THE BELOVED SEEMS NOT TO BE GOD: This verse has, to my mind, a particular claim to fame. It provides a refutation to critics who allege that, in principle, any verse of classical ghazal can be addressed just as well to a Divine beloved as to a human one, and can or even should be so interpreted. This verse would be extremely hard to read as addressed to God. God might be as cruel, fickle, capricious, disdainful, etc. as any human beloved; we might even consider God just as likely to be a promise-breaker. (Faruqi and I used to argue about this.) But can we really tease God for being so 'delicate' and weak that He could only break a promise that had not been firmly 'tied' in the first place? It does seem quite devoid of theological tact. Some other examples of verses that it's hard to imagine as addressed to or evoking a divine beloved: 24,10x *; 25,8 ; 31,3 ; 32,1 ; 34,8 ; 36,6 ; 65,1 ; 83,2 ; 97,7 ; 100,6 ; 111,7 ; 115,8 ; 116,1 ; 116,3 ; 124,6 ; 173,7 ; 196,7 ; 205,8 ; 231,8 // 413x,3 **, idol instead In the same group should also be included the verses in which the beloved is imagined as falling in love (for examples, see 13,2 ); and perhaps those in which she is teasingly said to have 'no mouth' ( 91,4 ) or 'no waist' ( 99,4 ). Conversely, there are also verses that apparently can only be addressed to God, not to a human beloved: see 20,10 for examples. This verse continues to tease the beloved as a notorious promise-breaker, a theme carried over from 20,2 . Its wittiness is based on the sudden physical activation of , 'to make-- literally, to bind, to tie-- an oath'. Thus to 'break'-- -- the oath is imagined as a physical act, like ripping open a knotted cord. This the beloved is too , too delicate or frail, to accomplish, so she must have 'bound' the oath loosely in the first place. We have enough comparable English idioms-- we are 'bound' by oaths (especially by 'binding' ones), and we too 'break' vows-- so that the wordplay is not at all remote. This verse plays with 'doubly activating' both the literal and the metaphorical possibilities of -- for a similar trick with , see 19,7 and 89,3 . Compare Mir 's way of teasing the beloved for her delicacy: M 1548,8 . graphics/knot.jpg