1. Precious souls yearned for nearness;

    and when Love gave them the cup to drink, they went mad.

  2. They had wished to die of ardent longing,

    so passion brought them what they had wished for.

  3. And in the encampment, a slender, supple maiden—were she to appear

    upon the bān tree, the gray doves among its branches would sing.

  4. I marveled at her, since she stood alone in beauty:

    what meaning, after her, could ever have swayed?

  5. One wasted by love for her complained passionately of his sickness,

    and she told him, “Endure this passion—or die.”

  6. No one lived save an enamored man who died in passion

    for love of me—and this, among lovers, is my way.

  7. A wine will come to you from me; if you drink it,

    you will grow sober—for all my intoxication lies in love’s sobriety.

  8. Do not mix it: through mixing it was made forbidden,

    yet if served to them unmixed, it would be lawful.

  9. If it has annihilated you through intoxication, then lose yourself in it;

    for whoever the pure wine dismisses through negation stands affirmed.

  10. And sincere young men, like stars, journeyed by night upon

    mounts of resolve that had no reins—

  11. men possessed of souls whose defining quality never ceased to be nobility;

    those souls beheld Layla’s glory in beauty, and humbled themselves.

  12. They exhorted one another to preserve fidelity, and nursed together from

    the cups of purity, holding fast to affection.

  13. Then the vintner of a monastery, its cupbearer, called to them;

    and when the wine slew them through drunkenness, it restored them to life.

  14. So through it they lived, within it, at the time when they surrendered

    to it attributes said to have been borrowed from it.

  15. Whoever among us has lived has not attained the like of their attainment;

    but whenever the soul remembers them, it yearns.

Sol 6.1