In this poem from Chapter 37 of Mokhtar Nameh (a chapter dedicated to describing the beloved's 'khat' or facial down), Attar employs a complex wordplay on the term 'khat' (meaning both 'written script' and the 'facial down' of the beloved) and the verb 'bar-khandan' (meaning 'to read aloud' or 'to recite from memory').

Key Themes

• The Khat as a Text of Suffering: The lover reads the beloved's newly appeared 'khat' against the 'blood of his heart' ('khun-e jegar'), indicating that the visual emergence of the beloved's facial down is a text of intense emotional pain that the lover has learned to recite by rote.
• Recitation by Rote ('Zabar'): Reciting sorrow by rote suggests that the grief caused by the beloved's beauty is deeply ingrained and continuously repeated in the lover's mind.
• Wordplay on 'Bar-khandan': The lover's heart is stolen when the beloved 'brings forth their script/down', because the lover is compelled to read from and study this facial script, sh...