There is certainly a verse-set coming, and overwhelmingly the commentators think that it starts with the present verse. But Arshi marks it as beginning with the following verse, 177,9 . (Everybody agrees that it ends with {177,12}.) In this case it's easy to see how the disagreement could have arisen. For the present verse is an unusually specialized creature, neither fish nor fowl. It certainly seems to be acting as a prologue, since that is so suitable for introducing additional material-- and, of course, since we're biased by knowing that exactly such additional material is coming right along. But at the same time, if the verse is indeed an introduction then it might well be considered to be somewhat liminal, and not really a part of the set of verses that it's introducing. As always, I follow Arshi. On behalf of Arshi's view it could be pointed out that this verse isn't limited to being read as a dedicated preface; if it weren't followed by a verse-set, we would feel quite comfortable reading the as meaning 'like this' in a general way-- that Ghalib's pen goes on producing superior verses the way Barbud produced superior music, as a matter of normal practice. After all, this is the eighth verse in the ghazal, so we could certainly be looking backward instead of forward. Or else, of course, that it goes on 'casually' or 'for no particular reason', just automatically praising the king. Nazm's commentary is brilliant here. The 'someone' who made that famous remark about the 'f resh word ' was Shah Jahan's poet laureate Talib Amuli (see 17,2 ). graphics/seeingmusic.jpg