# Scimitar

A scimitar is a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures. A European term, scimitar does not refer to one specific sword type, but an assortment of different Eastern curved swords inspired by types introduced to the Middle East by Central Asian ghilmans. These swords include the Persian shamshir (the origin of the word scimitar), the Arab saif, the Indian talwar, the North African nimcha, and the Turkish kilij. All such swords are originally derived from earlier curved swords developed in Turkic Central Asia (Turkestan).

## Quotes

* Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;
** Robert Burns, "Tam o' Shanter" (wr. 1790; pub. 1791)
* We now retreated towards the sea, being able to carry but few of our wounded with us; those remaining were barbarously butchered by the Turks, whose cavalry came out and deliberately cut off the heads of our poor helpless comrades.
** Major William Nicholas, writing on 31 April 1807 about the British Alexandria expedition
** Posthumously printed in The Royal Military Chronicle, vol. 5 (February 1813), p. 256
* Defiling their shadows, infidels, accursed of Allah, with fingernails that are foot-long daggers, with mouths agape like cauldrons full of teeth on the boil, with eyes all fire, shaitans possessed of Iblis, clanking into their wars all linked, like slaves, with iron chains. Murad Bey, the huge, the single-blowed ox-beheader, saw without too much surprise mild-looking pale men dressed in blue, holding guns, drawn up in squares six deep as though in some massed dance depictive of orchard walls. At the corners of the squares were heavy giins and gunners. There did not seem to be many horsemen. Murad said a prayer within, raised his scimitar to heaven and yelled a fierce and holy word. The word was taken up, many thousandfold, and in a kind of gloved thunder the Mamelukes threw themselves on to the infidel right and nearly broke it. But the squares healed themselves at once, and the cavalry of the faithful crashed in three avenging prongs along the fire-spitting avenues between the walls. A great gun uttered earthquake language at them from within a square, and, rearing and cursing the curses of the archangels of Islam on to the uncircumcized, they wheeled and swung towards their protective village of Embabeh. There they encountered certain of the blue-clad infidel horde on the flat roofs of the houses, coughing musket-fire at them. But then disaster sang along their lines from the rear as shell after shell crunched and the Mamelukes roared in panic and burden to the screams of their terrified mounts, to whose ears these noises were new. Their rear dissolving, their retreat cut off, most sought the only way, that of the river. They plunged in, horseless, seeking to swim across to join the inactive horde of Ibrahim, waiting for. action that could now never come. Murad Bey, with such of his horsemen as were left, yelped off inland to Gizeh.
** Anthony Burgess, Napoleon Symphony (1974)
* The disembarkation was a fucking shambles and we only took Alexandria as quick as we did to get a fucking drink somewhere, because we were near dead with the thirst…. The town was full of a lot of half-starved blacks, near-blacks you could call them, in filthy rags, raising their hands to the bloody burning heavens when they saw us come in, shouting Allah Allah and so on. Some old bints with veils on gave us fucking filthy water to drink, but filthy or not it was like elation and ecstasy and so on. There was hardly a solitary fucking thing worth having in the whole town, all half-starved goats and so on, and talk about the fucking heat and the smell. Anyway, what they called sheiks came and gave him the keys, and the officers did all right with like knives and scimitars with jewels on, but then we had to move on to Damanhur and Rahmaniya and so on, near dropping with the fucking heat.
** Anthony Burgess, Napoleon Symphony (1974)
* Dennis: I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!
** Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Screenplay

### Metaphorical

* A congress of the powers is deceit agreed on between diplomats — it is the pen of Machiavelli combined with the scimitar of Mahomet.
** Napoléon Bonaparte, quoted in Napoleon: In His Own Words (1916), pp. 8–9
* And is there no war on today? It is the weapons that have changed, that's all. Instead of an axe or scythe or scimitar, they fight with roubles.
** Bolesław Prus, Lalka ('The Doll')
** David Welsh, tr., The Doll (Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972)
* Arrasado el jardín, profanados los cálices y las aras, entraron a caballo los hunos en la biblioteca monástica y rompieron los libros incomprensibles y los vituperaron y los quemaron, acaso temerosos de que las letras encubrieran blasfemias contra su dios, que era una cimitarra de hierro.
* After having razed the garden, profaned the chalices and the altars, by horse the Huns broke into the Monastic library and they tore the incomprehensible books and they vituperated them and they burnt them, fearing their symbols and characters might be concealing secret blasphemies against their God, who was an iron scimitar.
** Jorge Luis Borges, Los Teólogos ('The Theologians')
** Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby, eds., Labyrinths (New Directions, 1964), p. 119
* The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.
** Stephen Vincent Benét, "Winged Flight", Young Adventure (1918)
* Conan's scimitar licked out like the tongue of a cobra, and a Zamorian shrieked and fell, clutching his belly.
** Robert E. Howard & L. Sprague de Camp, "The Blood-Stained God"
** Tales of Conan (1955)
* The rider was a giant whose skin, blacker than that of the other two, as well as his thick lips and flaring nostrils, told of a heavy predominance of Negro blood. His wide silk pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles, were supported by a broad girdle wrapped repeatedly about his huge belly. That girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar, which few men could have wielded with one hand. With that scimitar, the man was famed wherever the dark-skinned sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata. (Lancer)
* The rider was a dark-skinned giant. His wide silk pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles. They were supported by a broad girdle wrapped repeatedly about his huge belly; that girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar, which few men could have wielded with one hand. With that scimitar, the man was famed wherever the sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata. (Grant/Gollancz)
* The rider was a giant whose skin, blacker than that of the other two, as well as his thick lips and flaring nostrils, told of negro blood in vastly predominating abundance. His wide silk pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles, were supported by a broad girdle wrapped repeatedly about his huge belly; that girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar, which few men could have weild with one hand. With that scimitar the man was famed wherever the dark-skinned sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata. (Del Rey)
** Robert E. Howard & L. Sprague de Camp, "Drums of Tombalku"
** Conan the Adventurer (Lancer Books, 1966); The Pool of the Black One (Donald M. Grant, 1986); The Bloody Crown of Conan (Del Rey, 2005)
** Gary Romeo, "The Lancer Conan Series: Drums of Tombalku by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp", spraguedecampfan (4 March 2022)
* Southward beyond the road lay the main force of the Haradrim, and there their horsemen were gathered about the standard of their chieftain. And he looked out, and in the growing light he saw the banner of the king, and that it was far ahead of the battle with few men about it. Then he was filled with a red wrath and shouted aloud, and displaying his standard, black serpent upon scarlet, he came against the white horse and the green with great press of men; and the drawing of the scimitars of the Southrons was like a glitter of stars.
** J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955)
* Flags, rags, ferryboats, scimitars and scarves, Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars.
** Mike Scott, "The Whole Of The Moon", This Is the Sea (1985)
* The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar.
** Gregory Maguire, Wicked (1995)