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NIZAMI: LAYLA AND MAJNUN

(An extract from the Introduction to his English Version by Paul Smith)

One day in 1188 Nizami received a message, which gave him the opportunity of setting to work this new energy of his spirit. The prince of the neighbouring Shirvan, Abu ‘I-Muzzaffar Shirvanshah Akhsitan, wished him to elaborate the love-story of the celebrated pair of young Arabian lovers Layla and Majnun. This prince’s origin, with whom began a new dynasty for Shirvan, reached back to the old kingly dynasties of Persia and so he regarded himself as the representative of Persian nationality and spirit and wished at least to animate his not very widespread dominion by making it the protector of Persian literature. The request of the prince to Nizami had probably no other ground than to draw to his court from his quiet seclusion the poet who was already so renowned that he was able to say of himself:

I have brought to such refinement my enchanting poetry,
my name "The mirror of the world to come" will now be!

The task asked of him by no means at first appealed to Nizami. The subject proposed was indeed a worthy one, as he expressed himself about it:

Love stories, there are more than a thousand,
which by tip of a pen are made into a legend:
however, this one is the king of all love-stories:
what can it be, with all artistry that in me lies?

But the subject appears to Nizami too dry to be manufactured into a great poem. The desolate Arabian wilderness for his theatre, two simple children of the desert as his heroes, nothing but an unhappy passion ... this might well daunt even the poet of ‘Khosrau and Shirin’, which in everything, place, persons, and treatment, presented the greatest variety and grandeur. He says:

The entrance court of the story is too contracted:
poem would suffer, going backward and forward!
Race-ground of poetry ought to be more spacious
if it’s to show off the ability of the rider, I stress.
A verse of Koran may deserve to be well known
but, a commentary on it may become overblown.
Fascinations of poetry are its joys and flatteries;
from these two sources is derived its harmonies.
On such a journey in which I know not the way,
can I know where are the pleasant spots to stay?
There may be neither gardens nor royal banquets,
nor music, nor wine, not anything but regrets.
Only rugged mountains and endless arid sands
until poetry becomes an aversion in one’s hands.

But the persuasion of his son Mohammad, at that time fourteen years old and his regard to the prince’s request convinced him to overcome his reluctance and he soon began work. Nizami once aroused was able to exhibit an extraordinary activity.

Within a short time he had completed this master-work of love-poetry, which in the comprehensive laying-out of the plan and the connected execution of the several parts has remained unsurpassed although even such poets as Hatifi and Jami and the great Turkish poet Fuzuli and many others inspired by Nizami’s most famous work have at later periods treated the same subject. As to the quickness of the com-position, Nizami says:

These four thousand couplets and some more
I wrote in less than months numbering four:
if I’d not been held up by another occupation,
fourteen nights might have seen completion.

How then was it possible for Nizami to complete this amazing literary masterpiece in such a short time? First he would have had access to the Arabic work of Abulfaraj al-Isfahani (died. 967) the Kitab al-Aghani in which there is a chapter of over ninety pages on the young poet Qays or Majnun (‘madman’), the lover of Layla who lived in the second half of the seventh century among the Bani Amir tribe in the Najd desert, a collection of traditions interwoven with verse. Other books earlier contained stories about the young lovers but Nizami’s greatest source must have come from the collected poems of Qays Ibn Mulawwah (Majnun) himself.

In his outward circumstances, Nizami’s new work led to no change. The invitation from Shirvan could not move him to expose himself to the disagreeable atmosphere of the court. He availed himself however of the opportunity to address to himself and others a warning:

Refrain from seeking the society of kings,
like exposing dry cotton to fire’s burnings!
Light from the fire may be pleasant enough,
but to be safe one must stay a distance off:
moth that’s allured by the flame of a candle
is burnt when a companion at banquet table.

The Kizil Arslan’s gifts had enabled him to live a quiet country-life. On this account we find, among many personal intimations in the long introduction to ‘Layla and Majnun’ that takes up over half of the book, no complaint of want and even in the dedication appears no request alluding to it. Tranquilized by his quiet life, he says:

In your village, upon your own private estate,
don’t think of eating from the another’s plate.
Fortune will turn upon that unthinking fellow
whose foot beyond his garment he will allow.
what bird which flies beyond its own sphere
measures its own flight with death’s measure.
That serpent that’s not keeping to its own path
twists itself in its twistings into its own death.
If the fox should come to fighting with the lion
you know whose hand the sword is lying upon.

