Verse 4x1816amhai
G9
In this meter the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.
1
Asad , to the sensitivity/touchiness of the temperament of longing, [do] justice!
2
for there is a single weak fancy/apprehension-- and a 'two-worlds' grief
'Thin, slender, slim, delicate, tender, fragile; fine; light; brittle; nice; neat; elegant; genteel; subtle; — facetious; gracious; keen; sensitive, touchy, testy'.
tab((>> : 'Nature, innate or natural disposition; genius; natural temper, temperament; idiosyncrasy; quality'.
'Thinking, imagining, conceiving (esp. a false idea); — opinion, conjecture; imagination, idea, fancy; — suspicion, doubt; scruple, caution; distrust, anxiety, apprehension, fear
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 195 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 281 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 231 |
| Asi, Abdul Bari | 295-296 |
| Gyan Chand | 434-435 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
Oh Asad, please recognize the sensitivity of the temperament of longing, and do it justice, for over a single weak fancy/apprehension, the burden/heaviness of both worlds lies fallen.
Or else this: that 'Oh Asad, I swear by the sensitivity of the justice-longing (?) temperament, that I am a single weak fancy on whom there is the burden of both worlds'.
== Asi, p. 296
Asad, keep in view the sensitivity of the longing temperament, and do justice-- that on a single weak imagining, a whole world of grief has been placed. The longing temperament is [habitually] very attenuated/thin and sharp of sense. The 'sensitivity of the temperament of longing' and the 'weak fancy' are both related to verse composition.
== Gyan Chand, p. 435
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . This verse is NOT one of his choices; I thought it was interesting and have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x .
On the nature of expressions, see 18,2 .
Unsurprisingly, the commentators evoke the pathetic situation of the half-crazed, hypersensitive lover, so vulnerable to his own anxieties that the smallest fancy or apprehension (see the definition above) causes him a cosmic, 'two-worlds' kind of grief.
But equally unsurprisingly (to 'do justice' to my own 'temperament' as a commentator), I have a much more extravagant and thrilling interpretation to offer. My proof-text is the brilliant 5,4 , in which merely 'somewhat of a thought of madness' passed through the lover's mind-- and the desert burned up. Here too, in view of the meaning of as 'touchiness' or 'testiness', and the versatile but powerful nature of expressions (see 18,2 ), it's possible that the lover's grief was equally potent. A single morbid notion-- possibly quite groundless-- entered his irritable head, and the result was a grief that spiralled outward and overtook the 'two worlds'.
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