0020_03

{20,3}

vuh māyah-e jāñ to kahīñ paidā nahīñ jūñ kīmiyā
maiñ shauq kī afrāt̤ se be-tāb hūñ sīmāb sā

1) that essence of life doesn't come into being anywhere, like an elixir/alchemy
2) I, from an excess of ardor, am agitated/restless, like quicksilver/mercury

Notes:

māyah : 'Source, root, origin, principle, essence, substance'. (Platts p.988)

kīmiyā : 'Alchemy; chemistry; —elixir, the basis of gold and silver; a specific'. (Platts p.890)

be-tāb : 'Faint, powerless; agitated, restless, uneasy impatient... ; devoid of splendour, lustreless'. (Platts p.202)

tajnīs : 'Making of the same kind, making homogeneous (with); resemblance, analogy; (in Rhet.) alliteration; punning (especially to the eye); pun; equivoque: — tajnīs-e ḳhat̤t̤ī , s.f. Using words which are written with the same letters but with different vowel points, a kind of equivoque in writing (e.g. pal , pil , pul in the following verse of Sauda's: — mauj-e chashm-e ʿāshiqāñ de toṛ pal meñ pil ke pul , 'the waves from the eyes of lovers would in a moment demolish a bridge by their shock')'. (Platts p.311)

tajnīs : 'Making homogeneous; resemblance, analogy; alliteration, jingle of rhymes; pun, play on words'. (Steingass p.283)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

Among 'essence', 'elixir', 'agitated', and 'quicksilver' there's an affinity. Between jāñ and jūñ there's the pleasure of tajnīs . Between 'agitated' and 'quicksilver' the pleasure is that quicksilver doesn't stay still in one place, and the lover too wanders around, so that 'agitation' isn't only of the heart, but rather expresses agitation of the body also.

Quicksilver is used in alchemy, and the thing used to make gold and silver is also called kīmiyah . Thus between kīmiyah and sīmāb ( sīm plus āb ) there's a double affinity. Another pleasure is that although I myself am like quicksilver, which is used in alchemy, here I am absolutely without effect; the beloved is like kīmiyah -- that kind of kīmiyah that can't be made with quicksilver like me.

FWP:

SETS == WORDPLAY
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == AFFINITY; TAJNIS

One of the projects I'll have in this commentary is to keep fairly close track of SRF's commentarial terminology in SSA. This is the first occurrence of tajnīs , and I've given Platts's definition above. Since it's a versatile term, I don't know if it can or should be assigned a single English counterpart. So I think I'll just keep it and treat 'tajnis' as an English word, as in the case of 'zila' [ẓilʿa].