New NaqqaliLoading the passages…
Arrows run from voice to addressee. Select a name, group or line; hover to preview. Opposing arrows and separate curves preserve replies and different passages between the same people. On small screens, scroll the graph sideways or use the evidence list below.
RETURN TO THE COUPLETS
Voices, recipients and passages
Passages are listed in the order of the poem. Select one to read its couplets, how the words were delivered, and why the speaker and listener are identified as they are.
ABOUT THIS FOURTH VIEW
The distance between speaking and understanding.
A close reading of selected scenes
The source is the New Naqqali translation as published on 22 October 2026. Each passage quotes its couplets and links to their place in the poem. The selection is not used to rank the poem’s most talkative characters.
Whose words travel?
In direct speech, the arrow joins speaker and listener. In a letter, it joins author and addressee, even when a scribe writes or a courier carries it. In a relayed message, it joins the message’s author and recipient, with the carrier named. A letter alone does not prove that its addressee read or accepted it.
Words inside other words
A character can quote a parent, invent an accusation or conceal a name. Those words remain within that character’s account. Nested quotations, thoughts, prayers and narrator commentary are not independently expanded into connections. Notes identify denials, disguise and disputed claims.
How the people are grouped
The groups around the rim gather households, courts and families to help you find your way; they are not an exhaustive genealogy. Every person appears once. Several lines can join one pair because a question, reply and later admission are distinct passages. The women’s filter shows six selected women’s voices, not their share of all speech in the poem.