Layla and Majnun

by Nizami

  ‘My dear child, you are more precious to me than life itself. I beg you, come back home! What is there for you here in these mountains except pain and loneliness and tears? If you remain here, your madness will increase and eventually you will be lost for ever — even to yourself. The sword of death hangs over you, as it hangs over us all, and so you must regain your senses while there is still time. Leave this hell and come back with me; choose joy, not grief, and thus make your enemies weep!’

  Chapter 11

  Majnun listened in complete silence as the old Sayyid opened his heart and poured out his grief and his hopes. Then, as his father’s words trailed away, he gave his reply.

  ‘You, most noble sir, are the pride of all Arabs and the master of all that you see. And you are my father, my flesh and blood, whom I love with all my heart and respect with all my being. You gave me my life; may you never lose yours, and may I never lose you. Father, I kneel before you as your slave.

  ‘Yet, dear Father, you ask me to do the impossible. For I have not chosen the path which I tread: I have been thrown on to it. I am chained and bound by fetters of iron, but it was not I who put them in place. If I am a slave to love, then it is the decree of Fate that I be such. The ties bound by Fate cannot be undone. I cannot shake off these fetters; I cannot unburden myself unless Fate unburdens me first. Does the moon rise by its own power? Do the tides turn of their own accord? Search the cosmos and examine every living thing, from ant to elephant, and you will find no creature that is not ruled by the dictates and decrees of Fate.

  ‘There is a stone bearing down on my heart. Who can remove it? Not I! There is a fire burning in my soul. Who can put out that fire? Not I! I bear a burden that has been put on my shoulders by Fate, and even if I were to try from now until Doomsday I would not be able to cast it to the ground. You ask me why I do not laugh. I am a sufferer: tears of grief become the sufferer, not tears of joy. Would it become a mother to laugh as she buried her child? Does it accord with reason that someone in my position should laugh?

  ‘Have you not heard, dear Father, of the fable of the partridge and the ant? Then I shall tell you. A partridge was out looking for food when it came across an ant. It seized one of the ant’s legs in its beak and was just about to swallow it when the ant cried, “Hey, partridge! If you think you are so clever, let me see you laugh! For laughing is the one thing you are simply no good at!” The partridge, of course, was a proud bird, and just to show the audacious little ant how good she was at laughing, she opened her beak wide and began to cackle. At which point the ant scurried away to safety, leaving the silly partridge alone with no supper.

  ‘And so you see, dear Father, if man laughs when his situation does not warrant mirth, he will fare no better than the partridge; he will live to regret that he laughed too soon.’

  ‘I, too, have no reason to laugh,’ said Majnun. ‘Even the dying ass does not throw down its load until death overwhelms it completely: why, then, should it fear dying? It is true, my dear Father, that you warned me — but what lover takes the threat of death seriously? A man consumed by love does not tremble at the thought of dying. A man in search of his beloved is not afraid of the world and its snares. Where is this sword that hangs over me? Let it fall! Layla is the very moon in the sky of my being: since Fate has sent clouds to cover that moon, let the earth swallow me up! If my soul has fallen because of her, so be it: at least the fall was like heaven itself!

  ‘Now let me be, I beg you. My spirit is destroyed, my soul lost forever. What do you want from me?’

  Chapter 12

  On hearing this, the old man’s heart sank and he began to weep. Taking his son gently by the hand, he led him home to the comforting welcome of his family. There, his friends and relatives gathered round, determined to help as best they could.

  But to Majnun they were all strangers. Life at home was unbearable; Majnun darkened everyone with his sorrows, and all who came to visit him left in tears of grief and frustration at his plight. For the first few days, his friends were able to placate him by recalling the happy memories of the times they had spent together as children. But soon the enormity of his pain became too much to bear in company, and so, early one morning, Majnun ripped aside the veil of love and protection that his friends and family had cast over him, gathered together a few belongings and escaped once more into the desert wastes of Najd.

