Verse 2after 1816amhu))e
G3
1
the net was hidden 'severely/grievously near' the nest
2
we had not managed to fly-- {when / in that} we became trapped/captured
'Hard, stiff, rigid, firm, fast; strong, solid; tight;... wretched; difficult, arduous, troublesome; painful, grievous; severe, intense, vehement, violent;... austere, stern, harsh; very cruel, fell; --adv. Very, intensely, violently, severely, excessively extremely, &c.'.
'Taken, seized, arrested, captured; involved (in), entangled; liable; stricken, smitten (with love, &c.), captivated; —one who is taken, &c.; a captive, a prisoner'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 191 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 302-03 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 253-254 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
The meaning he has presented in that way is this: that even before he reached maturity he was surrounded by difficulties and tribulations.
==Urdu text: Yadgar-e Ghalib , p. 129
In Persian, is an idiom that means 'very near'. (180)
== Nazm page 180
The net was spread very near the nest. He had only just formed the intention of flying, when the next thing he knew he was trapped in the net. (325)
[See his commentary on Mir's verse M 37,3 .]
Here Ghalib focuses the whole verse on an idiom, emphasized by Nazm, that's not even really an Urdu idiom, but a Persian one. It's easy to see why he dragged it bodily into Urdu-- because it was just what he wanted, it was just the thing to give a small, hot, deep, painful center to the whole verse. The verse is otherwise a brief, plain, factual narrative, a story told in simple language as economically as possible. But then, in the midst of it, this one word-- just look at its multiply appropriate meanings!-- compresses within itself a world of sorrow, pain, complaint, indignation.
It's a pity that 'hard by' (meaning 'very near') is now archaic in English; though even then, it doesn't have a sufficient range fully to capture . Really that one word, , forms a pivot around which the whole verse turns. For other explorations of its possibilities , see 183,6 and 200,4x . Also, compare Mir 's use of in M 1312,7 .
This is one of those verses in which the lover speaks as a bird; for others, see 126,5 .
From The Tribune, June 10, 2019 : 'Holding that perpetrators of the gangrape and murder of a girl in Kathua acted as if there is a “law of jungle” prevalent in the society, judge Tejwinder Singh summed up the enormity of the crime with a touching couplet by Mirza Ghalib.... Singh started his order with the couplet from Ghalib’s ghazal—“Pinha tha daam-e-sakht qareeb ashiyaan ke, udhne hi nahi paye the ki girftar hum hue."'
graphics/birdcatchergraphic1875.jpg