“Leyli and Majnun” Nizami in summary
In Arabia lives a successful, hospitable, generous to the poor ruler of the tribe Amir. He is “glorious, like a caliph”, but he is like a “candle without light,” for he is devoid of offspring. Finally Allah heeded his prayers and bestowed upon him a beautiful son. The baby is entrusted to the wet nurse, and time is poured into the growing child by the “milk of tenderness”. Kais – so called the boy, which means in Arabic, “The measure of talent,” is doing well in teaching. Together with the boys, several girls study. One of them was famous early for his mind, spiritual purity, rare beauty. Her curls are like night, and her name is Leili. Case, “having stolen her heart, ruined his soul.” The love of children is mutual. Soubuciki teach arithmetic, lovers meanwhile compose a love dictionary. Love can not be concealed. Case faints from love, and those who on its way did not stumble, nicknamed him Majnun – “Madman”.
After consulting with the elders of the tribe, Majnun’s father decided to “buy out the treasure of the foreigners at the cost of hundreds of jewelry.” At the head of a magnificent caravan, he solemnly travels to the Leili tribe – to marry a beautiful woman for her son. But Leila’s father rejects matchmaking: Kais is a noble family, but he is insane, marriage with a madman does not promise good. Relatives and relatives exhort Majnun, offer him hundreds of beautiful and rich brides in exchange for Leili. But Majnun throws his home and in rags with a cry of “Leili, Leili!” runs through the streets, wanders in the mountains and in the desert sands. Saving his son, his father takes him with him to Hajj, hoping that the worship of the Kaaba will help in trouble, but Majnun prays not for his healing, but only for Laila’s happiness. His illness is incurable.
The Leili tribe, outraged by the rumors of the nomads, “sarcasm”, from which the beauty “as if in a heat,” was hardened. The military leader of the tribe bares his sword. Death threatens Majnun. The father is looking for him in the desert to save, and finds in some ruins – a sick man possessed by an evil spirit. He takes Majnun home, but the madman makes an escape, rushing only to the coveted Najd, Laili’s homeland. On the way he composes new ghazals.
Meanwhile, Leyli is in despair. Imperceptibly for the domestic, she climbs onto the roof of the house and all day she looks at the road, hoping that Majnun will come. Passers-by welcome her in the verses of her beloved. She responds to poetry in verse, as if “jasmine sends the message to the cypress.” One day, while walking through a flowering garden, Leyli hears someone’s voice singing a new gazelle: “Majnun suffers, and Leyli… In what spring garden does she walk?” A friend, shocked by sobbing Leyli, tells everything to her mother. Trying to save his daughter, Leila’s parents sympathetically accept the matchmaking of the rich young man of Ibn Salam.
On the sorrows of Majnun, the powerful Naufal recognized and became filled with compassion for him. He invited the unfortunate wanderer to his place, fondled and offered help. Majnun promises to pull himself together and wait patiently. He is cheerful, drinking wine with a new friend and he is the wisest in the congregation of sages. But the days are running out, patience is running low, and Majnun tells Naoufalu that if he does not see Leila, he will part with life. Then Naoufal leads the elite army into battle and demands Leili from her tribe, but he could not win in a bloody battle. Unable to hear the complaints of the fallen spirit Majnun, Naoufal again gathers the army and finally wins. However, even now, Leila’s father is ready to prefer even his slavery and the death of his daughter to her marriage with a madman. And the close associates of Naoufala are forced to agree with the old man. Naufal takes his army in sorrow. Majnun, who lost hope, disappears. He wanders long in the desert sands, finally gets to a beggar old woman who drives him on a rope and collects alms. In a state of total insanity, Majnun reaches Leyli’s native places. Here, his relatives found him and, to their great despair, they were convinced that they had “forgotten their homes and ruins”, everything was lost in memory, except for the name of Leili.
With a huge ransom, with rare gifts from Byzantium, China and Taif, Laili’s father is the messenger of Ibn Salam. They played a wedding, and Ibn Salam took Leili to his house. But when the lucky man tried to touch the bride, he got a slap in the face. Laili is ready to kill her unloved husband and die. The lover Ibn Salam agrees to confine himself to “contemplating her.” Majnun learns of Leili’s marriage, the messenger also tells him of Leyli’s sadness and chastity. Majnun is in turmoil. The father of the unfortunate man dreams of finding a medicine that would heal his son. Peering into the face of the old man who came to him, Majnun does not recognize his own father. After all, one who has forgotten himself can not remember others. The father calls himself, weeps with his son and calls him to courage and prudence, but Majnun does not take care of him. Desperate father sadly bids farewell to the doomed madman. Soon Majnun learns about the death of his father from the counter, reminding that “and except for Leili, there are close ones.” Day and night Majnun weeps at the grave and asks for forgiveness from the “star that gave light.” From now on, his friends became the wild beasts of the desert. Like a shepherd with a herd, Majnun walks in a crowd of predators and shares with them curious things. He sends his pleas to heaven, to the palace of the Most High, and prays to the stars. Suddenly he receives a letter from Leili. The beautiful woman presented her message to the messenger with bitter words: “I’m crazier than a thousand Majnuns.” Majnun reads a message in which Leyli speaks of her compassion for the companion of children’s games tormented by her, assures her of her loyalty, chastity, mourns the father of Majnun as his own, calls for patience. Leyli writes: “Do not be sad that you have no friends, am I not your friend?” In a hurry, Majnun wrote a reply letter. Laili looked at the message of Majnun and watered him with tears. In the letter words of love and impatience, reproaches and envy for the lucky Ibn-Salam, who at least sees Leyli’s face, are crowded. “Balm will not heal my wound,” writes Majnun, “but if you are healthy, there is no sorrow.”