But what he declined for himself he was not unwilling to grant to his son, who begged his father to permit him to go to the court of Shirvan and reside there as the companion of the young prince. Nizami consents to this and it would appear, sent the youth as the bearer of the poem; for in his con-gratulation to the young prince to whom he had already given information of his son’s request, he says:

No doubt, you’ll read the book of the Khosrus,
no doubt you’ll study the sayings of the wise;
the treasures also hidden within this volume
look upon in fullness of her circuit as the moon.
If you don’t behold the face of this work’s father,
please give your care to him who is its brother.

Even out of this consent it is disclosed that Nizami would have wished to give another direction to his son’s career than he had struck out for himself. He gives him practical counsels in the school of life. "Have you also," he says to him, "a talent for poetry, do not devote yourself to it; for that which pleases you soon becomes the most untrue." This judg-ment certainly does not apply to poetry as Nizami understood it, for according to himÉ Truth is the very theme of poetry; but he means to warn his young son against that counterfeit poetry which had spread itself through the courts of princes and filled him with a genuine abhorrence and to the ensnaring atmosphere of which his son was about to be exposed. Then he says:

Although some poetry be of high dignity,
look for knowledge that is of some utility.
The Prophet said: "The science of sciences
is science of matter and of faith." You see?
In the navel of each there’s a fragrant smell,
in the law and in medicine: this, you I tell.
But let the law instruct you in God’s service,
let it not teach you how to lie: this, I stress.
If you are adept in both, with commonsense
you’ll have reached the summit of excellence.

It is impossible to underestimate the effect of Nizami’s ‘Layla and Majnun’ on the world over the past 800 years. Many poets throughout this period have copied or been influenced by his story of the young lovers. Many Master-Poets besides Ibn Arabi, Attar, Rumi, Sadi, Hafiz and Jami have quoted from him or like him have used the story of the desperate lovers to illustrate how human love can be transformed into divine love through separation and longing. Paintings by the thousands, musical pieces and hundreds of songs (even ‘modern’ ones by singer-songwriters such as Eric Clapton) have been inspired by Nizami’s epic poem, also many plays, operas, ballets and films. Today the influence of his book seems more alive than ever and is growing. It is still one of the most popular epics of the Middle East and Central Asia, among Azerbaijanis, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Afghans, Tajiks, Kurds, Indians and Pakistanis. Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is said to have been written under Nizami’s influence (see bibliography). It could also have influenced Gottfried von Strassburg’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’ and the early 13th century French fable ‘Aucassin and Nicolette’ and innumerable others.

Iran’s and perhaps the world’s greatest mystical-love poet Hafiz of Shiraz (1320-1392) in his ‘Book of the Winebringer’ masnavi poem, obviously influenced by the masnavi that begins and ends Nizami’s ‘Layla and Majnun’, says:

In wisdom’s opinion there’s no better adorner of poetry
in this old sphere, than the pearls of speech of Nizami.

Here now are the couplets from my version of the first meeting of the lovers that sets the stage for the eternal romance of Nizami’s immortal telling of the tale of the tragic but eventually divine young lovers, ‘Layla and Majnun’.

