Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers Part 19

[117] Nothing is more hackneyed in Asiatic poetry than the comparison of a pretty girl's face to the moon, and not seldom to the disparagement of that luminary. Solomon, in his love-songs, exclaims: "Who is she that looketh forth in the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun?" The greatest of Persian poets, Firdausi, says of a damsel:

"Love ye the moon? Behold her face, And there the lucid planet trace."

And Kalidasa, the Shakspeare of India (6th century B.C.), says:

"Her countenance is brighter than the moon."

Amongst ourselves the epithet "moon-faced" is not usually regarded as complimentary, yet Spenser speaks of a beautiful damsel's "moon-like forehead."--Be sure, the poets are right!

[118] The lithe figure of a pretty girl is often likened by Eastern poets to the waving cypress, a tree which we a.s.sociate with the grave-yard.--"Who is walking there?"

asks a Persian poet. "Thou, or a tall cypress?"

[119] "Nocturnal."

Now the season of pilgrimage to Mecca draws nigh, and it is thought that a visit to the holy shrine and the waters of the Zemzem[120] might cure his frenzy. Accordingly Majnun, weak and helpless, is conveyed to Mecca in a litter. Most fervently his sorrowing father prays in the Kaaba for his recovery, but all in vain, and they return home. Again Majnun escapes to the desert, whence his love-plaints, expressed in eloquent verse, find their way to Layla, who contrives to reply to them, also in verse, a.s.suring her lover of her own despair, and of her constancy.

[120] The sacred well in the Kaaba at Mecca, which, according to Muslim legends, miraculously sprang up when Hagar and her son Ishmael were perishing in the desert from thirst.

One day a gallant young chief, Ibn Salam, chances to pa.s.s near the dwelling of Layla, and, seeing the beauteous maiden among her companions, falls in love with her, and straightway asks her in marriage of her parents. Layla's father does not reject the handsome and wealthy suitor, who scatters his gold about as if it were mere sand, but desires him to wait until his daughter is of proper age for wedlock, when the nuptials should be duly celebrated; and with this promise Ibn Salam departs.

Meanwhile, Noufal, the chief in whose land Majnun has taken up his abode, while hunting one day comes upon the wretched lover, and, struck with his appearance, inquires the cause of his distress. Noufal conceives a warm friendship for Majnun, and sends a messenger to Layla's father to demand her in marriage with his friend. But the damsel's parent scornfully refused to comply, and Noufal then marches with his followers against him. A battle ensues, in which Noufal is victorious.

The father of Layla then comes to Noufal, and offers submission; but he declares that rather than consent to his daughter's union with Majnun he would put her to death before his face. Seeing the old man thus resolute, Noufal abandons his enterprise and returns to his own country.

And now Ibn Salam, having waited the appointed time, comes with his tribesmen to claim the hand of Layla; and, spite of her tears and protestations, she is married to the wealthy young chief. Years pa.s.s on--weary years of wedded life to poor Layla, whose heart is ever true to her wandering lover. At length a stranger seeks out Majnun, and tells him that his beloved Layla wishes to have a brief interview with him, near her dwelling. At once the frantic lover speeds towards the rendezvous; but when Layla is informed of his arrival, her sense of duty overcomes the pa.s.sion of her life, and she resolves to forego the dangerous meeting, and poor Majnun departs without having seen his darling. Henceforth he is a constant dweller in the desert, having for his companions the beasts and birds of the wilderness--his clothes in tatters, his hair matted, his body wasted to a shadow, his bare feet lacerated with thorns. After the lapse of many more years the husband of Layla dies, and the beautiful widow pa.s.ses the prescribed period of separation (_'idda_),[121] after which Majnun hastens to embrace his beloved. Overpowered by the violence of their emotions, both are for a s.p.a.ce silent; at length Layla addresses Majnun in tender accents; but when he finds voice to reply it is evident that the reaction has completely extinguished the last spark of reason: Majnun is now a hopeless maniac, and he rushes from the arms of Layla and seeks the desert once more. Layla never recovered from the shock occasioned by this discovery. She pined away, and with her last breath desired her mother to convey the tidings of her death to Majnun, and to a.s.sure him of her constant, unquenchable affection. When Majnun hears of her death he visits her tomb, and, exhausted with his journey and many privations, he lays himself down on the turf that covered her remains, and dies--the victim of pure, ever-during love.

[121] According to Muslim law, four months and ten days must elapse before a widow can marry again.

Possibly, readers of a sentimental turn--oft inclined to the "melting"

mood--may experience a kind of pleasing sadness in perusing a rhythmical prose translation of the pa.s.sage in Nizami's poem in which

_Majnun bewails the Death of Layla._

When Zayd,[122] with heart afflicted, heard that in the silent tomb that moon[123] had set, he wept and mourned, and sadly flowed his tears. Who in this world is free from grief and tears? Then, clothed in sable garments, like one oppressed who seeks redress, he, agitated, and weeping like a vernal cloud, hastened to the grave of Layla; but, as he o'er it hung, ask not how swelled his soul with grief; while from his eyes the tears of blood incessant flowed, and from his sight and groans the people fled. Sometimes he mourned with grief so deep and sad that from his woe the sky became obscure. Then from the tomb of that fair flower he to the desert took his way. There sought the wanderer from the paths of man him whose night was now in darkness veiled, as that bright lamp was gone; and, seated near him, weeping and sighing, he beat his breast and struck upon the earth his head. When Majnun saw him thus afflicted he said: "What has befallen thee, my brother, that thy soul is thus overpowered? and why so pale that cheek? and why these sable robes?" He thus replied: "Because that fortune now has changed: a sable stream has issued from the earth, and even death has burst its iron gates; a storm of hail has on the garden poured, and not a leaf of all our rose-bower now remains. The moon has fallen from the firmament, and prostrate on the mead that waving cypress lies! Layla was, but from the world has now departed; and from the wound thy love had caused she died."

[122] An attendant, who had always befriended Majnun.

[123] "The moon," to wit, the unhappy Layla. See the note, p. 284.

Scarce had these accents reached his listening ear e'er, senseless, Majnun fell as one by lightning struck. A short time, fainting, thus he lay; recovered, then he raised his head to heaven and thus exclaimed: "O merciless! what fate severe is this on one so helpless? Why such wrath?

Why blast a blade of gra.s.s with lightning, and on the ant [i.e. himself]

thy power exert? One ant and a thousand pains of h.e.l.l, when one single spark would be enough! Why thus with blood the goblet crown, and all my hopes deceive? I burned with flames that by that lamp were fed; and by that breath which quenched its light I too expire." Thus, like Asra, did he complain, and, like Wamik, traversed on every side the desert,[124]

his heart broken, and his garments rent; while, as the beasts gazed on him, his tears so constant flowed, that in their eyes the tear-drop stood; and like a shadow Zayd his footsteps still pursued. When, weeping and mourning, Majnun thus o'er many a hill and many a vale had pa.s.sed, as grief his path directed, he wished to view the tomb of all he loved; and then inquired of Zayd where was the spot that held her grave, and where the turf that o'er it grew.

[124] See Note on 'Wamik and Asra' at the end of this paper.

But soon as to the tomb he came, struck with its view, his senses fled.

Recovering, then he thus exclaimed: "O Heaven! what shall I do, or what resource attempt, as like a lamp I waste away? Alas! that heart-enslaver was all that in this world I prized: and now, alas! in wrath, dire Fate with ruthless blow has s.n.a.t.c.hed her from me. In my hand I held a lovely flower; the wind came and scattered all its leaves. I chose a cypress that in the garden graceful grew; but soon the wind of fate destroyed it. Spring bade a blossom bloom; but Fortune would not guard the flower.

A group of lilies I preserved, pure as the thoughts that in my bosom rose; but one unjust purloined them. I sowed, but he the harvest reaped."

