FWP:
SETS == HI; MULTIVALENT WORDS ( bāre )
SOUND EFFECTS:
{26,7}
ABOUT bāre : This simple-looking little adverb can mean
either 'once' or 'finally'. Often it's used straightforwardly, usually with
the sense of 'finally'. But sometimes it's used in clever ways that evoke
both possibilities. Other such examples: {43,4};
{105,1}. In any case, the present verse is
one of the very few instances in which the word doesn't occur at the beginning
of the second line.
This ghazal, only three verses long, is unusual in not having a formal closing-verse.
The verse relishes its wordplay: bār and bāre; dar and darbāñ . There are wild sound effects too: by my count, of the 22 long and short vowels in the words of the verse, 15 are either ā or a, while only 7 are everything else combined.
The first line is uninterpretable in isolation, so that under conditions of mushairah performance we would have to wait for the second line before we could grasp the meaning. And then in the second line the amusing, subtle powers of inshāʾiyah speech-- exclamatory in this case-- are once again displayed to advantage. To say that the beloved's Doorkeeper is as forbidding as Rizvan, the guardian of Paradise, might seem an obvious simile. But here, thanks to the power of implication, it doesn't even need to be said that the beloved's Doorkeeper is far more severe than Rizvan. Instead, the lover merely exclaims, 'Oh if only it were just Rizvan at her door-- after a lifetime of submission, he would let me in!'.
The unselfconscious exclamation, and that understated, casual little hī , work wonders: they convey both the informational, or ḳhabariyah , point, and the lover's reaction to it. The lover is so cavalierly dismissive of Rizvan that he isn't even aware of being dismissive of him: his whole mind is fixed on the far harsher, far more unjust Doorkeeper who actually confronts him.
For after all, he doesn't want to get into Paradise, he wants
to get into the beloved's house. And having said that, we at once realize
that there's a real difference between the two. The beloved commands a Paradise
more truly heavenly than the official one. God is more fair-minded and approachable
than the beloved, and Rizvan more mellow and compassionate than her Doorkeeper.
It would be very difficult to read this verse as
addressed to a divine rather than human beloved; for more such verses, see {20,3}.
Nazm:
That is, Rizvan has at least this much to be said for him, that after a whole lifetime of worshiping, he allows one to enter Paradise. (31)
== Nazm page 31