Concept Overview

In Chapter 47, Poem 31 of Mokhtar Nameh, Attar employs the candle metaphor to express the lover's total destruction. The body of the lover is split into two equal components of grief: one half melts away as tears, and the other half is consumed by the fire of love.

Key Themes

• Cosmic Sympathy: The lover's sigh and burning are depicted as so extreme that they cause the sun and the moon's tent to burn.
• Dual Destruction: The candle symbolizes a dual process of self-consumption, where weeping (water/tears) and burning (fire) coexist and split the remaining self equally.