  Like a wounded animal he roamed the wilderness, not knowing where to go or what to do. All he knew was that he had to be alone; no longer could he live in the world of men and survive. He had to be alone with his grief, and the desolate land of sand and rocks, of mountains and ravines, was the only place for him. And so he wandered through the mountains, chanting his sonnets and his odes. Majnun the ‘madman’, alone in the desert with his poems. But even if Majnun was mad, his poetry was not. Even if people berated him, castigated him and heaped upon him insult after insult, they could find no fault with his verses.

  And thus it was that people began to come from near and far to hear him recite his verses in his mountain retreat. They would sit at his feet as he sang his songs of love, and as they listened, they would write down the words and take them back to their towns and villages.

  Chapter 13

  Meanwhile, the promise made by the bud was most definitely being kept by the blossom, for Layla was growing more beautiful with each passing day. One glance from her eyes would have been enough to bring a hundred Kings to their knees; one smile from her ruby lips would have been enough to conquer an entire army, had she so wished.

  Her beauty was lost on no one, and no one escaped her snare. Her eyes took prisoner after prisoner, each one tied and bound with her tresses. Anyone who so much as glanced at her flower-like face was smitten instantly, hungry for the nectar of her lips and the honey of her kisses. Yet her eyelashes refused to give charity; her eyes, as they closed, seemed to say: ‘God alone can grant you what you desire, for I shall give you nothing.’ Hundreds of hearts had already fallen into the well of her beauty, so powerful was her spell.

  Yet although her magic worked on others, for herself she could do nothing. For while she blossomed on the surface, deep inside she wept tears of blood. From dawn until dusk she sought her beloved Majnun in secret; then, at midnight when the world was deaf with sleep, she would call out to him with her sighs. Tears were never far away, and if she laughed, she laughed to hide her grief.

  Ever since their separation, the fire of desire had burned in the lovers’ hearts. In Layla’s case, however, the flames were concealed and gave no smoke. When a man lies dying, a doctor will often hold a mirror to his mouth to see whether he is still breathing. Layla, too, had her mirror, only for her the mirror was her own soul, which she questioned constantly about her beloved Majnun. There was nothing or no one else in whom she could confide and so, at night, she would tell her innermost thoughts and secrets to her own shadow. On one side there was the ocean of her tears; on the other, the raging fire of her love. Layla stood between them like a pari, a spirit who hovers between fire and water.

  Although sorrow had bitten through to her very soul, she concealed her grief and would not share it with anyone. Sometimes, when the world lay sleeping, the light of the moon would draw her to the entrance of her tent. There she would stand transfixed, staring at the path, waiting — but for whom? Was she waiting for some messenger to ride by with word of him? Did she expect some well-wisher to bring her beloved’s greetings from afar? Whatever she awaited, it did not come. And so she imagined the breeze to be his messenger, bearing his sighs from the mountains of Najd, while each cloud that brought rain she imagined to be a well-wisher, conveying her lover’s greetings like tears from heaven.

  But the one thing that did reach her was her lover’s verses. His poems were on the lips of every passer-by; even the street urchins in the market-place would recite them in their sing-song voices. Whether he knew it or not, Majnun’s voice was being heard by the one he loved, and for this Layla was truly gratef
ul.

  Now, beauty was not Layla’s only gift, for she, too, had a flair for the poetic art. And so she would commit Majnun’s verses to memory as soon as she heard them; then, stringing pearls of wisdom together in ornate rosaries of verse, she would compose her responses. These she would write down on scraps of parchment, heading them with little messages such as: ‘The jasmin blossom sends this song to the cypress tree’, before casting them to the wind when no one was looking. Sometimes these scraps of verse would be found, and the finder — guessing the hidden meaning — would realise for whom they had been sent and take them to Majnun. To reward the finder, Majnun would compose a poem, which in due course would find its way back to Layla. Many such messages passed between them in this way, allowing them to tear the veil of separation just enough to give them both heart and hope. And others who heard the lovers marvelled at the unity of their voices: so similar were they in tone and expression that they sounded like a single chant. For theirs were the voices of love, and love is strong enough to break any spell.

