Lai´la

( 2 syl. ), a Moorish maiden, of great beauty and purity, who loved Manuel, a youth worthy of her. The father disapproved of the match; and they eloped, were pursued, and overtaken near a precipice on the Gruádalhorcê ( 4 syl. ). They climbed to the top of the precipice, and the father bade his followers discharge their arrows at them. Laila and Manuel, seeing death to be inevitable, threw themselves from the precipice, and perished in the fall. It is from this incident that the rock was called “The Lovers’ Leap.” And every Moorish maid can tell Where Laila lies, who loved so well; And every youth who pa es there, Says for Manuel’s soul a prayer. Southey, The Lovers’ Rock (a ballad, 1798, taken from Mariana, De la Pena de los Enamorados .) Laila , daughter of Okba, the sorcerer. It was decreed that either Laila or Thalaba must die. Thalaba refused to redeem his own life by killing Laila; and Okba exultingly cried, “As thou hast disobeyed the voice of Allah, God hath abandoned thee, and this hour is mine.” So saying, he rushed on the youth; but Laila, intervening to protect him, received the blow, and was killed. Thalaba lived on, and the spirit of Laila, in the form of a green bird, conducted him to the simorg ( q.v. ), which he sought, that he might be directed to Dom-Daniel, the cavern “under the roots of the ocean.”—Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer , x. (1797).