The child looked like the moon after fourteen days
and so his parents gave him the name of Qays.
A year passed and his beauty grew to perfection:
as light cuts water, in his formÉ love’s reflection.
So playful and joyful, year after year he flourished,
a flower in childhood’s happy garden nourished.
And when he turned seven, the violet--coloured hair
of a first beard began to show on his cheek: there!
And when he had finally passed his first ten years
some spoke of his beauty like a fairy tale, in tears!
And whoever did happen to see him, even if only
from afar called on God to bless him, eternally.
Look now on where instruction pours on the mind
the light of knowledge, both simple and refined;
each leader of a tribe has his children there; each
is studying what the old, bearded sage can teach.
So it was here young Qays, his knowledge drew,
and he scattered pearls from his lips of ruby hue;
it was here, of a different tribe and a gentler way,
a lovely maid of tender years came one fatal day:
her intelligence in its early bloom was to be found
and her quiet body was clothed simply but sound.
Bright as morning was her cypress shape and eyes
deer-dark, were seen by all with fondest surprise:
when this Arab moon her bright cheek revealed
a thousand hearts were won, no pride or shield,
could stop her beauty: it was impossible to resist!
She was given to enthrall, to charm: one, the most!
Her long, flowing curling locks were black as night
and she was called Layla, that heart’s delight,
just one glance and the nerves became distraught,
just one glance, bewildered became each thought:
and, when over young Qays, love’s blushing rose
spread its rare sweetness, from him fled all repose:
a tumultuous passion danced upon his hot brow,
he wanted only to win her, but he knew not how:
he gazed upon her perfect cheek and as he gazed,
love’s flaming candle intensely inside him blazed.
And soon the same pleasure fed each other’s heart:
love had won them and they never dreamt to part.
And while the other students looked at their books
these two stared back and read each other’s looks:
while the other schoolmates for distinction strove
and thought of fame: they, only thought of love:
while the others various places in books explored,
those two sat and stared... the adorer and adored!
And science for them now had no charms to boast,
and learning for them had all of its meaning lost,
their only taste was for love and love’s sweet ties,
and writing ghazals, poems to each other’s eyes.
Yes, love triumphant had come, engrossing both
the hearts and thoughts of the girl and the youth,
and while being overcome by that delicious thrill,
smiles and joyful tears both faces and eyes did fill.
Then in quiet secret talking they passed the hours:
their love was like the season, like the fair flowers
freshly strewn upon the path now opening to their
sweet, melting words that are soft as Summer air.
Immersed in love: young, and yet it was so deep,
they hoped all suspicion would be lulled to sleep
and that no one would see their loving condition
that gossips would not put them under suspicion,
and thinking like this, they then anxiously prayed
that their love would not to any others be relayed,
wishing the others saw what they no longer were,
though all could see their hearts as one they were.
But by a worldly prudence that was uncontrolled,
in their every glance, their true feelings they told:
because true love never thinks of knowing the skill
of veiling those passionate looks of lovers, at will.
And when those black ringlets of a thousand curls,
and those lips of ruby with those teeth of pearls,
and those dark eyes flashing, so quick and bright,
like the lightning on the brow of the darkest night
when such charms as these their power display,
and they then steal one’s bewildered heart away,
can any man living, openly lying, so coldly seem
to be totally unmoved as if by only a mere dream?
Young Qays saw her great beauty, saw her grace,
and he saw the soft expression on her perfect face
and as he gazed, he gazed and gazed again, again
he gazed: so, distracted became his burning brain:
then, no moment’s rest he had by day or by night
because Layla was permanently there, in his sight.
But, when the fateful separation eventually came,
more brightly glowed this ardent lover’s flame,
and Layla, in her deepest sorrow was also caught,
weeping about what upon them fate had brought.

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NIZAMI: THE TREASURY OF MYSTERIES

The first step that Nizami made from the dry asceticism which he had adopted to a more mystical view of the world, he has painted for us in the introduction to his first work (other than ghazals and other short poems that have not come down to us) called ‘The Treasury of Mysteries’ or Makhzan-al-Asrar. From this it appears that it was mainly the lack of vitality in the society into which his pious existence had brought him that eventually revolted him. But what weighed upon him still more was the inactivity to which this soul-deadening asceticism condemned him. This left no room for the free expression of his inner heart’s fire; allowed no movement to the impulses of the spirit of poetry with which he was richly endowed. Every enjoyment of the outward world was forbidden to him by his companions: "those robbers, the senses." Then came an illumination. As others are sleeping he sits voiceless, pained by his inner torments and he gropes through his past life. With the insight that it ought not to go on as it has comes also the recognition of the path into which he ought now to strike. We hear how in this decisive moment of his life he tells himself to be warned and instructed:

The spirit of solitude said in a voice so serene:
give a pledge that you will be able to redeem.
Why go on casting water on this pure flame?
Why let the wind be master of your domain?
Give fever-bringing dust to the funeral pyre;
to that ruby inside you give the glowing fire!
Don’t shoot arrow if target’s your own reason!
Use less whip when the racehorse is your own!
From now on you mustn’t sit careless anymore:
if your heart is stubborn, batter down the door.
Under the wide dome of this fair blue canopy,
sing the story of your heart like a sweet melody.
Keep far from those highwaymen, those desires:
heart knows the way, listen to what it inspires!
A nature which submits to the guiding of reason,
will wait for ready money of a forty-year season;
better than it maturing for forty years, let it be
working for what’s needful for its further journey.
Now you need a friend, so be deluded no longer:
do not keep on repeating a forty-year-old lecture;
take your arm from garment and look for help, go!
For heart’s sorrow find that one who it does know!
Don’t feed on grief while there is another grieving;
break the neck of grief by with a friend it sharing.
For that soul that’s captured by trouble and strife,
Friend of friends is the powerful support of his life.
Though being a king is not something to be hated,
when I look, nothing than a friend is higher rated.
Nothing deserves to be preferred to being a friend,
a friend who will hold you by the hand to the end;
that friend, tightly by the cords of the heart tie:
your clay mingle it with that one’s water, try!

