Nizami Ganjavi

Nizami Ganjavi (Nizami of Ganja, in present-day Azerbaijan) lived from about 1141 to 1209 and is counted among the greatest romantic poets in Persian. He spent his life largely in Ganja and addressed his poems to the local and Seljuk-era rulers of the region, but the details of his biography are sparse and partly legendary.

His fame rests on the Khamsa (the Quintet), five long narrative poems in rhyming couplets: the Makhzan al-Asrar (Treasury of Secrets), Khusraw and Shirin, Layli and Majnun, the Haft Paykar (Seven Portraits) and the Iskandarnama (Book of Alexander). The text here is James Atkinson's English verse translation of Layli and Majnun, published in London in 1836.