===
0115,
8
===
 

{115,8}

;haa.sil nah puuchh gulshan-e mash'had kaa buu al-havas
yaa;N phal har ik dara;xt kaa ;halq-e buriidah thaa

1) don't ask about the harvest/gain of the garden of martyrdom, oh Lecher!
2) here, the fruit/result of every single tree is a cut/severed throat/windpipe

 

Notes:

mash'had : 'A place where a martyr has died, or is buried; a place of martyrdom; a place of religious visitation; a tomb'. (Platts p.1040)

 

phal : 'Fruit; produce, product, crop, yield; offspring, children; return, requital, recompense; gain, profit, advantage; result, effect, consequence; inference, corollary; ... —the iron head (of a spear, arrow, &c.); the blade (of a sword, knife, &c.)'. (Platts p.288)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

The wordplay of ;haa.sil , gulshan , dara;xt , phal is very fine. Between phal and buriidah there's also wordplay, because a knife has a phal (that is, the blade with which it does the cutting) and people cut 'fruit' as well.

In the second line there are a number of aspects. One is that if some tree doesn't bear fruit, then-- enough! consider it the tree-borne fruit of the severed throats of the martyred ones. If we take phal to mean 'result', then the aspect is that here, whatever trees people planted, the fruit they received from those trees was that their throats were cut.

In the first line there's also a sort of reproof of the lechers, and also a delicate sorrow at the throats of so many martyrs being cut. He's called the place of martyrdom a 'garden' because its ground is so red with martyrs' blood that it's as colorful as a garden. And where there's a garden, there will be trees as well, and fruit as well. The harvest of a garden is fruit; in this way all the wordplay has appropriately converged. It's a fine verse.

[See also {1799,7}.]

FWP:

SETS == INEXPRESSIBILITY; WORDPLAY
MOTIFS
NAMES == LECHER
TERMS == WORDPLAY

To SRF's elegant exposition I'd only add one or two further points. 'Don't ask' of course invokes the 'inexpressibility trope'. But it's also doubly appropriate here, since those who might have been asked have all had their throats cut, and thus by definition are unable to reply. (Of course, they also can't reply because they're dead, but sometimes that doesn't stop the determined lover from communicating.)

Moreover, the person enjoined not to ask, the Lecher, is precisely the false or shallow lover, the lustful one who is out for what he can get rather than what he can give; thus he is well advised not even to contemplate the universality and grimness of the murderous work of this place of martyrdom.

And then, what about the 'here'? 'Here' seems to locate the speaker right in the 'garden of martyrdom'. But if he's there, why is he able to talk? Why hasn't his throat been cut? Apparently he's not a 'tree'; perhaps he's just a 'weed', or a passive observer who's not part of the mystical drama of self-sacrifice. Or perhaps the crowd of willing martyrs is so great that he's just waiting his turn?