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Laylá, Pearl of the Night!

She was beautiful as the moon on the horizon, graceful as the cypress that sways in the night wind and glistens in the sheen of a myriad stars. Her hair was bright with depths of darkness; her eyes were dark with excess of light; her glance was shadowed by excess of light. Her smile and the parting of her lips were like the coming of the rosy dawn, and, when love came to her—as he did with a load of sorrow hidden in his sack—she was as a rose plucked from Paradise to be crushed against her lover's breast; a rose to wither, droop, and die as Ormazd snatched it from the hand of Ahriman.

Out of the night came Laylá, clothed with all its wondrous beauties: into the night she returned, and, while the wind told the tale of her love to the cypress above her grave, the stars, with an added lustre, looked down as if to say, 'Laylá is not lost: she was born of us; she hath returned to us. Look up! look up! there is brightness in the night where Laylá sits; there is splendour in the sphere where Laylá sits.

As the moon looks down on all rivers, though they reflect but one moon,—so the beauty of Laylá, which smote all hearts to love. Her father was a great chief, and even the wealthiest princes of other lands visited him, attracted by the fame of Laylá's loveliness. But none could win her heart. Wealth and royal splendour could not claim it, yet it was given to the young Qays, son of the mighty chief of Yemen. Freely was it given to Qays, son of the chief of Yemen.

Now Laylá's father was not friendly to the chief of Yemen. Indeed, the only path that led from the one to the other was a well-worn warpath; for long, long ago their ancestors had quarrelled, and, though there were rare occasions when the two peoples met at great festivals and waived their differences for a time, it may truly be said that there was always hate in their eyes when they saluted. Always? Not always: there was one exception. It was at one of these festivals that Qays first saw Laylá. Their eyes met, and, though no word was spoken, love thrilled along a single glance.

From that moment Qays was a changed youth. He avoided the delights of the chase; his tongue was silent at feast and in council; he sat apart with a strange light in his eyes; no youth of his tribe could entice him to sport, no maiden could comfort him. His heart was in another house, and that was not the house of his fathers.

And Laylá—she sat silent among her maidens with eyes downcast. Once, when a damsel, divining rightly, took her lute and sang a song of the fountain in the forest, where lovers met beneath the silver moon, she raised her head at the close of the song and bade the girl sing it again—and again. And, after this, in the evenings when the sun was setting, she would wander unattended in the gardens about her father's palace, roaming night by night in ever widening circles, until, on a night when the moon was brightest, she came to the confines of the gardens where they adjoined the deep forest beyond;—but ever and ever the moonlight beyond. And here, as she gazed adown the spaces between the tree trunks, she saw, in an open space where the moonbeams fell, a sparkling fountain, and knew it for that which had been immortalised in the sweet song sung by her damsel with the lute. There, from time immemorial, lovers had met and plighted their vows. A thrill shot through her at the thought that she had wandered hither in search of it. Her cheeks grew hot, and, with a wildly beating heart, she turned and ran back to her father's palace. Ran back, ashamed.

Now, in a high chamber of the palace,—it was as wondrous as that of a Sultan,—where Laylá was wont to recline at the window looking out above the tree-tops, there were two beautiful white doves; these had long been her companions, perching on her shoulder and pecking gently at her cheek with 'Coo, coo, coo';—preeking and preening on her shoulder with 'Coo, coo, coo.' They would come at her call and feed from her hand; and, when she threw one from the window, retaining the other against her breast, the liberated one seemed to understand that it might fly to yonder tree; and there it would sit cooing for its mate until Laylá, having held her fluttering bird close for a time, would set it free. 'Ah!' she would sigh to herself, as the bird flew swiftly to its mate, 'when love hath wings it flies to the loved one, but alas! I have no wings.' And yet it was by the wings of a dove that her lover sent her a passionate message, which threw her into joy and fear, and finally led her footsteps to the place of lovers' meeting.

Qays, in the lonely musings which had beset him of late, recalled the story—well known among the people—of Laylá's two white doves. As he recalled it he raised himself upon his elbow on his couch and said to himself, 'If I went to her father, saying, "Give me thy daughter to wife!" how should I be met? If I sent a messenger, how would he be met? But the doves—if all tales be true, they fly in at her window and nestle to her bosom.'

With his thought suddenly intent upon the doves, he called his servant Zeyd, who came quickly, for he loved his master.

'Thou knowest, Zeyd,' said Qays, 'that in the palace of the chief of Basráh there are two white doves, one of which flies forth at its mistress's bidding, and cooes and cooes and cooes until its mate is permitted to fly to it.'

'I know it well, my master. They are tame birds, and they come to their mistress's hand.'

'Would they come, thinkest thou, to thy hand?'

Zeyd, who was in his master's confidence, and knew what troubled him, answered the question with another.

'Dost thou desire these doves, O my master? My father was a woodman and I was brought up in the forests. Many a wilder bird than a dove have I snared in the trees. I even know the secret art of taking a bird with my hand.'

'Then bring me one of these doves, but be careful not to injure it—not even one feather of its plumage.'

Zeyd was as clever as his word. On the third evening thereafter he brought one of Laylá's white doves to Qays and placed it in his hand. Then Qays stroked the bird and calmed its fears, and, bidding Zeyd hold it, he carefully wrapt and tied round its leg a small soft parchment on which were written the following verses:—

Thy heart is as a pure white dove,

And it hath come to me;

And it hath brought me all thy love,

Flying from yonder tree.

Thou shalt not have thy heart again,

For it shall stay with me;

Yet thou shalt hear my own heart's pain

Sobbing in yonder tree.

There is a fount where lovers meet:

To-night I wait for thee.

Fly to me, love, as flies the dove

To dove in yonder tree.

