می

For Hafez, می is rarely just alcohol. The wine in his ghazals doubles as divine love, the cup is the heart, and the ساقی (sâghi, cupbearer) who pours is the beloved or the divine. Sufi readers treat the imagery as mystical metaphor, secular readers treat it as actual wine, and Iranians enjoy the productive ambiguity. The Pure Persian Movement notes می with affection because it predates Arabic loanwords in Persian, but no one needs to push for its adoption: poetry kept it alive on its own. The compound میکده (meykade), "wine-house, tavern," became the name of a famous mid-century Tehran nightclub and now hangs over diaspora restaurants from Los Angeles to Toronto.