Then, resting within the tomb his head, he mourning wept, and said: "O lovely floweret, struck by autumn's blast, and from this world departed ere thou knewest it! A garden once in bloom, but now laid waste! O fruit matured, but not enjoyed! To earth's mortality can such as thou be subject, and such as thou within the darkness of the tomb repose? And where is now that mole which seemed a grain of musk?[125] And where those eyes soft as the gazelle's? Where those ruby lips? And where those curling ringlets? In what bright hues is now thy form adorned? And through the love of whom does now thy lamp consume? To whose fond eyes are now thy charms displayed? And whom to captivate do now thy tresses wave? Beside the margin of what stream is now that cypress seen? And in what bower is now the banquet spread? Ah, can such as thou have felt the pangs of death, and be reclined within this narrow cave?[126] But o'er thy cell I mourn, as thou wast all I loved; and ere my grief shall cease, the grave shall be my friend. Thou wast agitated like the sand of the desert; but now thou reposest as the water of the lake. Thou, like the moon, hast disappeared; but, though unseen, the moon is still the same; and now, although thy form from me is hid, still in my breast remains the loved remembrance. Though far removed beyond my aching sight, still is thy image in my heart beheld. Thy form is now departed, but grief eternal fills its place. On thee my soul was fixed, and never will thy memory be forgot. Thou art gone, and from this wilderness escaped, and now reposest in the bowers of Paradise. I, too, after some little time will shake off these bonds, and there rejoin thee. Till then, faithful to the love I vowed, around thy tomb my footsteps will I bend. Until I come to thee within this narrow cell, pure be thy shroud!

May Paradise everlasting be thy mansion blest! And be thy soul received into the mercy of thy G.o.d! And may thy spirit by his grace be vivified to all eternity!"

[125] A mole on the fair face of Beauty is not regarded as a blemish, but the very contrary, by Asiatics--or by Europeans either, else why did the ladies of the last century patch their faces, if not (originally) to set off the clearness of their complexion by contrast with the little black wafer?--though (afterwards) often to hide a pimple! Eastern poets are for ever raving over the mole on a pretty face. Hafiz goes the length of declaring:

"For the mole on the cheek of that girl of Shiraz I would give away Samarkand and Bukhara"--

albeit they were none of his to give to anybody.

[126] Cf. Sh.e.l.ley, in the fine opening of that wonderful poetical offspring of his adolescence, _Queen Mab_:

"Hath, then, the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul?"

"This," methinks I hear some misogynist exclaim, after reading it--"this is rank nonsense--it is stark lunacy!" And so it is, perhaps. At all events, these impa.s.sioned words are supposed to be uttered by a poor youth who had gone mad from love. Our misogynist--and may I venture to include the experienced married man?--will probably retort, that all love between young folks is not only folly but sheer madness; and he will be the more confirmed in this opinion when he learns that, according to certain grave Persian writers, Layla was really of a swarthy visage, and far from being the beauty her infatuated lover conceived her to be: thus verifying the dictum of our great dramatist, in the ever-fresh pa.s.sage where he makes "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" to be "of imagination all compact," the lover seeing "Helen's beauty in the brow of Egypt!"--Notwithstanding all this, the ancient legend of Layla and Majnun has proved an inspiring theme to more than one great poet of Persia, during the most flourishing period of the literature of that country--for which let us all be duly thankful.

_ADDITIONAL NOTES._

'WAMIK AND ASRA,' p. 289.

This is the t.i.tle of an ancient Persian poem, composed in the reign of Nushirvan, A.D. 531-579, of which some fragments only now remain, incorporated with an Arabian poem. In 1833, Von Hammer published a German translation, at Vienna: _Wamik und Asra; das ist, Gluhende und die Bluhende. Das alteste Persische romantische Gedicht. Jun funftelsaft abgezogen_, von Joseph von Hammer (Wamik and Asra; that is, the Glowing and the Blowing. The most ancient Persian Romantic Poem. Transfer the Fifth, etc.) The hero and heroine, namely, Wamik and Asra, are personifications of the two great principles of heat and vegetation, the vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of earth.--This n.o.ble poem is the subject of a very interesting article in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. xviii, 1836-7, giving some of the more striking pa.s.sages in English verse, of which the following may serve as a specimen:

'The Blowing One' Asra was justly named, For she, in mind and form, a blossom stood; Of beauty, youth, and grace divinely framed, Of holiest spirit, filled with heavenly good.