And now, what was before the repressed voice of his naturally cheerful disposition, broke forth with fresh strength. The one-sided direction given to it was broken and no longer was a gloomy inactivity to rob him of a wise enjoyment of this world.

He surrendered himself in trust to the vivid emotions of his own heart, as he says:

A heart to which the Supreme Lord has spoken
becomes a union of body and soul, unbroken:
the universe is illuminated by the heart’s star,
and the twins of the heart, form and spirit are.

When the shackles which had bound his inward freedom fell, also fell away the chains that had before restrained his poetical talent:

The riches of my heart made my tongue rich also,
my nature now full of joy, all its sorrows let go:
my cold tears now flowed from a hot fountain,
for heart made my pot boil over! Don’t constrain!

Yet the separation from those who had been his companions before this momentous change in him was not altogether easy:

My fellow-travellers are inexperienced, I’m new to travelling;
bitterer is separation from friends than loneliness I’m knowing.

The ‘Treasury of Mysteries,’ Makhzan-al-Asrar was probably completed during 1171 when the poet was in his early thirties and is composed of 2260 couplets. It is the produc-tion of a poetical nature, which has not yet arrived at a full consciousness of

its striving for perfection. Composed of twenty discourses each one with a story, its content is religious and ethical topics joining both the spiritual and practical. What Nizami had previously carried about within himself he wished now to express in words: the views and experiences which before had built up in himself were now to be communicated to the world and at the same time the burden which had weighed him down fell from his heart. His inclination towards the epic in the form of the masnavi (rhyming couplets), which at a later period stepped into the foreground, showed itself even here, and so his narratives form, as in Sadi’s Bustan (Orchard), the accompani-ment of these meditations which are filled with a genuine Sufi spirit. That ease in rhyming of which at a later period Nizami boasts, he had not yet acquired in this his first completed work. He says:

So long must I rest my head upon my knee,
before thread’s end comes to fingers of me.

His great faith in sokhan, discourse or eloquent speech through the poetic forms, becomes so strong that he believes that poets are creative artists with almost divine roles and he states:

The first movement of the Pen created
the first letter of the Word ever stated.
When lifting curtain of non-existence,
the Word was what They did dispense.
Until the Word allowed heart to speak,
the soul’s free self the clay didn’t seek!
When the Pen began to move, then,
it opened eyes of world by Word again!
Without speech world’s voice is finished:
much is said, but Word isn’t diminished.
In love’s language soul is speech, no less;
we are speech, these ruins our palaces.

Of the high nature of his art he was then very conscious and he gives an animated expression of his intuitive perception of its worth and seriousness:

The mystical word which is veiled in poetry,
is a shadow of that which is veiled in prophecy.
Before and behind all the ranks of grandeur fit,
prophecy stands first and poetry is behind it;
these neighbours are intimates of one Friend:
that one is the kernel and this one is the rind.

But the poet must know how to preserve his inner worth and he must not by flattery treat his art merely as a commodity only to be sold:

Dead as gold is he who only regarding money,
gives away for gold the minted medal, easily!
He who barters for gold words bright as the day
gets a stone, giving an illuminating ruby away.
Doubtlessly, that tribe thinking itself so learned
is as much lower as it esteems itself so exalted!
A head seeming encircled with a sultan’s crown
may fatefully tomorrow feel it a bandage of iron;
and he who like quicksilver hasn’t felt gold grief
remains pure silver, free from the prince’s iron.

This severe criticism, as is shown especially in the first couplet, is directed against the countless poets of that time who, flocking around the thrones of the less and greater princes resigned themselves and their art as a plaything to their princely whims. Especially was this the case in Nizami’s century, which had produced the greatest eulogistic poet, Anvari. Nizami never knew how to submit to this; in spite of many an opportunity offered to him to bring his life into connection with princely courts and to make his principal theme the laudation of princes, as did most of the poets of his time. This lofty understanding and opinion of his art worked enduringly on his destiny and built up a wall between him and his fellow-artists and was the cause of arguments with many of them.

