Tar and pud

Yes. This is a particularly good example of Nicholson making a very compact English equivalent for a Persian textile metaphor. The Persian is much more concrete than the English sentence initially makes it seem.

The key phrase is:

دست در کن هیچ یابی تار و پود

dast dar kon, hīch yābī tār o pūd?

Literally something like:

“Put your hand to it—do you find any تار و پود (tār o pūd)?”

The surrounding couplet is:

زان شکار و انبهی و باد و بود

دست در کن هیچ یابی تار و پود

and Nicholson renders it:

“From that pursuit (of people) and throng (of friends) and vainglory and self existence wilt thou get any warp or woof? Try and see!”

1. What are

tār

and

pūd

?

This is the heart of the metaphor.

• تار — tār = the warp, the longitudinal threads stretched on the loom.

• پود — pūd = the weft, the threads passed across the warp.

So تار و پود — tār o pūd literally means something like:

“warp and weft,” “the threads of a fabric,” or “the interwoven structure of cloth.”

And this is an established Persian expression. Rumi isn’t merely saying “will you get anything?” He is asking whether all this social chasing, accumulation of friends, vanity, and attachment to the self actually produces any substance—any fabric of spiritual reality.

The Persian text itself confirms that Nicholson’s “warp or woof” corresponds directly to تار و پود.

2. Why “warp and woof” rather than simply “warp and weft”?

This is fascinating because woof and weft are essentially the same textile concept.

Today, warp and weft is the more familiar technical pair:

• warp = threads running lengthwise

• weft = threads running crosswise

But woof is an older English word for the weft.

Woof comes through Middle English wof/oof from Old English ōwef, related to wefan, “to weave.” Its original meaning was the crosswise thread—the same thing now normally called weft.

So:

Persian:

tār o pūd

English:

warp and woof

The correspondence is remarkably close:

Persian

English

Function

تار tār

warp

longitudinal foundation threads

پود pūd

woof/weft

crosswise threads

تار و پود

warp and woof

the complete woven fabric

3. And “warp” has a wonderfully appropriate English history

The English word warp itself originally had the idea of throwing.

Old English wearp, from weorpan, meant “to throw, cast, fling.” The textile sense developed around the threads that are arranged/stretched across the loom, with the weft subsequently thrown across them.

So there is an almost hidden physical image:

warp = the threads laid out as the framework

woof/weft = what is thrown across them

weaving = the two systems becoming one fabric

And weft itself is related to Old English wefan, “to weave.”

4. But here’s the really important thing about Rumi’s metaphor

I think the English “warp or woof” actually preserves something that “anything of value” would completely lose.

Look at the progression:

صید مردم

ṣayd-e mardom

“hunting/catching people”

→ انبهی

anbahī

“throng, multitude, crowd”

→ باد و بود

bād o būd

literally something like “wind and being/existence” — Nicholson interprets this in the context as vainglory and self-existence

→ تار و پود

tār o pūd

“warp and weft”

There is a deliberate movement from social accumulation to spiritual substance.

You spend your life gathering:

people → friends → reputation → ego

but Rumi asks:

What have you actually woven?

That is much more powerful than:

“Will you get anything from all that?”

He is asking whether all your activity has produced a fabric.

5. “Warp and woof” therefore has a second layer in English

English itself has historically used warp and woof figuratively for the fundamental structure or substance of something. The textile metaphor naturally became a metaphor for the things that make up the fabric of a life, argument, society, etc. Woof could even mean the textile/fabric generally in earlier English.

So Nicholson isn’t merely translating two Persian nouns with two English nouns.

He finds an English expression that already has the same metaphorical potential:

tār o pūd → warp and woof

threads → fabric → structure → substance

That’s why it works so well.

6. And Rumi’s “try and see” is important

دست در کن

dast dar kon

literally:

“put your hand into it / put your hand to it.”

Then:

هیچ یابی تار و پود؟

hīch yābī tār o pūd?

“Do you find any warp and weft?”

There is almost a physical challenge here.

It’s as though Rumi says:

You’ve spent your life catching people. You’ve accumulated a crowd. You’ve cultivated your reputation and your sense of “I.”

Now put your hand into what you’ve made.

Where is the cloth?

Where are the threads?

What have you actually woven?

That is why I would actually keep Nicholson’s “warp and woof” when reading this passage, even though modern English speakers may find woof archaic.

It preserves the two-thread structure of Rumi’s Persian تار و پود, whereas “substance,” “fruit,” “result,” or “anything of value” reduces the image to its abstract meaning.

And there is a lovely irony: the very thing Rumi is asking about—whether the seeker has woven anything—is itself expressed through two interwoven words, tār and pūd. The metaphor is doing exactly what it describes.