Majnuna in the desert is visited by his uncle Selim Amirit. Fearing the nephew of the beasts who surrounded him, he greets him from afar. He brought Majnun clothing and food, but halva and cookies are given to animals. Majnun himself eats only herbs. Selim seeks to please Majnun, tells a parable in which the same recluse is praised. Pleased with understanding, Majnun asks to tell about the affairs of friends, cope with the health of the mother: “How does that bird with broken wings live? .. I long to see her noble face.” Feeling that a voluntary exile loves a mother, Selim leads her to Majnun. But also the tearful complaints of the mother, who bandaged the wounds of her son and washed his head, are powerless. “Leave me with my sorrows!” – exclaims Majnun and, falling down, kisses the dust at the feet of his mother. With weeping, her mother returned home and said goodbye to the mortal world. This sad news brings him crushed Selim. Majnun sobbed like a chang string, and fell to the ground like a glass on a stone. He cries at the graves of his parents, his relatives bring him to life, they try to detain him in their native land, but Majnun runs to the mountains with moans. Life, even if it lasted a thousand years, seems to him an instant, because “its basis is destruction.”
Like a snake’s tail, a string of disasters stretches beyond Leila. Her husband watches over her and mourns her fate. He tries to caress Leili, to please her, but she is severe and cold. The old man who came into the house, tells about the fate of someone who “shouts like a herald, and wanders around the oases,” calling his beloved. The cypress stad Laili, from her sobs, became a “reed”. Giving the old man his pearl earrings, she sends it to Majnun.
The wanderer lies at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by beasts, guarding, like a treasure. Seeing the old man from a distance, Majnun rushed to him, “like a child to the milk.” Finally, he is promised a meeting in a palm grove. “How can a thirsty from the Euphrates escape, how can the wind fight the amber?” Majnun sits under a palm tree in the appointed place and waits for Leili. Laili, accompanied by an old man, walks, but stops ten steps from his beloved. She does not love her husband, but is incapable of treason. Asks Mejnun to read poems, Majnun sang for Leili. She sings that she seems to him a mirage, a spring that only dreams of a traveler, thirsty. There is no faith in earthly happiness… Again Majnun rushes into the desert, and the gloomy Leili returns to his tent. Songs of Majnun’s unhappy love were heard by the noble youth of Salam Baghdad, who had known the sublime sense. Salam finds Majnun and offers him his ministry. He longs to hear the songs of Majnun and asks to consider himself one of the tamed animals. Gently welcoming Salam, Majnun tries to reason with him. Tired of himself will not get along with anyone except animals. Salam pleads not to deny his help. Majnun condescends to entreaties, but is unable to accept refined treats. Salam consoles Majnun. After all, he himself experienced a similar feeling, but burned out; “When the youth passes, the fiery stove cools down.” Majnun in response calls himself king of the kings of love. Love – the meaning of his whole life, it is undeniable, The interlocutor pauses to be ashamed. A few days new friends are traveling together, but Salam can not live without sleep and bread,
Laili is like a treasure that protects snakes. She pretended to be cheerful with Ibn Salam, but she sobs alone and, exhausted, falls to the ground.
Ibn Salam fell ill. The healer regained his strength, but Ibn Salam does not listen to the healer’s advice. The body, exhausted by the “first disease, the second disease transmitted to the wind.” The soul of Ibn Salam “got rid of worldly torments”.
The saddened Laili mourns for him, although she has found the desired freedom. But, mourning for the deceased, in her heart she remembers her beloved. According to the custom of the Arabs, Leili remained alone in her tent, because now she must stay at home for two years without showing anyone a face. She got rid of boring visitors, and, alas, now she has a legitimate reason for sobbing. But Laili mourns another grief – separation from her beloved. She prays: “Lord, connect me with my light, from the fire of suffering which I burn!”
In days of leaf fall, blood drops flow from the leaves, the “face of the garden” turns yellow. Laili fell ill. As if from a high altar fell “into the well of disease.” She alone “swallowed a grief” and is now ready to part with her soul. Leyli knows one thing: Majnun will come to her grave. Saying goodbye to the mother, the dying man leaves Majnun in her care.
Tears Majnun over the grave of Leili inexhaustible, as if a rain poured from the dark clouds. He is spinning in a mad dance and composes poetry about eternal separation, But “soon, soon, soon,” Allah will connect him with the departed. Only two or three days he lived Majnun so that “death is better than that life.” He dies, embracing the lover’s grave. His decayed bones are guarded for a long time by faithful wolves, the Majnun tribe learns of his death. After mourning the sufferers, the Arabs bury him next to Leyli and break the flower garden around the graves. Here come in love, here the sufferers are healed of illnesses and sorrows.
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