As so often, we can't tell anything much from the first line, and under mushairah performance conditions we'd have to endure the wait until the second line gave us, in a sudden rush, the missing puzzle pieces. Even then, we'd have some choices to make, since this verse is one of the many that provide us with a set of puzzle pieces that can fit together in a variety of ways, and we have to assemble them ourselves-- usually with more than one possible solution. In fact the second line consists simply of a list: 'A and B', with no grammar at all; for more such 'list' verses, see 4,4 . Nazm reads the pieces as distributive-- the first half of the first line corresponds to the first half of the second line, and the second half of the first line corresponds to the second half of the second line. This is indeed the most obvious reading, and is saved from ordinariness by the doubleness of , which can be either sincere (as in 2a) or (very readily and colloquially) sarcastic, as in (2b). For a similarly complex use of , and further discussion of these uses, see 71,8 . Alternatively, as Bekhud Mohani's first reading suggests, both halves of the first line can be taken as applying to both halves of the second line. Then, we also need to ask in what sense the parts of the second line are to be allocated to the parts of the first line. Bekhud Mohani's third reading proposes that to have the pain of the nightingale's lament would be an advantage to the speaker because it would improve the efficacy of his own laments. Or maybe pain just does, and should, naturally gravitate to him, in his capacity as suffering lover. Just as the salt of the rose's smile inevitably belongs to the beloved. (And of course, she in turn provides the 'salt' for the lover's wounds.) The beloved is successful and worldly, and the speaker knows it, and shows that he knows it, not without a touch of bitterness; for another verse in this vein, see 17,6 . As Josh notes, to be 'salty', , is also to be lively, risque, daring, saucily attractive. (This is where we get in Urdu, and 'salacious' in English-- from salt.) Thus he reads the verse as witty and humorous, with the lover mischievously teasing the beloved. The Nightingale is madly in love with the rose, of course. His song, and his pain, are only for her. She smiles-- with what kind of a smile? (See 33,3 for another example of her smile.) As we all know, her 'smile' is her full bloom, and it heralds her imminent death. Does she smile despite knowing this? Does she smile because she knows this? Is this why her smile rubs salt in the nightingale's wounds? Is he singing not only with passion, but with the pain of imminent loss? Thus we have a 'tragic' reading to set against Josh's 'comic' reading, and also Bekhud's 'global' reading, and a lot more ambiguities and possibilities constantly hovering around the edges. Another haunting, unresolvable verse. graphics/rose.jpg