Verse 7x1826ednahii;N
G11
In this meter the first long syllable may be replaced by a short; and the next-to-last long syllable may be replaced by two shorts.
1
don't consider wine-drinking to be fruitless/profitless--
2 a
wine, Ghalib, is not the sap of the willow-tree!
2 b
wine [is] victorious/superior, it is not the sap of the willow-tree!
'Product, produce, outcome, what is cleared, what remains (of anything), result, ... produce or net produce (of land, or of anything that is a source of revenue), revenue; — acquiring, acquisition, advantage, profit, gain, good'.
'Overcoming, overpowering, victorious, triumphant, prevailing, predominant, prevalent; superior, surpassing, excelling'.
'Sweat; exuded moisture, exudation; moisture, sap, juice, liquor; extract, essence, spirit; the root (of anything)'.
'Willow; cane, ratan, Calamus rotang'.
| References | |
|---|---|
| Arshi, Imtiyaz Ali | Ghazal# 98 |
| Raza, Kalidas Gupta | 364 |
| Hamid Ali Khan | Open Image |
For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices . This verse is NOT one of his choices; mostly for the sake of completeness, I've added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in 4,8x .
The commentators don't seem to take much note of this closing-verse , perhaps because it's so obviously a minor one. Still, Ghalib did choose it for Gul-e ra'na (c.1828), along with all the other verses in this ghazal.
The opening-verse of this ghazal, 95,1 , similarly sneers at the tree for its fruitlessness.
The tree is, according to Platts, either a willow tree, or a kind of rattan palm, calamus rotang . Willows apparently have no fruit, while rattan palms are said by Wikipedia to have fruits that are 'top-shaped' and 'covered in shiny, reddish-brown imbricate scales'. So we should probably imagine a willow tree, since Nazm, Hasrat, and Bekhud Mohani all maintain in their commentary on 95,1 that the has no fruit. But in any case this is a ghazal-world tree, and in the ghazal world, what the poet says, goes. Plainly Ghalib believes that the tree bears no fruit-- so, in the ghazal world, it doesn't.
graphics/willow.jpg