Verse 41816aahai
G13
1
in your image is such mischievousness that with a hundredfold relish/delight
2
the mirror, with the manner/style/elegance of a rose, is embrace-opening
'Resemblance, likeness, picture, portrait, image, effigy'.
'Playfulness, fun, mischief; pertness, sauciness; coquetry, wantonness; forwardness, boldness, insolence, &c.'.
'Taste, enjoyment, delight, joy, pleasure, voluptuousness'.
'Measure, measurement; quantity; weighing, weight; degree, amount; valuing, valuation, value; rough estimate; conjecture, guess; proportion, symmetry; elegance, grace; mode, manner, style, fashion, pattern; carriage, bearing, gait'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 179 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 268-69 |
| Nuskhah-e-Hamidiyah | 275-276 |
| Gyan Chand | 395 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
The color/mood of your visible reflection is so mischievous, or the whole resemblance is full of such mischievousness, that the embrace of the mirror turned into the embrace of the rose. And your reflection, having caused the mirror to blossom like a rose, itself like a spring breeze emerged from its embrace. Here by mentioning the mischievousness of the reflection is meant the restlessness and mischievousness of the beloved herself. (259)
== Nazm page 259
He says, in your image too such mischievousness has been cumulatively piled up that when a mirror has been applied, it has, like a flower, in the ardor for embracing, opened an embrace. (316)
[Disagreeing with Nazm:] The late Janab Ghalib had given the embrace-opening of the rose as a simile for the embrace-opening of the mirror-- upon which the learned Commentator in his commentary took it upon himself to give for the reflection a simile of the spring breeze, and became so absorbed in that that he didn't have occasion to attend to the fact that the meaning was somewhat lost and remained incomplete....
A mirror is four-cornered, but under the influence of the mischievousnesses of the lover's fickle beloved it seems that in her reflection there's such mischievousness that the mirror becomes restless and in order to clutch her reflection to its bosom it opens an embrace like a rose.... With regard to the mirror, Mir Taqi Mir 's verse too is worth remembering: M 12,1 . (478-79)
This feels like a verse of mood . For what else does it leave us with except that improbable, irresistible vision of the mirror opening out ardently, like a rose, to embrace the beloved's reflection? Where the rose has a hundred petals, the mirror has a hundred kinds of 'relish' and pleasure. Where the rose is soft, the hard metal mirror now melts, and its shape flows out at the edges, seeking to encompass the beautiful vision.
But the vision is melancholy too, for we know, of course, that the mirror will fail. The beloved's 'mischievousness' extends to her image as well: she is elusive, and the mirror will find that her reflection escapes its ardent, or even voluptuous, embrace.
Moreover, once the mirror has acquired the (metaphorical) softness and petals of a rose, it has no doubt acquired the rose's doom as well. Close to the heart of ghazal imagery is the idea that when the rose 'smiles' or 'laughs' by opening its petals into full bloom, its death is only a few days away. The flower-like mirror is as doomed as the rose-- or as the lover.
On the rich possibilities of the 'embrace of leave-taking', see 57,6 .
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