=== |
![]() |
ṣafrā : 'Yellow (the colour); bile, gall; gold'. (Platts p.745)
sufrah (of which ṣufrā is an established variant): ''The food of the traveller'; the receptacle for food; the thing (whatever it be) upon which one eats; a round leathern bag for holding food, so formed as to serve also for a table when spread out on the ground; a tablecloth, napkin'. (Platts p.662)
żauq : 'Taste, enjoyment, delight, joy, pleasure, voluptuousness'. (Platts p.578)
be-żauqī : 'Tastelessness, insipidity'. (Platts p.203)
bhānā : 'To be approved (of), to be acceptable (to, - ko ), be pleasing (to), to please; to be beloved, be held dear; to suit, fit, become; to seem good or befitting'. (Platts p.180)
FWP:
SETS
MOTIFS == FOOD
NAMES
TERMS == THEME'While' the speaker was dying of hunger, his mouth became filled with the bitterness of bile. The grammar tells us only that these two things are happening at the same time.
Where exactly is the be-żauqī located? It could be a state of the world in general (it is a 'tasteless', unsatisfying place). It could be in the speaker's mind (he is full of 'distaste' for life). It could be in the speaker's body (he is perhaps 'sick' with passion). It could be a quality of food in general (the speaker perceives it as 'tasteless').
Or it could even conceivably be a particular quality not of bile but of ṣufrā , the 'food of a traveler' (see the definitions above). This reading of ṣufrā instead of ṣafrā is definitely secondary; it's a sort of hovering alternative possibility. For travel-food might well be plain, monotonous, uninviting; it might also evoke the 'bitterness' that a traveler would feel at being exiled, isolated, alone.