===
1590,
1
===

 

{1590,1}

shahr se yār savār huʾā jo savād meñ ḳhūb ġhubār hai āj
dashtī vaḥsh-o-t̤air us ke sar-tezī hī meñ shikār hai āj

1) when/since the beloved set out from the city, in the environs there's a good deal of dust today
2) the wild/desert creatures, wild animals and small birds are prey to only/emphatically her 'sharp-headedness', today

 

Notes:

savād : 'Blackness; black colour; blackening; soot; smoke; black clothing; the black or inner part of the heart, the heart's core; the rural district (of any province or town), environs (of a city), suburbs'. (Platts p.691)

S. R. Faruqi:

savād = environs, surrounding areas
vaḥsh = wild animal
t̤air = small bird

He has given the meter so much differentiation [tanavvuʿ] that at first glance it fools one into thinking that this isn't the same meter as that of the previous ghazal [{1589}] and other very famous ghazals.

Then, in the first line the narrativity of ardor and praise is extremely excellent. The beloved's swift movement has kicked up dust, the surroundings have been more or less hidden in this dust. The word savād also means 'blackness' and 'a group of buildings or people'. For example, savād-e aʿz̤am -- that is, 'big city' (the great Mecca), or 'a quantity of people', or a city or buildings that can be seen dimly in the distance, or some person who is dimly visible from afar, or the suburbs of a city that look black in the distance; these are also called savād , as in this peerless and famous verse of Yaganah's:

dhuvāñ sā jab naz̤ar āyā savād manzil kā
nigāh-e shauq ke āge thā qāfilah dil kā

[when the environs of the halting-place became visible like smoke
before the eye of ardor was the caravan of the heart]

In the present verse, the word savād seizes hold of all these usages. There's the clamor of the beloved's setting out; the surroundings are dark with dust. Because the speaker is happy at heart, or by way of additional praise, he says that since all the birds and beasts of the jungle are hers alone, today there will be a hunt with the tips or the sharp edges of her eyelashes. The word sar-tezī is used for the sharp-pointedness of something, but especially for the sharp-pointedness of eyelashes and fingernails. See

{693,6}.

In the verse a number of words, and their constructions, are very fresh. The suggestion that the beloved will hunt, and that the lover's heart is warm with happiness, is also very fine. The rule is that we feel as proud of the achievements of someone we love, as we would of our own achievements.

Mir has also expressed a reflection of this theme in the second divan [{698,11}] (with tiir meaning 'desert, field'):

muddat se jargah jargah sar-e tīr haiñ ġhazāl
kam ho gayā hai yāroñ kā shauq-e shikār kyā

[for some time there have been herds of gazelles all over the field
as if the friends' relish for the hunt has become less?!]

Abbasi [in an earlier edition] has read sar-e tez . That is probably on an analogy with the present verse. It's clear that here it's not the place for sar-e tez .

FWP:

SETS
MOTIFS == SOUND EFFECTS
NAMES
TERMS == METER

This ghazal is the second of a set of two about which SRF makes special claims for an over-all 'musical' effect; see

{1589,1}

for his discussion. Because of these special whole-ghazal claims, as a case study I am examining all the verses of this ghazal, including those SRF omits from his commentary.

The first line of this verse is the only line of 'Hindi meter' I know in which every single possible substutition of two short syllables for one long syllable has been made. On this unusual instance see A Practical Handbook of Urdu Meter, *Mir's meter*. The effect is to render the first line exceedingly choppy and repetitive-feeling; it's not very 'flowing' to read, though it does perhaps have a jolting charm of his own. Probably this is part of what SRF means when he says Mir has given it such 'differentiation'.

The jumpy, thumpy repetition of / = - - / the whole line through (except of course for the last, shortened foot) also adds to the sound effects of yār , savār , savād , ġhubār .

 

 
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