400“headgear of a generic nature” (ʿimārāt): ʿimārah is defined in the Qāmūs as “anything worn on the head, be it a turban (ʿimāmah), a cap (qalansuwah), a crown (tāj), or anything else.”
401“watermelon-shaped… cantaloupe-shaped… caps” (bi-arāṣīṣ… bi-arāsīs): while the author, in this footnote, specifies the shape of the former, the dictionaries say of the latter merely that it is “a cap” (qalansuwah); however, it seems to be a variant of the first.
402“judges’ tun-caps” (danniyyāt): so called from their resemblance to a dann or large wine barrel.
403“antimacassars” (ṣawāqiʿ): cloths worn by a woman on her head to protect her veil from grease (Qāmūs).
404“pass their hands over what is in front of the latter” (yatamassaḥūna bi-mā amāmahu): the significance is unclear; the Qāmūs cites the usage yutamassaḥu bi-hi (“people pass their hands over him/it,”) and says that it means yutabarraku bi-hi li-faḍlihi (“blessing is derived from him because of his/its virtue”). This brings to mind the habit of visitors to certain mosques of passing their hands over the grills enclosing saints’ tombs in the belief that they will thus obtain barakah (“grace”).
405“underwear” (andarward): the English word is probably intended; andarward may be due to a mishearing by the author or possibly a joke (andar-ward “under-roses”).
406i.e., must never stop calling out pious phrases to warn those around him of his presence or that he is “coming through.”
407“As God wills!… O God!” (mā shāʿa llāh… Allāh): typical expressions of delight, pleasure, and appreciation, all of which invoke God’s name to protect the one praised from the possible effects of envy.
408“her peepings through her fingers against the sun to see…, her shading of her eyes against the sun to see and her peering through her fingers against the sun to see” (istikfāfihā… wa-stīḍāḥihā wa-stishfāfihā): all defined in the Qāmūs as synonyms.
409“a fourth way of walking, with further letters changed” (wa-qahbalatihā): again, defined in the Qamūs as “a way of walking.”
410“a fifth way of walking, with further letters changed” (hayqalatihā): again, defined in the Qamūs as “a way of walking.”
411“her walking with tiny steps” (khadhʿalatihā): the Qāmūs defines again as “a way of walking”; however, a second sense given is “cutting a watermelon etc. into small pieces.”
412“her marching proudly (spelled two ways)” (tabahrusihāwa-tahabrusihā): synonyms, meaning tabakhtur (“strutting”), according to the Lisān (s.v. tabahrasa).
413“the same said another way” (wa-unufihā): synonym of the preceding item, according to the Qāmūs.
414“two lines”: four hemistichs, each hemistich starting here on a new line.
415The word muʿqanafishan has not been found in any dictionary, but cf. ʿaqanfas, variant of ʿafanqas “ill-tempered, base” (ʿasir al-akhlāq laʾīm).
416“bardhaʿahs… ikāfs… qitbahs… bāṣars”: all types of saddle.
417“with a thread of paper” (bi-khayṭin min al-kāghid): perhaps referring to the domination of the bureaucracy by Turks.
418“leading… ‘leading’ him” (yaqūdu… yaqūdūna lahu): the author plays with two senses of the verb, qāda “to lead” and qāda li- “to pimp for.”
419“bakalım kapalım (‘let’s see-bee’)”: the phrase is constructed by adding a non-existent word kapalım to the genuine word bakalım (“let’s see”) thus mimicking such genuine Turkish rhyming couplets as the preceding.
420“Ghaṭāliq…”: most of the supposed Turkish of the following lines is in fact nonsense, though it does contain distinctive Turkish features, such as the ending — lik /lıq; the first hemistich of the last line does make sense in Turkish (“They’re like donkeys too, by God!”), and the second hemistich of the same line can be read as near-meaningless Arabic (“Their troubles are their confusions”).
421“head… tail”: by “head” the author may mean the promontory of Raʾs al-Tīn (“the Head(land) of the Figs”) and by “tail” the land end of that promontory, where the popular quarter of Anfūshī, home to the city’s fish market, is situated.
422Qayʿar Qayʿār: an invented name that may be translated as something like “Plummy Pompous,” from the literal senses of qayʿar and qayʿār, both of which mean one who “speaks affectedly and from the back of his mouth” (tashaddaqa wa-takallama bi-aqṣā famihi). If we follow the clues offered by the similarly coded name Baʿīr Bayʿar (= al-Amīr Ḥaydar (1.5.2)), we may suppose that the first name of this individual may have been Ḥaydar, while the second may have been Bayṭār or another name of the same pattern. However, it is also possible that a European was intended (see next endnote).
423“the Himyaritic lands” (al-bilād al-ḥimyariyyah): i.e., southern Arabia, though the orthography also allows the reading al-bilād al-ḥamīriyyah, meaning “the lands of the donkeys,” and it is unclear whether the Fāriyāq is referring to an Arab or a “Frank”; some phrases and topoi in the passage that follows are reminiscent of those used when Franks are lampooned for their bad Arabic, as in the following chapter.
424“the science of ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’” (ʿilm al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl): i.e., Arabic grammar.
425“chronograms” (ʿilm al-jummal): each letter of the Arabic alphabet has a conventionally assigned numerical value under a system known as hisāb al-jummal. The construction of chronograms capable of being read both as words and as dates became a common feature of congratulatory poetry starting in the ninth/fifteenth century. For examples, see Volume Four, section 4.20.13.
426ʿĪsā: a proper name, cognate with “Jesus.”
427“within this p’tcher” (fī hādhā l-kuzz): kuzz appears to be a nonce-word derived from the common word kūz by shortening the vowel and doubling the second consonant, the charlatan teacher’s idea being that the word needs to contain a doubled consonant (shadda, a word conveying the idea of “tightening”) to fit with something that is “confined”; the same logic might apply to zanbīl / zabbīl below, though both forms in this case are genuine.