Repository path: workshop/experiments/E-20260902-arabic-function/coding.md · rendered 2026-09-09

E-20260902 — the six cells coded, with the English quoted

Codes as E-20260831/coding.md: IT italic · QU quotation marks · TR transliterated foreign word in italic · PLAIN present and unmarked · DROPPED · MERGED · UNALIGNED. Italic read from the ABBYY layer ({{…}} in E-20260831/materials/raw/*.ital.txt), because _djvu.txt throws font information away.

Alignment: 24 of 24 cells located. No UNALIGNED.

The table

The English, quoted

b255 — «وَ اَفاِنینُ عَلَیْها جُلَّنارْ || عُلِّقَتْ بِالشَّجَرِ الاَخْضَرِ نارْ»

EAS IT. Under its own heading COUPLET, italic throughout, and the two Persian couplets immediately before it are roman:

Like beauty's cheek, bright shone its roses red ; Its hyacinths—like fair ones' ringlets spread— Seemed babes, which from their mother milk ne'er drew, In winter's cold so shrinkingly they grew. COUPLET. And the branches—on them grew pomegranate-flowers Like fire, suspended there, 'mid verdant bowers.

ROS IT. Same contrast: the nurse's-milk couplet roman, the Arabic italic — "boughs of trees on which hung crimson flowers, that gleamed like a flame amidst their dusky foliage."

GLA PLAIN. Flattened into his running prose with no mark of any kind: "The branches of the trees were ornamented with scarlet flowers, suspended amongst verdant foliage, shining like fire."

ARN DROPPED. His garden runs "its scarlet roses like the cheeks of beautiful damsels, its hyacinths lustrous as the locks of a beloved mistress. Even under the sunshine of winter the parterres had the freshness of a new-born babe" and then straight to the Sultan sending the girl. The Arabic couplet is not there. He covers the tale; the omission is his.

b260 — «هَلَکَ النّاسُ حَوْلَهُ عَطَشاً || وَ هْوَ ساقٍ یَرَیٰ وَ لاٰ یَسْقی»

EAS IT, under STANZA, and again the Persian couplet after it (the dropsical man and the Euphrates) is roman:

Round him, who seems cupbearer, people sink ; Of thirst they die, he gives them not to drink.

ROS IT + QU — "mankind stand around him parched with thirst, whilst he, who seemeth thy cup-bearer, will give thee no drink", italic, with the Persian continuation "the eye could not be satiated by beholding him, like the dropsical man…" in roman.

GLA PLAIN — "He is surrounded by mortals parched with thirst, whilst he who hath the appearance of a cup-bearer bestoweth not drink."

ARN DROPPED — he keeps only the Persian couplet, The sight, in seeing him, waxed not content, / As Far-ab is by water-skins unspent, with a footnote glossing Far-ab as the Euphrates.

b302 — «اَتَأمُروُنَ النّاسَ بِالْبِرِّ وَ تَنْسَوْنَ اَنْفُسَکُمْ» (Qur'an 2:44)

Dropped by all four. Each goes straight from the couplet before it to "the father said":

• EAS: "…Is himself lost; to whom can he be guide ? / The father said, 'O my son! it is not proper to avert one's countenance…'"
• ROS: "…how can he guide another?' / The ghostly father replied: O! my son…"
• GLA: "…being himself bewildered, how can he guide others?' / The father replied: 'O my son…'"
• ARN: "…how can he give guidance to others ?' / The father replied: 'Oh, my son!…'"

All four cover the tale in full otherwise — every one of them has the blind man, the joking woman and the draper's shop. The omission is of the Arabic verse alone, and it is unanimous.

b314 — «اِذاٰ مَرُّوا بِاللَّغْوِ مَرُّوا کِراماً» (Qur'an 25:72)

EAS IT + footnote: "And when they pass by the slips and shortcomings of others, they pass by absolvingly." — with note 185, "This is a quotation from the Kur'an, chap. xxv. v. 72. I have altered Sale's words, and, with all due deference, I must confess I think his rendering of this passage execrable." The four Persian lines after it are roman.

ROS IT: whenever they pass any thing shameful they pass it with compassion: — italic, with the Persian couplets following in roman.

GLA PLAIN: inside one pair of quotation marks that runs over the whole speech, Arabic and Persian together — "When you meet an inconsiderate person, pass him with kindness; and when you see a sinner, conceal his crime… If my manners are unpolished, nevertheless behave yourself towards me with civility." The quotation marks mark the speech, not the language change, so this is PLAIN by the same rule E-20260831 used.

ARN DROPPED: "The young sot lifted up his head and said:" and then the Persian couplets alone.

b315 — «اِذا رَأیْتَ اَثِیماً کُنْ سٰاتِراً وَ حَلیماً…»

EAS IT (VERSE): When thou a sinner dost behold, / Shew mercy, nor his crimes unfold. / Seest thou my faults with scornful eye ? / With pity rather pass me by. — and the STANZA after it, which is Sa'di's Persian saying the same thing, is roman.

ROS IT: "Whenever thou beholdest a sinner, hide and bear with his transgressions: thou, who art aware of them, why not overlook my sins with pity." — the Persian answer that follows is roman.

GLA PLAIN, inside the same running speech as b314.

ARN DROPPED.

b346 — «و اِن جاهَداکَ عَلی اَن تُشْرِکَ بی…» (Qur'an 31:15), framed

EAS IT + QU + footnote: "He replied, 'Thou hast erred ; it is in accordance with the Kur'an. God most High has said, "But if thy parents endeavour to prevail on thee to associate with me that concerning which thou hast no knowledge, obey them not."'"

ROS IT + QU: "for it accords with the Coran xxxi. as the most high God has expressed it: 'Were your two parents to command you to give me such partners as you could not acknowledge, then would you not obey them.'"

GLA PLAIN: "I replied, 'You are mistaken, it agrees with the Koran. God said, If your parents insist that you should join, as partners with me those things of which you are ignorant, then do not obey them.'" — no quotation marks round the Arabic and no italic; the frame is verbal only, and "God said" amplifies a frame Sa'di supplies, which E-20260831 codes SAY-SOURCE and excludes.

ARN QU: "Allah hath said: 'If a man's parents bid him to join any as partners with me, let him not obey them.'" — quotation marks round the Arabic where the surrounding narration is indirect. Coded MARKED on the same rule that coded his b059.

A completion, and a correction to E-20260831's supplement

E-20260831/coding.md §Supplement, written when these cells were deferred, records b302, b314, b315 and b346 for Arnold as "outside his abridgement". That is wrong. Arnold covers all four tales — his XXXVIII, XL and XLIV correspond to حکایات ۳۸, ۳۹ and ۴۳, and the blind man, the drunk young man and the Qur'anic reply are all in his book. The correct codes are DROPPED, DROPPED, DROPPED, QU. The supplement was labelled "partially coded" and the four cells were never counted in any published rate, so no figure of RS-20260831 changes; the correction is recorded because the supplement is cited there and a future span would otherwise inherit it.

Where the supplement did code a cell, this study's independent coding agrees with it — b255 EAS IT, b260 GLA PLAIN, ROS IT + QU, EAS IT, b346 EAS IT + QU + footnote. Four of four. That is not a reproducibility study and is not offered as one; it is worth one line because the same reader made both codings and the agreement therefore shows only that the reading is stable, not that it is right.

internal-judgment-only on every cell: the lead's reading of uncorrected OCR, unanchored, no second reader.