Come, for if it is a war, I have thrown my shield (A statistical and analytical study of war and epic words in Saadi's sonnets)

One of the salient features of Saadi's lyric poems is the abundance of words, compositions and images that describe violence and the battlefield. These words are usually used when portraying a lover or expressing a love state. Considerable use of words related to the battlefield and describing a violent, bloodthirsty, archer and warrior lover is an undeniable characteristic of Saadi's lyric poems and more or less classical Persian love poems as a whole. The abundance of such words and combinations related to war, including battlefield tools, description of the battlefield and poetic images and descriptions of such words and combinations in Saadi's love sonnets, deserves to be studied, pondered and analyzed from the viewpoint of various approaches. In the present paper, in an attempt to find the motives behind this, various fields of humanities including history, mythology and psychology have been used and the reasons suggested by the authors have been presented based on poetic evidence and the findings of other researchers of the field.

The present study is a qualitative library research. The researchers first extracted the data from the text of Saadi's lyric poems and then analyzed them using other sources. The purpose of this study is to determine the number of words, interpretations and images related to the battle in Saadi's lyric poems and determining what could be the reason for the frequent use of such words and interpretations and images. To date, no similar research has been conducted on the reasons for the abundance of war words in the structure of Saadi's love lyric. The closest research to the present paper is the paper of Dr. Hassan Zolfaghari entitled "Warrior Lovers in Love Poems and Folk Myths", which appeared in the bi-quarterly journal of "Persian Language and Literature." Excerpts from the book "History of the Body in Literature" authored by Seyyed Mehdi Zarghani et al. (2016) can further be considered close to the subject of the present study; However, in neither of these two researches, Saadi's lyric poems are not the main subject discussed. In the section on mythological backgrounds of this research, the paper "A hypothesis on the similarities between Anahita and the beloved of Iranian poets" written by Dr. Alireza Mozaffari, which appeared in the "Journal of the Faculty of Literature and Humanities of Mashhad" in 1995, is preferable; However, again in this paper, Saadi's lyric poems are not the main subject of the research.

Statistical scanning of this study indicates that in 637 of Saadi's sonnets, all words and combinations related to war number 1014 cases, of which the most repeated is the  source verb of "killing/murder", which along with its grammatical derivatives and synonyms is used 152 times as a whole; Images such as "killed by the sword", "killed by crossing", "killed by an arrow", "killed by a razor", and "coming to kill" are also included in the statistical data of this group. The next most frequent word is "blood" and its derivatives and illustrative compounds, which with 3 repetitions, is the most frequent word in Saadi's sonnets. The word "enemy" and its compounds, with 125 repetitions, has the third place, and the word "arrow" and its compounds, in addition to "lasso" and its compounds with 88 repetitions, occupy the fourth place. "Sword" and its compounds with 58, "Blade" and its compounds with 57, "bow" and its compounds with 49, "captive" and its compounds with 43, "shield" and its compounds with 38, "looting" and its compounds with 37, "injury" and its compounds with 32, "war" and its compounds with 31, "army and its compounds with 18, "chain" with 12, "arrow" and its compounds with 11, "navak" (a kind of arrow) and its compounds with 9, "khadang" (a kind of arrow) with 7, "armor" and its compounds with 6,  “joshan" (a kind of armor) with 5, "peeling" with 3, "weapon" and its compounds with 3, "dagger" with 2 "spear", "caparison" and "catapult" with 1 appearances are found in Saadi's lyric poems. To find the original motives behind the abundance of words and images related to war in Saadi's sonnets, the following items were examined: 1- Mythical backgrounds (the continuation of the old model of the goddess of love and war in poetry); 2- Manifestation of the political situation during the poet's life and his poetry, including the Mongol invasion and the Crusades; 3- The prevalence of pederasty in Saadi's time and the entry of the element of Turkish slaves into the social and literary contexts; 4-Association of meanings and symmetry, especially the two principles of "proximity" and "contradiction". The proximity of "sword", "razor", "arrow", "bow" and "shield" and the contradiction of "peace" with "war", "friend" and "enemy" are among the most frequent patterns of association of meanings in Saadi's sonnets.

In all Saadi's 637 sonnets, 1014 types of words and combinations related to the battlefield have been detected. Among these words, the source verb "killing" and its compounds have the most repetition. After that, comes “blood" and its derivatives. The words "enemy", "arrow", "bow", "sword", "razor", "arch", "captive", "shield", "plunder", "wound", "war", "army " ,"Chain ", "arrow ",  "navak"," khadang","armor","joshan","Peeling"," Weapon", "Dagger", "spear", "caparison" "catapult"  come in the next places. The main subject of this research is to investigate the reasons for the frequent presence of war words and images in Saadi's sonnet. In general, the reasons for the abundance of words related to war in Saadi's lyric poems can be presented as follows: A factor that has provided the ground for this fact is the existence of the goddesses of "love" and "war" in the myths of Mesopotamia, Iran, Greece and Rome, many years before the beginning of history. Furthermore, the pattern of the "warrior lover" is linked to the theme of pederasty and the presence of Turkish slaves in the cultural sphere and poetic atmosphere of Iran, especially in the centuries before Saadi and his contemporaries. Also, the political situation of the poet's time, and in particular the devastating attacks of the Mongols, has made the mental and poetic atmosphere of the country warlike. Finally, the two principles of "proximity" and "contradiction" in the association of meanings are also the reasons for the frequent presence of war words in Saadi's love sonnets.