Love Fascinations in Shirin's Voice and Image

In the love poem "Khosrow va Shirin" two love relations are narrated which are virtual (corporal) in nature. One is the mutual love which takes shape between Khosrow and Shirin, and the other one is the one-way love which only the former has for the latter. Considering the definitions and categorizations of love provided by Avicenna, the love between Khosrow and Shirin was firstly a virtual animalistic love which was based on the bodily beauties of Khosrow's mistress; that is, Khosrow falls in love with Shirin only after he hears Shahpour describing her as a physically charming woman. Shirin, too, falls in love with Khosrow when she sees a portrait of him which only shows his physical charm. However, at the end of the story, when via chastity and forbearance the mistress controls their love from falling into passion and debauchery, their virtual physical love, which was heretofore based on outer beauty and corporal charm, is changed to a virtual spiritual love based on inner beauty and the soul similarities of the lover and beloved. Farhad's love to Shirin is a one-way unrequited love which he never articulates and which he keeps alive only in his dreams. This suppressed unrequited love cannot be considered Ozry love also, because with the exception of one feature of Ozry Love, which is that the lover dies of love, Farhad's love has none of the features of Ozry love: the beloved's refuse to come to union with the lover and (her) concealing the secret of love. Farhad's love to Shirin is, as it was said, a one-way love, because there is nothing in the story to suggest the love of the latter to the former. One can say that Farhad's one-way love to Shirin is a marginal narrative which the author creates for characterizing Khosrow and Shirin.