===
1504,
3
===

 

{1504,3}

ʿishq ke maidāñ-dāroñ meñ bhī marne kā hai vaṣf bahut
yaʿnī muṣībat aisī uṭhānā kār-e kār-gużārāñ hai

1) among (even/also) the battlefield-holders of passion, there is much quality/virtue/praise of dying
2) that is, to endure such adversity/affliction is a task for the task-achievers

 

Notes:

vaṣf : 'Describing; declaring; praising; —description, expression of qualities; praise, encomium; attribute; epithet; quality, property; —merit, virtue, worth'. (Platts p.1195)

 

kār-gużār : 'Skilful in business, expert, expeditious; industrious; attentive, dutiful; —a skilful, or an expeditious, worker, &c.'. (Platts p. 799)

S. R. Faruqi:

In this verse the meaning of bhī is not [only] 'even' or 'also'; rather, it's for power of expression. This is an Urdu idiom. Mir has used it in various places; for example, in the second divan:

{689,3},

and in the third divan:

{1164,6}.

In the present verse an additional pleasure is that bhī can also be taken in its real meaning. That is, this quality not only belongs to the battlefield-holders (soldiers) of kings, but also belongs to the battlefield-holders of passion-- that they have an inclination toward dying. And maidāñ-dār is an interesting word, but it is neither in Barkati Sahib's dictionary, nor in the āṣifiyah , nor in Platts.

The author of the nūr ul-luġhāt has so badly misguided us that he has entered only maidāñ-dārī karnā , meaning 'to fight, to quarrel', and has written that it is a women's idiom! Such things enable us to judge that our dictionary-writers no doubt made great efforts, but their method of working was not intellectual and scientific, so that they were responsible for such negligences.

Then, marne kā vaṣf is an extremely eloquent phrase. As though like generosity, courage, and cheerfulness, dying too is a quality. That is, dying is not an act of compulsion or violence and aversion, but rather a jewel, a virtue, that some people have and some people do not have. After this, to construe death as 'enduring an adversity', and call it a 'task for the task-achievers', is such pithiness of speech that it's Mir's own special style. As if dying too were among the adversity-filled tasks in the world that must be fulfilled, and not anything separate from the world. There are among us some people like us who achieve it.

The structure is so fluent, and the words so resonant, that from maidāñ-dāroñ to kār-gużārāñ there's the sense of a roll of drums. That is, 'dramaticness' and 'overstatement' have entirely entered in, but he has created such a melody/harmony that for the 'battlefield-holders of passion' there could not possibly be a praise [vaṣf] better than this.

FWP:

SETS == BHI
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS

Those who hold the 'battlefield of passion' are those who have won it, at great risk and perhaps at great cost. They are thus the doers of deeds, the high achievers. Constantly risking death is the kind of 'adversity' that only they can sustain. But wait-- does aisī muṣībat necessarily refer to dying? Perhaps the ordeals faced in the course of their lives by lovers on the 'battlefield of passion' are such that death would be a sweet relief by comparison. Perhaps that's why they are inclined, among themselves, to devote 'much praise' (see the definition of vaṣf ) to the prospect of death?

For an example of 'such adversity' other than death, we need look no further than the very next verse in the ghazal [{1504,4}]:

dil hai dāġh jigar hai ṭukṛe āñsū sāre ḳhūn huʾe
lohū pānī ek kare yih ʿishq-e lālah-ʿiżārāñ hai

[the heart is a wound; the liver is fragments; all the tears have become blood
to make blood and water one-- this is passion for the tulip-cheeked ones]

 

 
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