Fariha’s Reviews > The Story of Layla & Majnun > Status Update

He escaped from Layla in order to find her.

Layla was a jasmin-bush in spring, Majnun a meadow in autumn, where no jasmin was growing.
Layla could bewitch with one glance from beneath her dark hair, Majnun was her slave and a dervish dancing before her. Layla held in her hand the glass of wine scented with musk. Majnun had not touched the wine, yet he was drunk with its sweet smell. . . .

Layla was a lute, Majnun a viola.
All the radiance of this morning was Layla, yet a candle was burning in front of her, consuming itself with desire. She was the most beautiful garden and Majnun was a torch of longing. She planted the rose-bush; he watered it with his tears.

Majnun sighed deeply. Now Layla saw him, and they recognized in the mirror of each other's face their own fear, their own pain and love. Neither stirred; only their eyes met, their voices caressed each other, softly exchanging plaintive sighs, which they were used to confide to the wind and to the night.

The closer he came to his goal, the less certain were his steps; drunk with longing and confused by feverish hope, his lips trembled like the verses of the poem he was chanting.
Seldom do dreams become so real. The curtain was withdrawn and in the entrance of the tent unveiled in the light of day, clearly visible against the dark interior, Layla was sitting; Layla, his moon.

Once more the young day donned his morning coat, woven from shimmering brocade. He adorned the ear of the sky with the precious golden ornament of the sun and the quicksilver of the stars melted in its red flames

Oh my beloved, had I not given my soul to you, trembling with desire like the wind, it would have been better to lose it. I would not be worth the dust in which I am lying...Look, I am being consumed in the fire of my love, drowned in the tears of my unhappiness. Even the sun which illumines the world, is singed by the heat of my sighs. Invisible candle of my soul, do not torture the night-moth fluttering around you.

'East wind, be gone early in the morning, caress her hair and whisper in her ear: "One who has sacrificed everything for you, lies in the dust on his way to you. He is seeking your breath in the blowing of the wind and tells his grief to the earth. Send him a breath of air as a sign that you are thinking of him."

His heart had suffered shipwreck, drifting helplessly in a boundless ocean; there seeemd no end to the fury of the gale.

Each day, at dusk, the ghosts of his vain hopes chased him out into the desert, barefoot and bareheaded.
A madman he became but at the same time a poet, the harp of his love and of his pain.