The Arabs, as we gather from The Arabian Nights,
were a people especially devoted to tenderness in love. When the Arab was smitten with love he was a helpless weeping child. There was one tribe, that of Azra, wherein the victims were said to die of love. One poet said he knew of thirty young men whom love sickness carried off. In answer to a reproach for this weakness, one of the tribe replied: "You would not talk like that if you had seen the great black eyes of our women darting fire from beneath the veil of their long lashes, if you had seen them smile and their death gleaming between their brown lips." (Stendhal: On Love, p. 218.)
Arabic poetry in the period before Islam between 500 A.D. and 622 A.D. did not consist of pure eroticism. Satire, eulogy, elegy, revenge, martial feeling, chiefly characterized it. Many poems were also devoted to the praise of animals and the description of nature. The odes or Qasidas, however, began with a love prelude, called nasib, in which the poet dwelt on his love sorrows merely to win the hearts of his hearers to his chief theme. One of the best of these is that in the ode of Imru'ul Qays the first and greatest of the seven poets of the Muallaqat.
Pure erotic poetry appeared after Islam with the luxury that spread with the growth of wealth, but the nasib continued to be used, especially in eulogies. The poets still wrote like the Pre-islamic poets instead of celebrating Islam. The Umayyad Dynasty, which extended from 661 to 749 A.D., saw the birth of pure love poetry celebrated not as introductory or episodic but purely for itself. The love story of one of the Arabian erotic poets of the period, Majnun, was celebrated by the great Persian poet, Nidhami, who flourished in the twelfth century. His Laila and Majnun has been translated into English by Mr. Atkinson. The story was retold by many Persian and Ottoman poets. Then there was Jamil, who was the lover
of Buthaina. These love poems by Majnun and Jamil were of popular origin, and represented the spirit of the people. There were many other love poets, while some did not devote themselves exclusively to love.
The most celebrated, however, of the love poets was the handsome wealthy Omar ibn Abi Rabia (643-719 A.D.). He was of the tribe of Koraish, the same tribe to which Mohammed himself belonged. This tribe was famous for many things, but not for poetry until Omar took away the reproach. His poems were called a crime against God, yet a cousin of the prophet memorized some of them. The fullest account of him in English and of his love affairs, with translations from a few of his poems, appears in an essay by William G. Palgrave in Essays on Eastern Questions. Omar was united in marriage to his love Zeynab after a stormy courtship, opposed by her people, but he had several love affairs. The best idea of the sweetness and pathos of his love poetry is conveyed without further comment by giving two translations made by Mr. Palgrave.
Ah for the throes of a heart sorely wounded!
Ah for the eyes that have smit me with madness!
Gently she moved in the calmness of beauty,
Moved as the bough to the light breeze of morning.
Dazzled my eyes as they gazed, till before me
All was a mist and confusion of figures.
Ne'er had I sought her, and ne'er had she sought me;
Fated the love, and the hour, and the meeting.
There I beheld her as she and her damsels
Paced 'twixt the temple and outer enclosure;
Damsels the fairest, the loveliest, the gentlest,
Passing like slow-wending heifers at evening;
Ever surrounding with courtly observance
Her whom they honor, the peerless of women.
Then to a handmaid, the youngest, she whispered,
"Omar is near: let us mar his devotions.
Cross on his path that he needs may observe us;
Give him a signal, my sister, demurely."
"Signals I gave, but he marked not or heeded,"
Answered the damsel, and hasted to meet me.
Ah for that night by the vale of the sand-hills!
Ah for the dawn when in silence we parted!
He who the morn may awake to her kisses
Drinks from the cup of the blessed in heaven.
Ah! where have they made my dwelling? Far, how far, from her, the loved one,
Since they drove me lone and parted to the sad sea-shore of Aden.
Thou art mid the distant mountains; and to each, the loved and lover,
Nought is left but sad remembrance, and a share of aching sorrow.
Hadst thou seen thy lover weeping by the sand-hills of the ocean,
Thou hadst deemed him struck by madness: was it madness? was it love?
I may forget all else, but never shall I forget her as she stood,
As I stood, that hour of parting; heart to heart in speechless anguish;
Then she turned her to Thoreyya, to her sister, sadly weeping;
Coursed the tears down cheek and bosom, till her passion found an utterance;
"Tell him, sister, tell him; yet be not as one that chides or murmurs,
Why so long thy distant tarrying on the unlovely shores of Yemen?
Is it sated ease detains thee, or the quest of wealth that lures thee?
Tell me what the price they paid thee, that from Mecca bought thy absence?"
I give three other examples of Arabic love poetry by different translators, prose renderings by McGuckin de