I grew attached to Layla while she still wore her hair in twin braids, before any of her playmates could discern the slightest swell in her breast.

We were two little ones pasturing the lambs—would that, even to this day, neither we nor the lambs had ever grown! (1)

She too was captivated; love for him lodged itself in her heart.

And he is the one who said:

I think her passion will abandon me in some barren tract of earth where I possess neither wealth nor kin,
no one to whom I may entrust my last will, no heir save the mount and its saddle. (2)

Her love effaced the loves that had preceded it; she took a place in my heart never occupied before.

His infatuation with her grew so intense that it turned into whispered obsessions and his mind became unhinged, so he said:

I sit in the assembly, conversing with them, then snap out of it to find that the ghoul has carried me off. (3)

My private thoughts about you drag my heart downward until my companion says, “You are deranged.” (4)

Abū ʿUbayda said: The condition kept worsening until he lost his reason; no camel-litter could shelter him, and no garment covered him without his ripping it to shreds.

It is also reported that Layla’s people lodged a complaint about the Mad Lover with the ruler, who declared his blood forfeit. Her tribe then decamped with her; he came afterward, rolling on the ground of their deserted quarters and saying:

O narrow hollows of the encampment where they struck their tents at Dhī Salam—may the springtime never grace you!