● and from mischief of envier when envying."
"Say:—Refuge I take with the Lord of men ● the sovran of men ● the God of men ● from the Tempter, the Demon ● who tempteth in whisper the breasts of men ● and from Jinnis and (evil) men." - ↑ The recitations were Náfilah, or superogatory, two short chapters only being required and the taking refuge was because he slept in a ruin, a noted place in the East for Ghuls as in the West for ghosts.
- ↑ Lane (ii. 222) first read "Múroozee" and referred it to the Murúz tribe near Herat he afterwards (iii. 748) corrected it to "Marwazee," of the fabric of Marw (Margiana) the place now famed for "Mervousness." As a man of Rayy (Rhages) becomes Rází (e.g. Ibn Fáris al-Razí), so a man of Marw is Marázi, not Murúzi nor Márwazi. The "Mikna'" was a veil forming a kind of "respirator," defending from flies by day and from mosquitos, dews and draughts by night. Easterns are too sensible to sleep with bodies kept warm by bedding, and heads bared to catch every blast. Our grandfathers and grandmothers did well to wear bonnets-de-nuit, however ridiculous they may have looked.
