بنفشه

What it means

This entry is the flower بنفشه (banafshe), the violet. The same word also names the color purple, and that sense has its own separate entry in the glossary. Here we are talking about the small spring flower with five irregular petals, dark purple, low to the ground, found in shaded spots in early spring. The word is pure Persian and old. It is also the standard name for the genus Viola in modern botanical Persian. The flower is loved in Iran for its scent, which is light, sweet, and slightly green. Violets feature in Persian rosewater-style distillations and folk remedies as well as in poetry.

The poetic register

In classical Persian poetry, the violet is a small but specific image with a fixed set of associations. The flower is dark, low to the ground, and bows its head, so it carries connotations of modesty, humility, hidden beauty. The dark color of the petals also makes the violet a natural figure for grief, mourning, and the beloved’s dark hair. Two compound images recur. The first treats the violet as the color of the beloved’s locks falling against a pale cheek. The second treats the violet as a melancholy flower that bows itself low because it cannot bear to be seen. Both images depend on the small physical scale of the actual flower and its dark, downward-tending form.

How it appears in Persian poetry

The violet sits inside the standard Persian garden inventory and tends to appear in the same lines as the rose, the narcissus, and the cypress. In the spring-garden passages of Saadi, Hafez, and Rumi, the violet is always one of the named flowers. It often shows up paired with the narcissus (the eyes of the beloved) and the rose (the cheek), with the violet standing in for the curl of dark hair that falls between them. The image of the violet bowing its head is one of the most common single-line motifs in Persian classical lyric: the flower lowers itself in shame or modesty before the beloved or before the rose. This is a small image, repeated thousands of times, and it gives the violet its enduring poetic register even in modern reading.

Cultural note

In modern Iran بنفشه is also a common feminine name. Children named Banafshe are named for the flower and inherit the connotations of modesty and quiet grace. Violet syrup (شربت بنفشه, sharbat-e banafshe) is a traditional Iranian summer drink, and violet leaves and flowers appear in Persian herbal medicine. The poetic and the everyday senses of the word reinforce each other: the same flower that is praised in classical lyric is also the flower in the courtyard pot and the syrup in the kitchen. A learner who only knows banafshe as the color purple is missing the older and richer half of the word.

Related expressions

گل بنفشه (gol-e banafshe, the violet flower, often used to disambiguate from the color), گل (gol, flower, also the standard word for the rose), نرگس (narges, narcissus, the regular pair-flower), شربت بنفشه (sharbat-e banafshe, violet syrup), سنبل (sonbol, hyacinth, another spring flower in the standard inventory). The flower-violet and the color-violet share a name and split into two glossary entries.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab