Verse 3x1816andaayaa
G2
1
the expanse of the rose's smile/laugh-- tight/narrow; and the relish/taste of/for luxuriousness-- careless
2
the leisure-place of the 'embrace of leave-taking' of the heart was pleasing
'Width, spaciousness, openness, extensiveness (of ground, &c.); an open area, a court, a yard; a spacious tract, a wide expanse of land, a plain'.
'A life of pleasure and enjoyment, pleasure, delight, luxury; gratification of the appetites, sensuality'.
'Heedless, careless, unconcerned, without reflection, thoughtless; fearless, intrepid; at ease, independent'.
'Freedom (from business, &c.), cessation (from work, &c.), finishing and ceasing (from), disengagedness, leisure, rest, repose; freedom from care or anxiety, ease, convenience, comfort, tranquillity, happiness; easy circumstances, competency, affluence, abundance'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 2 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 140-141 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 29-30 |
| Asi, Abdul Bari | 50-51 |
| Gyan Chand | 61-63 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
The expanse of the smile/laugh of the rose is narrow, and the relish/taste of/for luxuriousness is careless; thus the effect of all this was that the situation of the embrace of leave-taking of the heart was pleasing to us. And there can also be the meaning that the expanse of the smile/laugh of the rose is narrow, and the relish for luxuriousness takes no care at all about this.
== Asi, p. 50
He says that the field of the rose's smile/laugh is very narrow; that is, the interval of blooming is very small, and the relish of/for luxuriousness (the desire for life, or the longing for joy-spreading) is careless; thus the interval of leisure obtained in the leave-taking embrace of the heart was pleasing to us.
Or this: that the condition of the bud (the shape of which in its tightness is like that of the heart, and which when it becomes a rose does not remain heart-like) was pleasing.
In short, having seen the impermance of the rose, the heart arose [and departed] from the garden of existence.... The bud's blossoming becomes an embrace of leave-taking and is the leisure-place of either the poet or the bud.
== Zamin, p. 26
To us the expanse of the smile/laugh of the rose felt very much shrunken. Thus we didn't turn our attention toward it. Our relish/taste for luxuriousness is careless. That is, we don't have merely a taste/relish for luxuriousness-- when the heart took leave of our breast then a privacy-chamber came to be there, and that pleased us. After giving leave [to depart] to the heart, there comes to be leisure and entire freedom from worry, because all the complications are due to only/emphatically the heart; thus heart-lessness agrees with us.
== Gyan Chand, p. 63
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 .
For more on the 'embrace of leave-taking', see 57,6 .
The bud is 'narrow', tight, compressed, thus (metaphorically) depressed; when the bud opens into a rose, it becomes wide like a smile/laugh, and thus (metaphorically) cheerful. But in this verse the speaker finds the brief interval of the rose's smile/laugh (before its petals wither and drop away) too 'narrow' to accommodate his careless, heedless desires. Rather than settle for that narrow little expanse of time, he has a wilder and more rakish plan.
Thus when the lover has given to the (bud-shaped, bud-like, 'narrow') heart an embrace of leave-taking, the result seems to be a , a place for leisure, rest, enjoyment. Perhaps this is a metaphorical space in which the last, irrevocably final embraces are exchanged (and the rash lover, left without a heart, carelessly embraces his own doom). Or might this be literally the empty space left in the lover's breast, where the heart used to dwell?
graphics/rose.jpg