e kiosk" and seeing "the
casement (shubbak), which Alaeddin had purposely left defective, without
completion," said to the Vizier, "Knowest thou the reason (or cause) of
the lack of completion of this casement and its lattices?" (shearihi, or
quaere, "[this] lattice," the copyist having probably omitted by mistake
the diacritical points over the final ha). Then he asked Alaeddin, "What
is the cause that the lattice of yonder kiosk (kushk) is not complete?"
The defective part is soon after referred to, no less than four times,
as "the lattice of the kiosk" (sheriyyetu 'l kushk), thus showing that,
in the writer's mind, kushk, liwan and shubbak were synonymous terms for
the common Arab projecting square-sided window, made of latticework,
and I have therefore rendered the three words, when they occur in this
sense, by our English "oriel," to whose modern meaning (a window that
juts out, so as to form a small apartment), they exactly correspond.
Again, in the episode of the Maugrabin's brother, the princess shows the
latter (disguised as Fatimeh) "the belvedere (teyyarrh) and the kiosk
(kushk) of jewels, the which [was] with (i.e. had) the four-and-twenty
portals" (mejouz, apparently a Syrian variant of mejaz, lit. a place of
passage, but by extension a porch, a gallery, an opening, here (and here
only) used by synecdoche for the oriel itself), and the famous roe's
egg is proposed to be suspended from "the dome (cubbeh) of the upper
chamber" (el keszr el faucaniyy), thus showing that the latter was
crowned with a dome or cupola. It is difficult to extricate the author's
exact meaning from the above tangle of confused references; but, as far
as can be gathered. in the face of the carelessness with which the text
treats kushk as synonymous now with keszr or teyyareh and now with liwan
or shubbak, it would seem that what is intended to be described is a
lofty hall (or sorer), erected on the roof of the palace, whether round
or square we cannot tell, but crowned with a dome or cupola and having
four-and-twenty deep projecting windows or oriels, the lattice or
trellis-work of which latter was formed (instead of the usual wood) of
emeralds, rubies and other jewels, strung, we may suppose, upon rods of
gold or other metal I have, at the risk of wearying my reader, treated
this point at some length, as well because it is an important one as to
show the almost insuperable difficulties that beset the. conscientious
translator at well-n