Gracious is all of Thy existence like a fresh rose-leaf (Suggesting a new reading variant for a verse of Hafiz based on dialectological evidence)

The word “bud” in the distich “hamčo golbarg-e tari bud vojud-e to latif” (you are as a fresh rose petal), the second verse of a ghazal of Hafez with the opening line “ay hama šakl-e to matbu’ o hama jāy-e to xvaš,” has been a source of controversy among scholars. Since the word does not make sense as a past tense verb and therefore it is not relevant to the setting of the aforementioned ghazal, some editors of the Divan of Hafiz have chosen the word “hast” according to some manuscripts. Some others have kept the word “bud” because it is supported by many older manuscripts and a minority of scholars have preferred the variant “bud o” or edited the word analogically to “pud”. Considering forty old manuscripts of the Divan and semantic and rhetorical reasons, we argue that the word “bud” is the original choice. We believe that the word “bud” is not a past tense verb meaning “was”; rather it means “all”. The suggested meaning is used in old texts as well as some Iranian dialects. Regarding the reading “bud-e vojud,” the verse is more harmonious to the poet’s emotions and more concordant to the grammatical tense of the first distiches of the ghazal. By choosing this variant, the semantic defect of the first hemistich is also solved.