FWP:
SETS == EXCLAMATION; STRESS-SHIFTING
JIGAR: {2,1}
VEIL: {6,1}
It's clear in the second line that something has gone, and we are celebrating its departure-- but what exactly, and why? Among all these i.zaafat constructions, where does the real semantic emphasis fall? Is what we are celebrating the end of the 'trouble' or 'suffering' (or even 'formality' or 'ceremony') [takliif] of hiding a liver-wound, since concealment is no longer an option? Or is it the end of the trouble of the 'veiling' [pardah-daarii], since once the whole chest has split open, no further cover-up is possible? Or is it the end of the trouble of veiling the 'wound' [za;xm], since the wound has now been split completely open and thus no longer exists? Or is it the end of the trouble of veiling the wound in the liver [jigar], since the whole liver itself has now been ripped apart and destroyed? Any or all of these possibilities can work, not to our surprise; for want of a better name, I call this effect 'stress-shifting'.
Congratulations are in order-- but they aren't addressed to the lover himself, who would seem to be the natural recipient. Rather, they go to a semi-personified 'Pleasure of Freedom/Ease'. Do we conclude that the lover himself has died when his breast split open, and all that's leftof him is a kind of lingering, ghostly, disembodied satisfaction? Or has he taken his sense of 'freedom/ease' with him to another sphere, and cries of congratulation are being launched after him encouragingly, the way people wave to a departing traveler? Or is he himself ruefully contemplating the sight of his own innards, and wryly trying to put a good face on things? Three guesses-- or more, if you care for more. Congratulations, oh Pleasure of Freedom! Ghalib is going to allow you as many choices as he can possibly contrive.
Note for grammar fans: in this and several later verses of
this ghazal, I translate ga))ii as 'has gone' instead
of 'went'. Here, that's obviously the appropriate English counterpart, because
the first line actually does contain the present perfect, and the second line
logically postdates the first one. In {158,3},
{158,4} (which has present perfect in the first line), and {158,6} (which requires the same change in the first line too),
the 'now' points us firmly toward the present perfect. In general, it's also
true that Urdu tends to be, in colloquial usage, one step further in the past
than English. But here,
the poet himself is providing the temporal cues; we can thus tell that he
really in a sense 'means' the (English) present perfect. For more discussion of this kind of temporal mismatch, see {38,1}.
Nazm:
First he has reported this event: that the breast has become split open. Then, expressing joy, he has mentioned the advantage of the breast's bursting open. That is, he has become free of the need to keep the wound in the liver concealed. (169)
== Nazm page 169