Now Laylá, who had sent her dove into the warm night, sat listening at her window to hear it coo to its mate held close in her bosom. But it cooed not from its accustomed bough on yonder tree. Holding the fluttering mate to her she leaned forth from the window, straining her ears to catch the well-known note, but, hearing nothing, she said to herself, 'What can have happened? Whither has it flown? Never was such a thing before. Perchance the bird is sleeping on the bough.'

Then, as the moon rose higher and higher above the tree-tops, shedding a glistening radiance over everything, she waited and waited, but there came no doling of the dove, no coo from yonder tree. At last, unable to account for it, she took the bird from her bosom and stroked it and spoke to it; then she threw it gently in the air as if to send it in search of its lost mate to bring it back.

The bird flew straight to the tree, and, perching there, cooed again and again, but there was no answering coo of its mate. Finally Laylá saw it rise from the tree and circle round the palace. Many times she saw it flash by and heard the beating of its wings, until at last it flew in at the window; and, when she took it and pressed it to her, she felt that it was trembling. For sure, it was distressed and trembling.

'Alas! poor bird!' she said, stroking it gently. 'It is hard to lose one's lover, but it is harder still never to have found him.'

But lo, as she was comforting the bird, the other dove suddenly fluttered in and perched upon her shoulder. She gave a cry of delight, and, taking it, held them both together in her arms. In fondling them her fingers felt something rough on the leg of the one that had just returned. Quickly she untied the fastenings, and, with beating heart, unfolded the parchment and read the writing thereon. It was the message from her lover. She knew not what to do. Should she go to the fountain where lovers meet beneath the moon? In her doubt she snatched first one dove and then the other, kissing each in turn. Then, setting them down, she rose and swiftly clothed herself in a long cloak, and stole quietly down the stairs and out of the palace by a side door. Love found the way to the path through the forest that led to the fountain where lovers meet. Like a shadow flitting across the bars of moonlight that fell among the trees she sped on, and at last arrived at the edge of the open space where the fountain played, its silvery, high-flung column sparkling like jewelled silver ere it fell in tinkling spray upon the shining moss.

Laylá paused irresolute in the shadows, telling herself that if her heart was beating so hard it was because she had been running. Where was he who had stolen her dove and returned it with a message?

Wherever he was he had quick eyes, for he had discovered her in the shadows, and now came past the fountain, hastening towards her.

She darted into the light of the moon.

'Who art thou?'

Their eyes met. The moonlight fell on their faces. No other word was spoken, for they recognised each other in one glance.

'Laylá! thou hast come to me. I love thee.'

'And I thee!'

And none but the old moon, who has looked down on many such things before, saw their sudden embrace; and none but the spirit of the fountain, who had recorded the words of lovers ever since the first gush of the waters, heard what they said to one another.

And so Laylá and Qays met many times by the fountain and plighted their vows there in the depths of the forest. And once, as they lingered over their farewells, Qays said to Laylá, 'And oh! my beloved, if the desert were my home, and thou and I were free, even in the wilderness, eating the herbs that grow in the waste, or a loaf of thine own baking from the wild corn; drinking the water of the brook, and reposing beneath the bough,—then would I let the world go by, and, with no hate of thy people, live with thee and love thee for ever.'

'And I thee, beloved.'

'Then let us leave all, and fly to the wilderness—'

'Now?'

'No, not now. Thou must prepare. To-morrow, beloved, I will await thee here at this hour with two fleet steeds; and then, as they spurn the dust from their feet, so will we spurn the world—you and I.'

That night Laylá dreamed that she was in the wilderness with her lover, sitting beneath the bough, drinking from the waters of the brook, eating a loaf of her own making from the wild corn, and, in her lover's presence, happy to lose the luxury of palaces.

But alas! the dream was never to be realised. Some one at the palace—some one with more than two ears, and with eyes both back and front—some one, moreover, in the pay of Ibn Salám, a handsome young chief who greatly desired Laylá in marriage, breathed a word into the ear of Laylá's father. The following day the palace was deserted. The old chief, with Laylá and the whole of his retinue, had departed to his estate in the mountains, where it was hoped that the keen, pure air would be better for Laylá's health;—at least so her father said, though none could understand why, seeing that she had never looked better in her life.

Qays, knowing nothing of this sudden departure for several days, waited at the fountain at the appointed hour. At last one day, being already sad at heart, he learned—for Ibn Salám had not been idle in the matter—that Laylá had gone to the mountains of her own accord with her father's household, and that Ibn Salám, the favoured one, had gone with her also. Believing this to be true—for lovers are prone to credit what they fear—Qays ran forth from his abode like a man distraught. In the agony of his despair he thought of nothing but to search for, and find, Laylá. Setting his face towards the distant mountains, he plunged into the desert, calling 'Laylá! Laylá!' Every rock of the wilderness, every tree and thorny waste soon knew her name, for it echoed thereamong all that day and the following night, until at dawn he sank exhausted on a barren stretch of sand.

And here it was that his servant Zeyd and a party of his master's friends found him as the sun was rising. He was distracted. Worn out with fatigue and hunger and thirst, he wandered in his mind as he had wandered in the desert. They took him back to his father's abode and sought to restore him, but, when at last he was well, he still called continually for his lost love Laylá, so that they thought his reason was unhinged, and spoke of him as 'Majnún'—that is to say, 'mad with love'; and by this name he was called ever afterward.

His father came and pleaded with him to put away his infatuation for the daughter of a chief no friend of his; but, finding him reasonable in all things save his mad love, the chief said within himself: 'If he can be healed of this one thing he will be whole.' Then, being willing further to cement enmity or establish a bond with the chief of Basráh, he decided to set the matter to the test. Collecting a splendid retinue, he journeyed to the mountains on a mission to the chief, his enemy, leaving Majnún in the care of the faithful Zeyd.