Bell’s etymology — bezoar from the Arabic for ‘annihilator of poison,’ originally a concretion found in animal stomachs and prized in the medieval pharmacopoeia as a universal antidote — is exact. The Hafiz line that prompts the gloss says the Beloved’s red lips ‘hold the power of the bezoar.’ The mystical reading is straightforward and lovely: divine love is the antidote that neutralizes every poison the world has dripped into the soul. Compare Teresa of Ávila in the Way of Perfection, ch. 35: the love of God ‘is the medicine that cures the sickness that has come from loving creatures.’ Same pharmacological metaphor, same theological move, different vocabulary. The Beloved is not the absence of every poison; the Beloved is the cure that lets the poisons pass without lasting harm.