0693_09

{693,9}

bāre kal ṭhahr gaʾe z̤ālim-e ḳhūñ-ḳhvār se ham
munṣifī kīje to kuchh kam nah jigar ham ne kiyā

1) {at length / somehow or other} yesterday we stayed/settled/resolved with the blood-drinking tyrant

2a) if justice would be done, then we showed no small amount of courage
2b) if justice would be done, then we showed some small bit-- didn't we?!-- of courage

Notes:

ṭhaharnā : 'To stand; to stand still; to stand firm; to be stationary; to be fixed; to be stopped; to be congealed, be frozen; to stop, rest, pause, cease, desist; to stay, remain, abide, wait, tarry; to last, endure; to be ascertained, be proved, be established; to be settled, be agreed upon, be concluded; to be fixed on, be determined, be resolved'. (Platts p.365)

kīje = an archaic form of kī jāʾe

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

bāre = somehow or other
ṭhairnā = to remain established, to have one's feet planted
se = with

In the second line he has well versified colloquial speech. By munṣifī kīje to is meant 'If you use fair-mindedness, then you'll arrive at the result that...'. In our language, and for this reason in our poetry, 'understatement' [English word] is very little used. Since this principle is not common with us, to use it is difficult as well. In the present verse and in a number of others, Mir has used understatement with great excellence.

With regard to the affinity with 'blood-drinking' too, the 'liver' is very fine. because blood is made in the liver. Compare:

{721,1}.

Dard has expressed this theme simply:

tujh se z̤ālim ke sāmne āyā
jān kā maiñ ne kuchh ḳhat̤ar nah kiyā

[I came before cruel ones like you,
I didn't put my life in any danger.]

What I've described as 'understatement' is so rare in Urdu that we don't even have a word for it. At the most, we can call it 'light expression' [subuk-bayānī] or 'terse expression' [kam-bayānī]. For some additional examples of this, see:

{276,6},

{1683,1}, etc., and

{721,1}.

[See also {299,1}.]

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == LIVER
NAMES
TERMS == UNDERSTATEMENT

The second line ought to be, straightforwardly, 'We showed no small amount of courage' (2a). But would this be the kind of 'understatement' SRF speaks of? The understatement and the idiomatic quality he praises are probably better reflected by treating nah as a colloquial interjection (2b) than by taking it straightforwardly.

What exactly did the speaker do, that required that amount of courage? The many possibilities of ṭhahrnā (see the definition above) open up a range of meanings, from 'I stayed with her' through 'I fixed terms with her' to 'I endured being with her'. Needless to say, they all required courage, and since she was a 'blood-drinker', that courage is enjoyably expressed by boasting (just a bit, understatedly) about one's 'liver', which in the ghazal world is the source of fresh blood.

Might there also be a third possibility for the second line? Perhaps kuchh kam nah jigar ham ne kiyā could also be taken as 'We showed somewhat insufficient courage, didn't we?'. I'd like to think so, but I'm not sure. The idiomatic possibilities are too suble for me to judge.