While My Guitar Gently Weeps


Yesterday, I learned for certain that my son's father has dementia, although I've suspected it for the better part of a year, and have made this suspicion known to his doctors, they have resisted this diagnosis, and preferred to believe it was drug interactions, B-12 deficiencies etc. I've never felt so absolutely horrid about being right in my life.


Well why does she refer to him as "her son's father" precisely because thats what he is, we are divorced, and have been for 6 or 7 years. I live on the farm we bought together, with shared monies, and he has a small studio apartment on the same property. which we are currently renovating. He's suffered various major and minor strokes through the years, which brings us to the point, where someone must at least take a passing interest in his well being. So I have been elected, by various wealthy and disinterested relatives to fulfill this position. I'm certainly no Mother Teresa, and the situation has at times benefitted me as well, but it has played hell with my social life. Compassion is important, although very trying, but hopefully with the proper diagnosis we can all survive a bit better.


If you are interested in seeing what dementia does to someone, I highly recommend the film, "Iris" starring Judi Dench as Iris Murdoch. Iris Murdoch was the pre-eminent female English novelist of her generation, and some would say (Updike is one of them) the pre-eminent English novelist of her generation period. There can be no argument about the depth, the complexity, and the beauty of her mind: the novels attest to this. And so the terror and pity evoked by dementia are in her case much sharpened.


Maritimers talk of a turn in the tide as the moment when the waves "reconsider". Over and above its piercing juxtapositions of our youth and age, how odd to find myself in this place just now. And how oceanic the world must feel to people with this disease, as their senses ebb.



I am learning a song which I've always meant to learn on the guitar, the acoustic version of Layla, by Eric Clapton. All guitarists have a de rigeur set of tunes that they set before themselves. Layla is one of them. Everyone knows the story of how Layla was written for the wife of Beatle George Harrison, but few people knew it was written because of a Persian poem that Clapton picked up in a used book shop.
Here is a bit about Layla and Majnun.


The story begins with the Sayyid, a man of wealth, power, and prestige, desiring a son and heir. He importunes Allah, who grants his request. The beauty of his son Qays "grew to perfection. As a ray of light penetrates the water, so the jewel of love shone through the veil of his body." At the age of ten, Qays goes to school and meets his kismet/fate, Layla. "Does not 'Layl' mean 'night' in Arabic? And dark as the night was the color of her hair." Love struck them both; others noticed, tongues wagged, and Qays first tastes bitterness. He refrains from seeing her, but his heart breaks and he begins to slip into melancholy. Layla's tribe, to protect her (and their) honor, deny her right to see him, and he falls into madness: "A madman (majnun is madman in Arabic) he became -- but at the same time a poet, the harp of his love and of his pain."



In time Majnun runs away into the wilderness, becoming unkempt, not knowing good from evil. His father takes him on pilgrimage to Mecca, to seek God's help in freeing him, but Majnun strikes the Kaaba and cries "none of my days shall ever be free of this pain. Let me love, oh my God, love for love's sake, and make my love a hundred times as great as it was and is!" He continues to wander "like a drunken lion," chanting poems of Layla's beauty and his love. Many come to hear him. Some write down the poems he spontaneously speaks.



Meanwhile, Layla holds their love quietly so none will know
she lived between the water of her tears and the fire of her love, . . .
Yet her lover's voice reached her. Was he not a poet? No tent curtain was woven so closely as to keep out his poems. Every child from the bazaar was singing his verses; every passer-by was humming one of his love-songs, bringing Layla a message from her beloved,
Refusing suitors, she writes answers to his poems and casts them to the wind.



It happened often that someone found one of these little papers, and guessed the hidden meaning, realizing for whom they were intended. Sometimes he would go to Majnun hoping to hear, as a reward, some of the poems which had become so popular. . . .
Thus many a melody passed to and fro between the two nightingales, drunk with their passion.
Eventually Layla is married to another, but refuses conjugality. Being in love, her husband accepts her condition of an outward marriage only. Majnun learns of the marriage and of her faithfulness. Neither his father nor his mother, when near death, can induce him to return to his people. Wild animals, loving rather than fearing him, congregate in his presence, protecting him. One night Majnun prays to Allah, thanking Him for making him the pure soul he now is and asking God's grace. He sleeps, and in his dream a miraculous tree springs from the desert, from which a bird drops a magic jewel onto his head, like a diadem.



An old man, Zayd, helps Layla and Majnun to exchange letters and finally to meet, though she cannot approach him closer than ten paces. Majnun spontaneously recites love poetry to her, and at dawn they go their separate ways. The author Nizami asks:
For how long then do you want to deceive yourself? For how long will you refuse to see yourself as you are and as you will be? Each grain of sand takes its own length and breadth as the measure of the world; yet, beside a mountain range it is as nothing. You yourself are the grain of sand; you are your own prisoner. Break your cage, break free from yourself, free from humanity; learn that what you thought was real is not so in reality.



After the death of Layla's husband, she openly mourns her love for Majnun, and dies shortly thereafter. Majnun hears of her death and, mad with grief, repeatedly visits her tomb. He dies and is buried beside his beloved.



In a dream, Zayd, who tends their joint grave, has a vision of them in paradise, where an ancient soul tells him:These two friends are one, eternal companions. He is Majnun, the king of the world in right action. And she is Layla, the moon among idols in compassion. In the world, like unpierced rubies they treasured their fidelity affectionately, but found no rest and could not attain their heart's desire. Here they suffer grief no more. So it will be until eternity. Whoever endures suffering and forebears in that world will be joyous and exalted in this world.



On waking Zayd realized that : Whoever would find a place in that world must tread on the lusts of this world. This world is dust and is perishable. That world is pure and eternal. . . . Commit yourself to love's sanctuary and at once find freedom from your ego. Fly in love as an arrow towards its target. Love loosens the knots of being, love is liberation from the vortex of egotism. In love, every cup of sorrow which bites into the soul gives it new life. Many a draft bitter as poison has become in love delicious. . . . However agonizing the experience, if it is for love it is well.



If you would like to learn to play the unplugged version of Layla click here for the tablature.
The neat part about this site is it provides a very slow midi file playback which allows ignorant non-music reading guitarists like me, the ability to follow along note by note using the tabs. If you are curious about the woman who inspired not only this song, but also the Clapton song "Lovely Tonight and, the wonderful song Something, by George Harrison, click here.