GLOIRE A DIEU

2. 1-4. Au nom de Dieu, le clément. . . . This introductory invocation is borrowed, as indicated in the foot-note of the text, from the Koran. The Koran, as is well known, embodies the pretended révélations of the Arabian prophet Mohammed. Koran means in Arabie, reading or book; with the article, Al-Koran, it means the book, i.e., the book par excellence, the book of truth, just as the Bible, meaning in Greek " the book," is the book of truth to the Christians. The chapter from which the verses quoted are borrowed is said to be the first that came to Mohammed by révélation when he was on the mount of Harra, solitary and meditating.

4. le roman d'Abou-Zeyd, ... la vie d'Ez-Zahir, two heroic romances corresponding to our own middle-age epics, such as the romance of Charlemagne or that of King Arthur.

9-10. le puits de la Bénédiction, the well dug by Abdallah, the hero of the story. See chapters X, XI, and XXXII.

3. Abdallah means Servant of God. It is a common name in Arabia, that, for instance, of Mohammed's father.

Trèfle à quatre feuilles, trefoil (or clover) with four leaves. Trèfle coming from the Latin trifolium = three leaves, a trifolium with four leaves is the symbol of something that cannot be found and thus means frequently in symbolic language happiness. See text, the last page of chapter II, chapter VII, and the religious legend of the Trèfle à quatre feuilles in chapter VIII.