M6:3887 — در خموشی هر سه را خطرت یکی / در سخن هم هر سه را حجت یکی

Translation: In silence, the concern of all three was one; / In speech too, the argument of all three was one. Meaning: This couplet describes the three infatuated princes, stating that whether in quiet reflection or in spoken conversation, their thoughts and reasons were identical, stemming from their shared agony of love.

This couplet offers a precise and profound depiction of the shared empathy and spiritual state of the three princes ensnared by love. Mawlana, with his characteristic subtlety, simultaneously portrays the internal and external conditions of these brothers. “Khaṭarat-i yakī” refers to the singularity of their mental deliberations, concerns, and preoccupations in the realm of silence and solitude. This means that when they were not speaking to one another, each lost in the privacy of his own mind, what crossed their thoughts was identical; all were contemplating the same beloved and the same strange predicament of love. This demonstrates how love had unified their minds and hearts.

However, this empathy is not confined to the sphere of silence. Mawlana adds, “Dar sukhan ham har se rā ḥujjat-i yakī.” “Ḥujjat” here signifies reason, argument, or justification. Thus, when these three brothers begin to converse, their justifications and arguments for their condition, and for seeking a remedy, are also identical. The root of this uniformity lies in the singular reality of the shared love that has captivated them. Just as in silence their hearts spoke to each other, bearing a single pain and a single thought, in speech too, this shared suffering manifested itself in similar arguments and discourses.

This verse sets the stage for their subsequent conversation, in which the eldest brother recalls how they themselves previously advised others to be patient and resilient, yet now they find themselves powerless before love, unable to find a solution. This is precisely the “singularity of their argument”; they all remember that they knew “the key to relief” lay in patience, but now they have lost this very key themselves. Mawlana thus illustrates how love can penetrate both the silent depths of the soul and, at the level of discourse and argumentation, create unity and integration; a unity in which even incapacities and contradictions become shared. This is not merely a psychological portrait of fellow lovers, but an allegory of how a profound existential experience can shape and draw all dimensions of a human being—from the subconscious to spoken word—in one direction.

Key takeaways

• Profound love unifies the hidden and manifest thoughts and concerns of lovers.
• True empathy reveals itself both in silence and solitude (shared concerns) and in speech and argumentation (shared reasons).
• Mawlana emphasizes the congruence between internal (silence) and external (speech) states in the experience of love.
• This couplet foreshadows the paradox of how one can become unable to practice what one has preached to others when faced with a particular profound experience.