Verse 11x1821 [and 1816]aa;Nmujh se
G5
In this meter the first long syllable may be replaced by a short; and the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.
1
the binding of the vow of love was wholly foolishness
2
the knot of pledge/compact remained an unopened eye, through/toward me
'To bind, shut, close up; to contract, get, acquire, incur; to congeal, coagulate, clot; to copulate, have sexual intercourse; to form seed-buds, to fructify'. (Steingass p.186)
'Opened; open'. (Steingass p. 1034)
'A knot, tie, bond... ; an entanglement, a complication; entangled things, perplexed affairs, confused words; a knotty problem; a secret, mystery, enigma'.
'Measuring; —agreement, compact, convention, treaty, stipulation, pledge, promise; security; confirmation; asseveration, oath'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 158 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 346-47,257 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 230-232 |
| Asi, Abdul Bari | 235-237 |
| Gyan Chand | 363-364 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
The tying of the vow of love was entirely based on my foolishness. No result came from it; rather, that knot that was tied at the time of making the vow became and remained an unopened eye. That is, the beloved didn't even take a good look at me, and the vow proved useless.
== Asi, p. 236
He could have said , but Persianness is so dominant [] that even by force he makes ' Rekhtah the envy of Persian' [as in 116,10 ]. Well, this is his language, and it is especially for him. The meaning of the verse is that the vow of love that she made to me-- well, it was made (the knot remained), but like a closed eye. Not to open the eye in some direction is neglect/superciliousness.
== Zamin, p. 356
: That person who, with his eyes closed, ties [] a vow of love with somebody. This was stupidity, because the knot of that vow remained like a closed eye-- it was never able to open, it was never able to be resolved.
== Gyan Chand, p. 364
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x .
In Urdu of course one 'ties' a vow [], which opens up all kinds of metaphoric possibilities of the vow's being loosely tied (as in 20,3 ), or the vow's becoming a tangle, as in 8,2 (where other 'knot' verses are also discussed). Similarly in English we're 'bound' by a vow. In this verse Ghalib has adopted the Persian infinitive , 'to bind', in place of . (How Nazm would have enjoyed complaining about this! But Zamin takes up his role.)
Who made the vow of love? The verse carefully doesn't tell us. It might have been the beloved-- in which case she was foolishly inconsistent, since she didn't even open her eyes and take a good look at the lover. The eyeball is round like a knot. Eyes can be opened, and knots can be opened (in the sense of being loosened or untied). To open an eye is good-- but to 'open' the knot of the vow would mean to break the vow (as in 20,3 ). So on this reading the imagery becomes somewhat incoherent. But Asi and Zamin, who endorse this reading, don't seem to feel any awkwardness in the imagery.
Alternatively, it might more plausibly have been the lover who made the vow, in which case he was just plain foolish, since his vow didn't even induce the beloved to take a good look at him. But we can also ask, more subtly, how much the lover's vow might have depended on his own 'closed eye' of foolish ignorance, or on the even more tightly closed eye of a refusal to see.
Note for meter fans: It really ought to be ('non-opened'), parallel to ('non-wise'), which might perhaps then be shortened to . But in order the make the line scan, we must not only spell it as , but also scan it as . I don't care for this kind of thing, but naturally Ghalib gets to do as he pleases.
I also don't care much for this comparably abstruse wordplay with eyes and knots by Mir: M 233,16 .
graphics/eyeknot.jpg