===
0386,
3
===

 

{386,3}

ṣad chashm-e dāġh vā haiñ dil par mire maiñ vuh hūñ
dikhlā rahā hai lālah tū apnā dāġh kis ko

1) a hundred wound-eyes are open on my heart-- that's who/what I am!
2) you are showing, oh tulip, your wound/scar-- to whom?

 

Notes:

S. R. Faruqi:

To give as the simile for wounds 'hundreds of open eyes' is fine, but not out of the ordinary. In the second line, his addressing [ḳhit̤āb karnā] the tulip and saying dikhlā rahā hai have gone beyond the ordinary. There's also the suggestion that the tulip's wound is only for show, it can't be used for seeing. The speaker's wound is open like a watchful eye. To say maiñ vuh hūñ was powerful in itself; after it, the refrain kis ko has made it tumultuous.

It's possible that the inspiration for this verse might have been Naziri's [Persian] verse:

'I can never be at leisure, for in my water-and-dust
You have sowed the seeds of a thousand heart-watchfulnesses.'

Naziri's verse is better than Mir's, because the meaningfulness of Naziri's image of 'heart-agitation', and the 'mood' of the mastery of passion over all individuality-- all this is beyond Mir's verse. But Mir's rakishness has its own place, and in any case makes his verse worthy of attention.

An idea similar to Mir's can be found in [the Persian of] Talib Amuli:

'From my dust, still, like freshly-minted coins
Pieces/jewels of the wound-bearing liver are obtained.'

Talib's verse too is better than Mir's, but here the hyperbole has come to dominate the narrativity. Mir's wounds are open like watchful eyes-- nevertheless, this theme retains a 'mood'.

There's also the point that the basic theme of Mir's verse, in its way, is firmly established and fresh-- that the tulip can't endure a single wound; because of its lack of endurance/capacity it begins to show the wound to everybody. In contrast, the speaker's heart contains nothing but open wound upon open wound-- but not to speak of showing, he doesn't even mention them.

The youthful Ghalib has versified this theme with full clarity [in an unpublished verse:

G{282x,5}.

In Ghalib's verse, for the rose to be a seeker of praise is fine.

In Mir's verse, the dramatic tone, the use of implication, and the insha'iyah style-- these three qualities are ones of which the verses under discussion by Naziri, Talib Amuli, and Ghalib are all devoid. All three verses are fine in their ways, but Mir's distinctions too have their suitability.

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == THEME

The basic conceit is that the dark spot in the center of the tulip is a 'wound'. For more on this, see G{33,1}.

Note for grammar fans: I had been strongly inclined to read lālah to instead of lālah tū in the second line. But I was curious about the grammar, so I consulted SRF. He replied emphatically (May 2016):

Arey yar there's no way to read to here instead of .  For to is an affirmative intensifier or a conditional intensifier. It is always followed by a result, or a 'but':

maiñ tomār kar us kā muñh toṛ detā magar....
maiñ tokisī kī bāt bardāsht nahīñ kar saktā .
kuchh bhī ho jāʾe maiñ to chup to rahūñgā .
maiñ to ẓarūr boltā lekin vahāñ suntā kaun hai .
vuh to chale gaye hote lekin sāmān nahīñ taiyār thā .

You can see that there's no way the line can be read as anything but addressing the lālah .

I had of course been thinking of the more general uses of to , the cases in which it means something like 'then'. I was taking the line as something like 'To whom, then, is the tulip showing its scar?' But SRF obviously finds that idea overextended. I'm including his examples here just to show how he thinks most centrally about to .

 

 
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