  Chapter 14

  In the garden, the trees were bedecked with smiling blossoms, while yellow roses and vermillion-red tulips fluttered like flags in the breeze. Violets dipped and swayed on their long, curved stems, as though trying to hide from one another. The rose-bush pointed thorny swords skywards, ready for battle, while the water-lily, taking a moment’s rest from the fray, threw down her shield on the crystal mirror of the lake. The hyacinth opened her eyes, while the box tree combed its tresses. The blossoms on the pomegranate tree yearned for their own fruit, while the narcissus glowered feverishly, like a lover emerging from a nightmare. The Judas tree stood tall and proud, its veins full of sap, quickened by the sun. The wild-rose bathed her leaves in the jasmine’s silver fountain, while the iris raised her lance with pride and determination. And on the topmost branch of the plane tree, above the cooing turtle doves, sat a nightingale, the Majnun of birds, singing its songs of love.

  Layla had come into the garden with her friends to enjoy the birdsong and to play among the flowers like the beautiful maidens who adorn the gardens of paradise. Was it her intention, once their games were over, to seek repose in the shadow of the scarlet roses? Was it her wish to make the green of the grass darker with her own shadow, or raise her cup in the company of the narcissus and the tulip? Or had she come as victor, there to exact tribute from the kingdom of this magnificent garden?

  No, she intended none of these things. She intended, once their games had ended, simply to sit and lament, like those whose hearts are torn apart by love. She wanted to converse with the nightingale, to tell that love-sick bird her innermost thoughts and secrets. And maybe the breeze would bring word of the one she loved and mourned …

  She was trying to find comfort in the garden, for she saw it as a mirror of her lover’s beauty and nothing more. She even hoped that the mirror might show her the way to the one reflected therein …

  Of all this her friends, of course, knew nothing. For a while they played among the roses, but later, when they sat down to rest in a secluded corner of the garden, Layla walked on and sat down under a tree away from them. Only then could she pour out her grief.

  ‘Dearest heart,’ she sighed, ‘is it not true that we were created for each other? How noble you are, and how passionate your heart! How it grieves me to think that our hearts were once as one: now the icy dagger of separation has ripped them apart. If only you could walk through this gate and into the garden; then, my love, our hearts would be as one once more! If only you could sit next to me and look into my eyes; then, my love, you would fulfil my deepest desire. But maybe you have already suffered so much because of me that you no longer wish to have my love, or to look upon the beauty of the garden.’

  Suddenly, a voice cut through her dreams. Someone was passing by the garden, a haunting refrain on his lips. It was a stranger, of course, but Layla recognised Majnun’s verses immediately. The passer-by sang:

  While Layla’s garden blooms in spring,

  Majnun lies there, suffering.

  How can Layla smile and jest,

  While love puts Majnun to the test?

  When Layla heard these words she began to cry bitter tears, sobbing so heavily that even the hardest of hearts would have been moved. Although she had no idea that she was being watched, one of her friends, noticing Layla’s absence, had followed her. Hiding behind a rose-bush, the friend saw everything: Layla’s impassioned pleading, her surprise at the verses sung by the passer-by, and her tears.

  Later that day, the friend went to Layla’s mother and told her what she had seen. Layla’s mother began to cry, too, unable to bear the thought of her daughter’s suffering. But what could she do? However hard she tried, she could not think of a way out. ‘I must not let Layla do what her heart desires most’, she said to herself, ‘because Majnun is truly mad and not to be approached. If Layla so much as sees the boy, she, too, will become insane. Yet if I counsel patience, her separation from him may destroy her. And whatever destroys Layla destroys me also.’

  And so Layla’s pain became her mother’s burden, although of course Layla was completely unaware of this. Layla remained silent, and so did her mother.

