FRAGMENTS
Gathered and translated from an Arabic Collection entitled: The Divan of Love[(39)]
Compiled by Ebn-Abi-Hadglat. (Manuscripts of the King's Library, Nos. 1461 and 1462.)
Mohammed, son of Djaafar Elahouazadi, relates that Djamil being sick of the illness of which he died, Elabas, son of Sohail, visited him and found him ready to give up the ghost. "O son of Sohail," said Djamil to him, "what do you think of a man who has never drunk wine, who has never made illicit gain, who has never unrighteously given death to any living creature that God has forbidden us to kill, and who confesses that there is no other God but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet?" "I think," answered Ben Sohail, "that such a man will be saved and will gain Paradise; but who is he, this man of whom you talk?" "'Tis I," answered Djamil. "I did not think that you professed the faith," returned Ben Sohail, "and moreover, for twenty years now you have been making love to Bothaina, and celebrating her in your verses." "Here I am," answered Djamil, "at my first day in the other world and at my last in this, and I pray that the mercy of our Master Mohammed may not be extended to me at the day of judgment, if ever I have laid hands on Bothaina for anything reprehensible."
This Djamil and Bothaina, his mistress, both belonged to the Benou-Azra, who are a tribe famous in love among all the tribes of the Arabs. Also their manner of loving has passed into a proverb, and God has made no other creatures as tender in love as they.
Sahid, son of Agba, one day asked an Arab: "Of what people are you?" "I am of the people that die when they love," replied the Arab. "Then you are of the tribe of Azra," added Sahid. "Yes, by the Master of the Caaba," replied the Arab. "Whence comes it that you love in this manner?" Sahid asked next. "Our women are beautiful and our young men are chaste," answered the Arab.
One day someone asked Aroua-Ben-Hezam:[5] "Is it really true what people tell of you, that you of all mankind have the heart most tender in love?" "Yes, by Allah, it is true," answered Aroua, "and I have known in my tribe thirty young men whom death has carried oil and who had no other sickness but love."
An Arab of the Benou-Fazarat said one day to an Arab of the Benou-Azra: "You, Benou-Azra, you think it a sweet and noble death to die of love; but therein is a manifest weakness and stupidity; and those whom you take for men of great heart are only madmen and soft creatures." "You would not talk like that," the Arab of the tribe of Azra answered him, "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 teeth gleaming between their brown lips!"
Abou-el-Hassan, Ali, son of Abdalla, Elzagouni, relates the following story: A Mussulman loved to distraction the daughter of a Christian. He was obliged to make a journey to a foreign country with a friend, to whom he had confided his love. His business prolonged his stay in this country, and being attacked there by a mortal sickness, he said to his friend: "Behold, my time approaches; no more in the world shall I meet her whom I love, and I fear, if I die a Mussulman, that I shall not meet her again in the other life." He turned Christian and died. His friend betook himself to the young Christian woman, whom he found sick. She said to him: "I shall not see my friend any more in this world, but I want to be with him in the other; therefore I confess that there is no other God but Allah, and that Mohammed is the prophet of God." Thereupon she died, and may God's mercy be upon her.*
Eltemimi relates that there was in the tribe of the Arabs of Tagleb a Christian girl of great riches who was in love with a young Mussulman. She offered him her fortune and all her treasures without succeeding in making him love her. When she had lost all hope she gave an artist a hundred dinars, to make her a statue of the young man she loved. The artist made the statue, and when the girl got it, she placed it in a certain spot where she went every day. There she would begin by kissing this statue, and then sat down beside it and spent the rest of the day in weeping. When the evening came she would bow to the statue and retire. This she did for a long time. The young man chanced to die; she desired to see him and to embrace him dead, after which she returned to her statue, bowed to it, kissed it as usual, and lay down beside it. When day came, they found her dead, stretching out her hand towards some lines of writing, which she had written before she died.*
Oueddah, of the land of Yamen, was renowned among the Arabs for his beauty. He and Om-el-Bonain, daughter of Abd-el-Aziz, son of Merouan, while still only children, were even then so much in love that they could not bear to be parted from each other for a moment. When Om-el-Bonain became the wife of Oualid-Ben-Abd-el-Malek, Oueddah became mad for grief. After remaining a long time in a state of distraction and suffering, he betook himself to Syria and began every day to prowl around the house of Oualid, son of Malek, without at first finding the means to attain his desire. In the end, he made the acquaintance of a girl, whom he succeeded in attaching to himself by dint of his perseverance and his pains. When he thought he could rely on her, he asked her if she knew Om-el-Bonain. "To be sure I do," answered the girl, "seeing she is my mistress." "Listen," continued Oueddah, "your mistress is my cousin, and if you care to tell her about me, you will certainly give her pleasure." "I'll tell her willingly," answered the girl. And thereupon she ran straight to Om-el-Bonain to tell her about Oueddah. "Take care what you say," cried Om-el-Bonain. "What? Oueddah is alive?" "Certainly he is," said the girl. "Go and tell him," Om-el-Bonain went on, "on no account to depart until a messenger comes to him from me." Then she took measures to get Oueddah brought to her, where she kept him hidden in a coffer. She let him come out to be with her when she thought it safe; but if someone arrived who might have seen him, she made him get inside the coffer again.
It happened one day that a pearl was brought to Oualid and he said to one of his attendants: "Take this pearl and give it to Om-el-Bonain." The attendant took the pearl and gave it to Om-el-Bonain. As he was not announced, he entered where she dwelt at a time when she was with Oueddah, and thus he was able to throw a glance into Om-el-Bonain's apartment without her noticing him. Oualid's attendant fulfilled his mission and asked something of Om-el-Bonain for the jewel he had brought her. She refused him with severity and reprimanded him. The attendant went out incensed against her, and went to tell Oualid what he had seen, describing the coffer into which he had seen Oueddah enter. "You lie, bastard slave! You lie," said Oualid. And he ran in haste to Om-el-Bonain. There were several coffers in her apartment; he sat down on the one in which Oueddah was hid and which the slave had described, saying: "Give me one of these coffers." "They are all yours, as much as I myself," answered Om-el-Bonain. "Then," continued Oualid, "I would like to have the one on which I am seated." "There are some things in it that only a woman needs," said Om-el-Bonain. "It is not them, it is the coffer I desire," added Oualid. "It is yours," she answered. Oualid had the coffer taken away at once, and summoned two slaves, whom he ordered to dig a pit in the earth down to the depth where they would find water. Then placing his mouth against the coffer: "I have heard something of you," he cried. "If I have heard the truth, may all trace of you be lost, may all memory of you be buried. If they have told me false I do no harm by entombing a coffer: it is only the funeral of a box." Then he had the coffer pushed into the pit and covered with the stones and the earth which had been dug up. From that time Om-el-Bonain never ceased to frequent this spot and to weep, until one day they found her there lifeless, her face pressed towards the earth.*[6]