Ghazal 54, Verse 4x

Asi:

The excess and extremity of my waiting has become a cause of dismissal/disgrace for my 'heat'; and that eye of mine that has remained open in waiting has become the chain on the outside of the door, because of which now 'heat' cannot at all enter. The use of a door-chain as a simile for an opened eye is extraordinarily harmonious and appropriate.

== Asi, p. 103

Zamin:

That is, through the lessening of the 'heat' of the heart, waiting increased-- to the point that the opened eye became the 'circle outside the door' (the eyes became rooted to the door). It's obvious that in a state of waiting-- which is a state of anxiety and uncertainty, it's as if there's no peace, and restlessness remains.

== Zamin, p. 149

Gyan Chand:

ma((zuulii-e tapish = for restlessness to end. ;halqah-e beruun-e dar = the chain outside the door.

All night I kept waiting for the beloved. When after much waiting she did not come, then I became sure that now she would not come. In despair, I kept standing open-eyed outside the door. In this way my open eye became a chain on the door and remained that way. The circle of the eye has a similitude with the circle of a chain.

The verse has another meaning as well. In waiting, the eye that remained open proved that now no one would come, the way if a door would be closed and the chain fastened, the meaning would be that now no outsider would enter. The open eye too is synonymous with the fastening of the chain on a door. Restlessness has been thrown out of the house. Now the door has been closed against it.

The above commentary is that of Asi. In it there's a small objection: that after throwing someone out, a chain is fastened inside the house. The meaning of fastening a chain outside is that one has oneself to go outside. Thus the open eye is a symbol of waiting, not of closing the door on restlessness.

== Gyan Chand, p. 181

FWP:

SETS
EYES {3,1}

For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. This verse is NOT one of his choices; I have added it myself, mostly because Ghalib chose it for inclusion in Gul-e ra'na (c.1828). For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.

Ghalib experimented with the same idiom, ;halqah-e beruun-e dar , in {54,1}, which made it into the divan-- but was not chosen for Gul-e ra'na (c.1828), as the present verse was. See {54,1} for general discussion of the expression. Here, the meaning seems more clearly limited to the sense of a chain-link.

My own best guess for a reading is that last night the lover waited so long in vain outside the beloved's door that his 'heat, agitation, affliction' all leaked away as his strength failed him and no hope of her arrival remained. Now, by daylight, all that is left is a kind of frozen immobility-- his eyes watch over her door in helpless, numb fixation, like links of the chain that would be securely attached to it in her absence.