  Chapter 15

  Later that same day, as Layla returned with tear-swollen eyes from the garden, she happened to pass by Ibn Salam, a young man from the tribe known as the Banu Asad. Ibn Salam was a man of considerable renown and untold wealth. Respected by all who knew him, he was a strong and generous man upon whom fortune had always smiled — so much so, in fact, that his nickname among his close friends was ‘Bakht’ (Good Luck). Would such luck continue in his quest for Layla?

  Yes, as soon as Ibn Salam caught sight of her as she passed, he knew that he must make her his own. To him she was the full moon in all her splendour — a fitting ornament indeed to adorn the lonely sky of his soul. And so he decided to ask Layla’s parents for her hand. And why not? Did he not have riches in abundance? Was he not of honourable birth? The more he thought about it, the more determined he became to win his beautiful moon, to possess the one shining light that would turn his night to day and make life bearable. The only thing he did not consider was Layla herself, and whether she would surrender herself to him willingly. Apart from this — admittedly the most important thing of all — he had thought of everything. Layla’s response was a bridge he would cross when he came to it.

  And so, in accordance with Arab custom, Ibn Salam sent one of his most trusted companions as a go-between to ask for Layla’s hand. He instructed his mediator to petition Layla’s father with much humility, but at the same time to make it quite clear that Ibn Salam was willing to shower them with gold if they complied with his wishes.

  And comply they did — in a fashion. They realised that they would be foolish to refuse such an offer, yet it all seemed so sudden, so final. There is no reason, they told each other in private, to give our blessing today when tomorrow will do. And so they neither accepted nor rejected his offer, preferring instead to make him wait a while.

  ‘Of course your wish will be granted,’ they said, ‘if you are patient. At present, our daughter is weak and sickly — she is like a tender flower caught by a late frost, and thus needs time to grow strong again. See how thin and pale she is! Let her gain strength and then, God willing, we shall agree to the union with happy hearts. What does it matter if you wait a few more days?’

  That was their final word on the subject, and Ibn Salam had no option but to be content and wait.

  Chapter 16

  The ravine in which Majnun had decided to live lay in an area ruled by a Bedouin prince, Nowfal. His courage and steadfastness on the battlefield had earned him the epithet ‘Destroyer of Armies’, but although he had the heart of a lion in front of his foes, to his friends he was compassion itself.

  One day, Nowfal was out hunting with some of his retainers. They had ventured further than usual into the desert, lured there by the prospect of bagging some particularly hands
ome antelopes they had been chasing from oasis to oasis. As the swift-footed creatures tried to escape into their mountain hide-outs, Nowfal and his men threw caution to the wind and began to follow them. Just when they were beginning to give up all hope of ever reaching their prey, one of the hunters saw the antelopes disappear into a cave some way above them. Nowfal told two of his servants to dismount and, armed with bows, arrows and daggers, the three of them set off over the rocks.

  Slowly and silently the men tiptoed towards the cave, certain that within minutes the trapped antelopes would be theirs for the taking. But when they reached the entrance to the cave, a strange sight stopped them in their tracks. The antelopes were indeed inside the cave; they were huddled together in the semi-darkness, their eyes wide with fear and their flanks trembling. But they were not alone. For there, crouching behind one of them, was a creature the likes of which Nowfal had never seen before.

  The creature was naked, his emaciated limbs cut to ribbons by thorns, his dirty, lank hair hanging to his shoulders. Was it an animal or a human being? Was it a demon from the realm below, come to haunt the world of men, or was it a jinn in human guise? Nowfal was about to reach for his dagger when, to his amazement, the creature started to weep. Turning to his companions, Nowfal whispered, ‘Do you have any idea who this wretched creature is?’

  ‘I have heard of him,’ said one of the servants. He stepped forward and continued, ‘He is a young man whom love has turned insane. He has left the world of men and now lives here in the desert. Day and night he composes sonnets and odes for his beloved. Whenever a cloud passes, he thinks it brings some message from her; whenever a breeze sweeps by, he imagines that it bears her scent. And so he sings his songs of love, hoping that the wind and the clouds will carry his words back to her.’