The Spring, when warm, in fullest splendour showing, Breathing gay wishes to the inmost core Of youthful hearts, and fondest influence throwing, Yet veiled its bloom, her beauty's bloom before; For her the devotee his very creed forswore.

Her hair was bright as hyacinthine dyes; Her cheek was blushing, sheen as Eden's rose; The soft narcissus tinged her sleeping eyes, And white her forehead, as the lotus shows _'Gainst Summer's earliest sunbeams shimmering fair._

A curious story is related by Dawlat Shah regarding this poem, which bears a close resemblance to the story of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, by order of the fanatical khalif 'Umar: One day when Amir Abdullah Tahir, governor of Khurasan under the Abba.s.side khalifs, was giving audience, a person laid before him a book, as a rare and valuable present. He asked: "What book is this?" The man replied: "It is the story of Wamik and Asra." The Amir observed: "We are the readers of the Kuran, and we read nothing except that sacred volume, and the traditions of the Prophet, and such accounts as relate to him, and we have therefore no use for books of this kind. They are besides compositions of infidels, and the productions of worshippers of fire, and are therefore to be rejected and contemned by us." He then ordered the book to be thrown into the water, and issued his command that whatever books could be found in the kingdom which were the composition of the Persian infidels should be immediately burnt.

ANOTHER FAMOUS ARABIAN LOVER.

Scarcely less celebrated than the story of Majnun and Layla--among the Arabs, at least--is that of the poet Jamil and the beauteous damsel Buthayna. It is said that Jamil fell in love with her while he was yet a boy, and on attaining manhood asked her in marriage, but her father refused. He then composed verses in her honour and visited her secretly at Wadi-'l Kura, a delightful valley near Medina, much celebrated by the poets. Jamil afterwards went to Egypt, with the intention of reciting to Abdu-'l Aziz Ibn Marwan a poem he had composed in his honour. This governor admitted Jamil into his presence, and, after hearing his eulogistic verses and rewarding him generously, he asked him concerning his love for Buthayna, and was told of his ardent and painful pa.s.sion.

On this Abdu-'l Aziz promised to unite Jamil to her, and bade him stay at Misr (Cairo), where he a.s.signed him a habitation and furnished him with all he required. But Jamil died there shortly after, A.H. 82 (A.D.

701).

The following narrative is given in the _Kitabal-Aghani_, on the authority of the famous poet and philologist Al-Asma'i, who flourished in the 8th century:

A person who was present at the death of Jamil in Egypt relates that the poet called him and said: "If I give you all I leave after me, will you perform one thing which I shall enjoin you?" "By Allah, yes," said the other. "When I am dead," said Jamil, "take this cloak of mine and put it aside, but keep everything else for yourself. Then go to Buthayna's tribe, and when you are near them, saddle this camel of mine and mount her; then put on my cloak and rend it, and mounting on a hill, shout out these verses: 'A messenger hath openly proclaimed the death of Jamil. He hath now a dwelling in Egypt from which he will never return. There was a time when, intoxicated with love, he trained his mantle proudly in the fields and palm-groves of Wadi-'l Kura! Arise, Buthayna! and lament aloud: weep for the best of all thy lovers!'" The man did what Jamil ordered, and had scarcely finished the verses when Buthayna came forth, beautiful as the moon when it appears from behind a cloud. She was m.u.f.fled in a cloak, and on coming up to him said: "Man, if what thou sayest be true, thou hast killed me; if false, thou hast dishonoured me!" [i.e. by a.s.sociating her name with that of a strange man, still alive.] He replied: "By Allah! I only tell the truth," and he showed her Jamil's mantle, on seeing which she uttered a loud cry and smote her face, and the women of the tribe gathered around, weeping with her and lamenting her lover's death. Her strength at length failed her, and she swooned away. After some time she revived, and said [in verse]: "Never for an instant shall I feel consolation for the loss of Jamil! That time shall never come. Since thou art dead, O Jamil, son of Mamar! the pains of life and its pleasures are alike to me." And quoth the lover's messenger: "I never saw man or woman weep more than I saw that day."--Abridged from Ibn Khallikan's great Biographical Dictionary as translated by Baron De Slane, vol. i, pp. 331-326.