She is Layla, daughter of al-Akhyal, of 'Uqayl ibn Ka'b, and she is the greatest poetess among women: none is ranked above her but al-Khansa (1). In Fawat al-Wafayat it says: "The famous poetess — she was among the most celebrated of women; none is set before her but al-Khansa. She died in the eighties of the Hijra" (2). As for Zahr al-Adab of al-Husri, in his discussion of al-Khansa he says that she (that is, al-Khansa) is the greatest poetess of the Arabs in the view of many transmitters — but al-Asma'i used to give first place to Layla al-Akhyaliyya. Abu Zayd said: Layla is more versatile, more copious in flow, and stronger in diction, while al-Khansa goes further in elegy. Al-Mubarrad said: "Al-Khansa and Layla, in their poetry, stood ahead of most of the master poets" (3). Al-Jahiz said: "She was among the most eloquent of the poetesses and masters of style" (4). The sources agree that she was eloquent and among the foremost in poetry, and that Tawba ibn al-Humayyir was in love with her. Among his charming verses on Layla is his saying:

If Layla al-Akhyaliyya gave me greeting while over me lay earth and slabs of stone, I would return her greeting with gladness — or a screech-owl would cry

strains her gaze toward the north, awaiting help from the Persians, and sees none; she looks to the west and sees the supply caravans — a long line the eye cannot compass — bearing water, munitions, and food for Aurelian's troops. The sun set, and night let down its curtain.

Zenobia surrendered to her forebodings, and resolved to slip away, she and a handful of her men, on the backs of swift riding-camels, to seek reinforcement from the Persians; and she stole out by night. But the sun of the fifth day had barely risen when a thick cloud of Roman horsemen was upon her track. The Euphrates is near, and hope is near — but fortune stumbled with her once more: scarcely had she reached the boat by which she meant to cross the river when she was captured and led to Aurelian. Days later the Palmyrenes learned of it, and the city surrendered.

Aurelian returned to Rome, and there was a great procession the like of which Rome had rarely seen: Aurelian in a magnificent chariot that had been his spoil from the king of the Goths; the treasures of the East and its jewels in a chariot of Odenathus and Zenobia; the captives in their thousands, in fetters; and the animals — elephants, tigers, leopards, and others — marching in ranks with their keepers before him. But what gave the procession its grandeur, and the victory its significance, was that lioness, fettered in chains of gold, walking with bowed head before the emperor's chariot. The people of Rome looked out from their palaces and craned from the balconies of their houses to behold the queen of the East a captive in the talons of the eagle of the West — and the curtain fell upon the story of a woman of rarest example.

out to her from beside the grave; and were Layla in the sky, my eyes, gazing hard, would climb up to Layla.

He was killed in one of the raids, and she grieved for him bitterly and composed many elegies on him; they are the noblest and most abundant part of her poetry. She met and was received by several caliphs and emirs of the Umayyads, whom she praised and whose bounties she won — such as Mu'awiya, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.

She won fame in most of the arts of poetry, especially in panegyric, satire, and elegy, as you will see; and she has many poems — there is no room to cite them here — that deserve to be gathered into a diwan of their own.

It says in Zahr al-Adab: among the fine poetry of al-Akhyaliyya, elegizing Tawba ibn Humayyir al-Khafaji — he loved her, and composed much verse on her:

I looked out — a spur of the mountain between us — and what a gazer's gaze it was; and I descried horses gleaming by the tents, their forerunners like sandgrouse in steady file. If the slain be fair requital, then you — may God not send you far away, O Tawba! — to meet the fates in mail is to meet them bareheaded; the fates came upon him amid a stout coat of mail, a tawny lance of Khatt, and a sleek lean mare. It is as though Tawba, foremost of the young men, never made kneel she-camels that paw the pebbles with their chests, and never one day failed the defense and the hopes, while war flings out its fire in sparks (5).

It is a long poem, reaching fifty verses, and she has dozens of qasidas elegizing him.

Her Visits to al-Hajjaj

Layla used to come before al-Hajjaj, praise him, and win his prizes, and it appears that al-Hajjaj liked to banter with her. She came before him one day and he said to her: "Your youth has passed and your affair has withered away; I adjure you to tell me the truth — was there ever anything suspect between you two?" (that is, between her and Tawba). She said: "No, by God, O Emir — except that one night, when we were alone, he said a word to me by which I thought he had yielded somewhat to the matter, so I said to him:

Many a man with a longing — we said to him: breathe no word of it, for to that, so long as I live, there is no way; we have a companion whom we would never wish to betray, and you, to another woman, are suitor and friend.

And no, by God, I never heard anything suspect from him after that, until we were parted."

It is related of Muhammad ibn al-Hajjaj [ibn] Yusuf that he said: While I was with the Emir, leave was asked for Layla to enter, and he granted it; and there came in a tall woman, with great dark eyes and a beau-tiful mouth. She greeted him, and al-Hajjaj welcomed her and said, "What news do you bring? — Boy, set a cushion for her!" She sat down, and he said to her: "What has brought you to us?" She said: "To greet the Emir, to render him his due, and to seek his favor." He said to her: "How did you leave your people?" She said: "In plenty and in safety..." Then she said: "Shall I not recite to you, O Emir?" He said: "If you wish." She said:

O Hajjaj, may your weapon never fail — the fates are in the hand of God, wherever He decrees