Yet it was in the spirit of the times that the poets should dedicate their works to princes while on the other hand princes deemed it an honour to be sung to by poets. When Nizami wrote his Makhzan-as-Asrar he had not yet come into connec-tion with any royalty. Shirvan appears to have been as yet not quite independent and so he turned his looks towards the southern neighbouring lands where the powerful Atabeg, Fakhr-ud-din Bahram Shah, laid the foundation of the dynasty of the Atabegs of Azerbaijan. In the section of the introduction which contains the eulogy of the prince and in that in which he lays his work at his feet, only the name of Fakhr-ud-din is mentioned in the following verses:

Guardian monarch and refuge of princes:
lord of scimitar, lord of diadem, priceless,
although wielding the rigorous sword you
come taking all crowns and thrones tooÉ
like khalifs, you scatter your treasures also,
bestowing diadems upon thrones you go.
The edge of your sword is above all crowns,
from kings, shouldn’t you receive tribute?
In this azure revolving sphere, the quality
of a man, are the measures of his dignity!

In whatever exaggeration Nizami may have indulged in his eulogy of Bahram Shah, his proud self-consciousness never deserts him, especially his overflowing and unbounded reverence for poetry, and so he says:

Though many are standing around the throne
bowing as suppliants for favour of that one;
all being superior to Nizami in point of rank,
he is one, but what are the others? Be frank!
I, having arrived at the halting place with them
will push on my journey a little ahead of them:
I have made of my words a sword of hard stone,
and I will lower heads of those who follow me.

As was stated earlier Nizami’s first book contained mainly poetry in the masnavi form, with stories of mystical and moral teachings. The following tale about Jesus is a good example and is often quoted:

The Messiah’s feet, which forever shows us the world,
into a small bazaar they journeyed one day where unfurled
before him a scene of a wolf-dog lying upon the road;
like Joseph leaving the well, its soul had left its load.
Over that dead body many sightseers stood and gaped,
hovering, vultures at carrion, mouths open they stared.
One finally said: "This is so disgusting to the brain
it wants to black out like a useless lamp: it’s a pain!"
One held his nose, one shut her eyes and looked away
and amongst those standing there loud voices did say;
"A detestable creature!" "It defiles the earth and the air!"
"Its eyes are blurred!" "Its ears are filthy!" "Ribs are bare!"
Each one gathered there said something that was similar:
each one at the poor dead body threw abuse even crueler.
When the time came and it was Jesus’ turn to say something,
not disturbing the surface he went straight into the meaning:
he said: "Inside His palace many engravings one can find,
but pearls as white as this wolf’s teeth; ah, one of a kind!"
All gathered there, from hope and fear their teeth did bare;
whitened with oyster’s burnt shell, over the wolf’s shell there!
The abusive crowd became silent and ashamed like one
rebuked by an insight and wisdom greater than their own.
There is never one of His creatures that so abused can be;
without something fine inside, that a loving eye can see.

Another example from Nizami’s first book, in his group of five poetic mansavi masterpieces called the Khamsa or ‘Quintet’ (also called the Panj Ganj or ‘Five Treasures’), the ‘Treasury of Mysteries’, tells the story of the famous monarch of Persia Nashirwan the Just (the son of Kobad, ascended the throne 531 and died 579 A.D.) and his education as to the misuse of power by his wise vizier:

Intent upon sport, Nashirwan on a particular day
spurred his horse on to quickly take him far away
from his retainers; it was only his trusted vizier
who rode out with him, no other soul was near.
Crossing a game-stocked plain he halts and scans
a ruined village, one of his enemy’s devious plans.
Nearby there were sitting two owls, not far apart,
their dreary hooting chilled the monarch’s heart.
"What secrets do they whisper?" Asked the king
of his advisor: "what means the song they sing?"
"O sovereign, "the minister replied, "I now pray
you will forgive me for repeating what they say;
sound they make isn’t a song or a calling to mate:
it is really the question of a betrothal they debate.
That bird gave her daughter to this one, and now
asks him for a proper portion as a dowry to allow
the union, saying: "This ruined village give to me,
and some others as well, perhaps two or three."
"Let it be," the other cries out, "our rulers leave
to pursue injustice again, and they don’t grieve,
and if one worthy monarch should happen to live,
a hundred thousand ruined homes I would give."

Although not widely known in the west the ‘Treasury of Mysteries’ is highly regarded in its homeland and was a strong influence on the following works by three other significant poets: Amir Khusraw: Matla’-Anwar or ‘The Dawn of Lights’; Khaju Kermani: Rowzat al-Anvar or ‘The Garden of Lights’ and Jami’s Tuhfat al-Ahrar or ‘The Gift of the Noble’.

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