Ghazal 170, Verse 5

{170,5}

dil se u;Thaa lu:tf-e jalvah'haa-e ma((aanii
;Gair-e gul aa))iinah-e bahaar nahii;N hai

1a) through the heart arose the enjoyableness of glories/appearances of meanings
1b) through the heart, experience/'take up' the enjoyableness of glories/appearances of meanings

2) other than the rose, there's no mirror of the spring

Notes:

u;Thnaa : 'To rise, rise up, stand up, get up (from bed, or from a sick-bed, —hence), to awake; to recover from illness; to ascend, mount, soar; to swell (as a river, &c.); to be inflamed (as the eyes); to be developed, to attain to puberty, to feel sexual desire (a female), to be in heat; to work, ferment (as leaven); to rise for the purpose of leaving (a place, —hence), to take leave, to leave, go away, set forth, come forth or be abroad (as a beast in quest of prey); to start; to move (from a house), quit, leave; to depart (from a place, or from this world); to be done away with, be abolished, be discontinued; to be removed, be carried away; to disappear; to be closed (as a shop or business); to be rubbed out, effaced, obliterated; to be laid out, expended, to cost; to be finished, be over; to be prepared, be ready; to be exhausted, spent; —to be raised, taken up, raised on high, (hence) to be exhibited; to come out distinctly, to appear (as type, &c.); to be erected, built, constructed, made, formed; to be reared, brought up, trained, educated; to be hatched; to spring up, sprout, shoot, grow; to proceed (from), originate, issue, emanate, result; to break out'. (Platts p.21)

 

u;Thaanaa : 'To lift, take up, raise, raise up, elevate, hoist; to take up (anything held sacred) for the purpose of swearing by it, to swear by; to take up (one's effects, &c.) preparatory to moving or marching, (hence) to close work, break up; to put away, pack up; to start, set off, &c.; to rear, rear up, bring up, train, educate; to hatch, breed; to produce, invent, fabricate; to erect, build up, construct; to rouse (from sleep), to awaken; to support, bear, carry; to take upon oneself, bear the burden or responsibility of, undertake; to undergo, experience, suffer, endure'. (Platts p.20)

 

lu:tf : 'Delicacy; refinement; elegance, grace, beauty; the beauty or best (of a thing); taste; pleasantness; gratification, pleasure, enjoyment; --piquancy, point, wit'. (Platts p.957)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

Nazm:

The mirror in which the beauty and radiance of the spring is to be seen, is the rose; in the same way, the mirror in which the glory/appearance of meaning is to be seen, is the heart. (191)

== Nazm page 191

Bekhud Dihlavi:

He says, 'The glory/appearance of meanings can be seen in the mirror of the heart the way spring shows its beauty and radiance in the mirror of the rose'. (247)

Bekhud Mohani:

If you want to see the spring, then look at the rose; and if you want to see reality, then look at the heart; that is, the way spring is apparent through the rose, in the same way the glories/appearances of reality are to be seen in the heart.

[Or:] The rose is the mirror of the spring, so one ought to experience [u;Thaanaa] the enjoyableness of the spring with heart and soul [dil-o-jaan se]. By 'rose' is meant the world, and things present in the world.

That is, if you want to see the glory/appearance and the radiances of the True [divine] Beloved, then look at the world and the things present in the world, because just as spring itself can't be seen, in the same way the True Beloved too can't be seen. (334)

FWP:

SETS == A,B
JALVAH: {7,4}
MIRROR: {8,3}
SPRINGTIME: {13,2}

The first line is a terrific piece of work-- two quite different readings, each of which meshes with the second line in several possible ways. Most of the commentators seem to go with (1a), reading u;Thaa as the perfect of u;Thnaa , to 'arise, rise up'. On this reading, the 'enjoyableness' [lu:tf] (of the glories/appearances of meanings) is what 'arose'. By contrast, (1b) reads u;Thaa as the intimate imperative of u;Thaanaa , to 'cause to rise up', or to 'experience', 'take up', 'lift up', or many other such meanings. For a wider sense of the multifarious possibilities, see both definitions above.

Then of course dil se can mean 'from the heart', 'with the heart', or 'by means of the heart', as part of a description of the source of the enjoyableness. But more generally, it can also mean merely 'wholeheartedly', especially in (1b), as Bekhud Mohani demonstrates when he turns it into dil-o-jaan se , 'with heart and soul', meaning something like 'with all your heart'.

Then we also have to ask ourselves how the two lines connect. Do they describe similar or parallel situations, as Nazm and other commentators maintain? On this view, heart is to glories/appearances of meanings as rose is to spring. Or are we to take the contemplation of spring and the natural world as primary, as a model for our own secondary, derivative mental activity? Or are we to take our own pursuit of the glories/appearances of meanings as primary, with the rose mirroring the spring as merely a smaller, simpler, illustration?

In short, there's a 'blooming, buzzing confusion' that's perfectly evocative of springtime-- a profusion of plurals, a tangle of twisting greenery, glories/appearances, and meanings that can't be made to settle assuredly into any one design. Do meanings spring up organically, like roses? Is the heart a generator, or a reflector, or both? Are hearts roses, or roses hearts, or are we meant to notice their differences as well as their similarities?

Compare Mir's paean to the physically small but metaphysically potent heart [M{1669,2}]:

auj-o-mauj kaa aashob us ke le ke zamii;N se falak tak hai
.suurat me;N to qa:trah-e ;xuu;N hai ma((nii me;N daryaa hai dil

[the devastation of its swell and wave have taken it from the ground to the sky--
in appearance, well, it's a drop of blood; in meaning, it's a river/ocean, the heart]

 

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