№ 06 Iran
This Too Shall Pass
این نیز بگذرد
īn nīz bogzarad
A Persian ring inscription that comforts the grieving and unsettles the joyful — and how Mandarin, Hausa, and Latin cousins each pick sides.
Parallel & Proverbs
A weekly literary miscellany
Read by the tongue
Persian
№ 05 Iran
A Drowning Man Clutches at a Reed
غریق به هر گیاهی چنگ میزند
gharīq be har giyāhī chang mīzanad
A Persian proverb about desperation's blind grasp — and how English straw and Chinese doctors circle the same truth from very different distances.
№ 04 Iran
The Garden Behind the Wall
عطر گل پنهان نمیشود
atr-e gol penhān nemishavad
A Persian proverb says the fragrance of a rose cannot be hidden. Quality reveals itself despite walls and distance — and Chinese wine, a Russian awl, and English cream all prove the same thing through three very different mechanisms.
№ 03 Iran
The Garden Without the Gardener
باغ بیباغبان نمیماند
bāgh-e bī-bāghbān nemīmānad
A Persian proverb about the garden that cannot keep itself — and how three other languages, from Mencius to Ovid to a modern English shrug, circle the same observation about cultivation and decay.
№ 02 Iran
The Tongue and the Sword
زخم زبان از زخم شمشیر بدتر است.
zakhm-e zabān az zakhm-e shamshīr badtar ast
Why Persians say the wound of the tongue is worse than the wound of the sword — and how Arabic spears, Turkish blades, and Italian edges name the same injury from different rooms.
№ 01 Iran
Drop by Drop
قطره قطره جمع گردد، وانگهی دریا شود
qatreh qatreh jamʿ gardad, vāngahi daryā shavad
Saadi's drops gather into a sea. Ovid's drops hollow a stone. Swahili grain fills a small wooden cup. Japanese dust becomes a mountain. Five languages chose five different small things — and the smallness, in each case, is exactly the point.