Leila (2 syl.), the beautiful slave of the Caliph Hassan. She falls in love with “the Giaour” [djow´.er], flees from the seraglio, is overtaken, and cast into the sea.
Her eyes’ dark charm ’twere vain to tell;
But gaze on that of the gazelle—
It will assist thy fancy well.
Byron, The Giaour (1813).
Leilah, the Oriental type of female loveliness, chastity, and impassioned affection. Her love for Mejnôun, in Mohammedan romance, is held in much the same light as that of the bride for the bridegroom in Solomon’s song, or Cupid and Psychê among the Greeks.
When he sang the loves of Megnôun and Leileh [sic] ... tears insensibly overflowed the cheeks of his auditors.—W. Beckford, Vathek (1786).
L. E. L., pseudonym of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (afterwards Mrs. Maclean), poetess (1802-1838).
Lela Marien, the Virgin Mary.
In my childhood, my father kept a slave, who, in my own tongue [Arabic], instructed me in the Christian worship, and informed me of many things of Lela Marien.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iv. 10 (1605).