نوش و خار

What it means

نوش و خار (nush-o-khâr) is a poetic Persian pairing. نوش (nush) is the honeyed sweetness of nectar, the drink of pleasure, also the word from which نوشیدن (nushidan, to drink) derives. خار (khâr) is the thorn. The two are joined by the conjunction و (o, “and”) and the result is one of the oldest images in Persian literature: every sweetness comes attached to its thorn, every pleasure carries its hidden cost. The phrase is older than any single proverb that uses it. It travels through Hafez, Sa’di, and centuries of mystical poetry.

The literal meaning

Word by word: “sweet-nectar and thorn.” The two nouns sit side by side, refusing to be separated. Persian poetry loves these compressed pairings: تلخ و شیرین (talkh-o-shirin, bitter and sweet), شور و شیرین (shur-o-shirin, salty and sweet), گل و خار (gol-o-khâr, flower and thorn). The pairing نوش و خار is the most loaded of these because it touches the rose. The Persian rose, گل (gol), is the symbol of beauty and divine love, and the thorn is the inseparable companion. To pluck the rose is to bleed. The phrase compresses that whole image into three words.

The figurative meaning

Every joy carries its sorrow. Every love carries its pain. Every reward carries its cost. The phrase is used to describe the inseparable double nature of all good things in life: the wedding has its grief, the birth has its labor, the harvest has its drought, the friendship has its betrayal. Iranians use this to console someone whose happiness has been tainted, and to warn someone whose joy seems too pure. It is also used as a fatalistic shrug, the Iranian equivalent of “such is life,” but with poetic dignity. The line carries a quiet acceptance that pleasure and pain arrive together, never separately.

Hafez and Sa’di return to this image often. The wider theme in Hafez is that the lover who wants the rose must accept the thorn, and that complaining about the thorn is to misunderstand the rose. Sa’di in the Golestan uses the image to teach acceptance. The phrase is rarely spoken in casual conversation today, but it still appears in writing, in song lyrics, in formal speech, and at funerals. It carries the weight of literary tradition with it.

How to use it

• زندگی همه‌اش نوش و خاره (zendegi hame-ash nush-o-khâr-e) “Life is all sweet and thorn”
• عشق بدون نوش و خار نیست (eshq bedun-e nush-o-khâr nist) “There is no love without sweet and thorn”
• هر گلی نوش و خار خودشو داره (har goli nush-o-khâr-e khodesh-o dâre) “Every flower has its own sweet and thorn”
• این دنیا با نوش و خاراش قشنگه (in donyâ bâ nush-o-khâr-âsh qashang-e) “This world is beautiful with its sweet and thorn”

Related expressions

گل بی خار (gol bi khâr, “a flower without thorn”) is the impossible thing, used ironically to describe people or situations that pretend to be free of cost. تلخ و شیرین (talkh-o-shirin, bitter and sweet) is the more everyday version of the same idea. هیچ گلی بی خار نیست (hich goli bi khâr nist, “no flower is without thorn”) is the proverb form. The classical Persian theme of عشق و درد (eshq-o-dard, love and pain) is the larger frame this phrase sits inside. The English cousins are “no rose without a thorn” and “every cloud has a silver lining” (though the Persian version is darker, more accepting of pain rather than promising it will pass).

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab