If Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden for approaching the forbidden tree, Sa'di's lyrical garden is one of presence and possibility. In Kristeva's words it is the attempt “to open up the amorous experience of the speaking being to the complex gamut of his untenable passion, paradise and hell included. Neither denying the ideal nor forgetting its cost.” Sa'di's garden is joyous and noisy, particularly in the spring, which seems to arrive quite often. Punishment and exile are not normally among the things that this festive environment would bring to mind.

The Garden Moves Inside

The rejuvenation and the freshness need to be internalized for the seasonal joy to be complete. In order to achieve that, Sa'di invites the spring, the beautifier of the exterior of the world, to come inside. As with many of his ghazals, here, too, this expansive scene, buzzing with color, movement and fragrance is shaped and reshaped until it becomes his personalized space. In the next two verses, the meadow in the above poem, nature overjoyed with the return of the spring, comes close and speaks to our personal feelings:

And with that we take one more step toward this rapidly personalizing space, our poet's backyard so to speak: