M2:3627 — ور بدانستند لحن همدگر / فهم آن چون مرد بی نطقی بشر

This couplet appears within a larger discussion about the nature of understanding and communication, particularly in the context of allegorical stories like Kalila wa Dimna. Rumi is responding to a potential objection from a skeptical reader: if the animals in Kalila wa Dimna are speechless, how can they 'speak' to each other and convey complex ideas, as the fables suggest? He uses this rhetorical question to highlight the absurdity of taking the fables literally. If even humans, with their capacity for language, find it difficult to understand the unspoken thoughts of another person (a 'speechless man' here meaning someone whose inner state is not articulated), how much more impossible would it be for literal animals to engage in such sophisticated communication? The point is that these stories are not meant to be factual accounts of animal behavior, but rather symbolic narratives where the 'speech' of the animals represents deeper, hidden meanings that the discerning reader must uncover. The stories are a 'vessel' for the 'seed' of meaning, and one should not get caught up in the literal 'vessel' itself.