When the Arab king heard how Majnun had been driven by his love for Laila to forsake everything and wander the desert as a man possessed, he ordered his servants to bring Majnun to him, and when this was accomplished and Majnun was standing before the king in his court, the king reproached him, asking what fault Majnun had discovered in the human soul that he had chosen instead to live like an animal. Majnun replied:

"My closest friends blame me for loving her,
but if they saw her they would understand.
And you, my love, ravisher of my heart,
let your face shine once on those who scold me
and they will miss the lemons in their hands,
and slice their flesh, and bleed for your beauty.

The king was intrigued and ordered Laila to be brought to him. His servants searched the encampments of several Arab families until they found her and brought her into the palace courtyard. The king looked at her for some time, examining her outward form very carefully, but no matter which angle he looked from, all he could see was an ugliness that became more and more despicable to him as he thought about how highly Majnun had praised her. The plainest handmaiden in his harem was more beautiful than the dark woman he saw before him.

Majnun could tell from the look on the king's face what he was thinking and said, "To perceive Laila's beauty and the mystery it reveals to those who can see it, you need to look through my eyes."

If the leaves on the trees ringing this glade
had heard what I heard of the glade's story,
they would have lamented it with me. Dear friends,
say to this man who does not seem to care,
"Love has not yet wounded you, and so
you cannot know the agony that overflows
Majnun's heart." When you do, we'll share our tales.
Till then there is no point to talk of bees
with someone who has never felt their sting.
Until we live the same experience,
words will show you only its empty shell.

After they were married, the old man explained, he took his new, much younger bride to a room which he had filled with roses, where, he said, he hoped to win her heart. She was so beautiful, he could not take his eyes off her and knowing she was his filled his heart with joy. He did not sleep during those first long nights, devoting himself instead to entertaining her with jokes and stories. If he could make her laugh, he reasoned, her affection for him would grow and her shyness would disappear. 

He promised himself he would be as patient as he needed to be, he told me, but one night he could not help himself and he let his frustration show. He told his wife that she should consider herself lucky to have as a companion a man as ripe as he was with wisdom, education and experience. He had known what it was like to be cold as well as warm; he had tried in his life good things and bad, and he understood well the responsibilities of marriage. He was, he told her, a kind, sweet-tongued man, and he was willing to do whatever it would take to prove that he loved her and to win her love in return.

"I will give all I am to earn your love,
and if you hurt me I will not hurt you back.
Perhaps you will accept, like a parrot,
only sugar from my hand; if so,
I'll use up my sweet life in feeding you.

"Young men are beautiful to look at
and fill you with the joy they bring to living,
but they are faithless as the nightingales
who sing each moment to a different rose.

"Marry someone better than yourself,
then count yourself among the lucky few.
A man as young as you will disappoint you.

When she saw her husband holding in his hand
something hanging like a fasting man's
lower lip, she said, "He's bringing me
a corpse. I can rouse a man who's sleeping.
Nothing I can do will wake that dead thing.

A woman who rises unsated from her man
will seek to quarrel with him all day long.
If an old man cannot rise from his chair
with a stick, how will his own stick rise?

I will because you're beautiful ignore
the way you hurt me. I will live to please you,
and I will walk with you through the fires of hell
before I enter paradise with him.
The smell of onion from your gorgeous mouth
surpasses that of roses from his hands.

A fine face, a golden gown, perfume, lust -
all of these ornament a woman. On a man,
two testicles are ornament enough.

Notes
i The reference here is to the Quran's version of the story of how Potiphar's wife attempted to seduce Joseph. Here is Sura 12, verses 28-32:

28. When the husband saw the shirt torn at the back,
he said: "Surely this is a woman's ruse,
and the wiles of women are great.
29. Ignore this affair, O Joseph; and you, O woman,
ask forgiveness for your sin,
for you were surely errant."
30. In the city the women gossiped:
"The minister's wife longs after her page.
He has captured her heart.
We think she is in clear error."
31. When she heard their slanderings,
she sent for them and prepared a banquet,
and gave each of them a knife (for paring fruit),
and called (to Joseph): "Come out before them."
When they saw him, the women were so wonderstruck
they cut their hands,
and exclaimed: "O Lord preserve us!
He is no mortal but an honourable angel."
32. She said: "This is the one you blamed me for...."

Taken from Selections from Saadi's Gulistan, translated by Richard Jeffrey Newman, published by Global Scholarly Publications, 2005.