A discourse between two sages debates the essential nature of love. One holds that love's defining quality is perpetual affliction and suffering, so that the lover is forever a bearer of hardship. The other rebukes this one-sided view: whoever has known only pain has never seen reconciliation after conflict nor tasted the sweetness of union (visal) after separation (firaq). On this account love is a refining force — none is more delicate and pure than the clear-hearted who practice love, and none more base than the heavy-souled who remain strangers to it. The closing verses ground love in an affinity of like for like: the radiance of the beloved is nothing but the beauty of the lover's own heart, so only a heart that is itself beautiful can incline toward beauty. The Arabic maxim al-jins ila jins yamil (like inclines to like) serves as the clinching proof.