Ghazal 225, Verse 3x

Asi:

Alas, that not even my hot sighs at dawn create enthusiasm in the hearts of the flame-faced ones! Rather, they too have the effect of the morning breeze, and create an effect of more cool-feeling among the candle-faced ones.

== Asi, p. 223

Zamin:

He says, 'Alas, that the dawn-time sigh does the work of the morning breeze'. That is, the way the morning breeze makes the candle cold (extinguishes it), in the same way my dawn-time sigh makes cold the flame of love of the candle-faced ones. The meaning is that at my sighing and lamenting they become even more contrary and show cool-feeling treatment.

== Zamin, p. 331

Gyan Chand:

The morning breeze is usually coldl. So to speak, it will make the treatment by beautiful ones cold. When in the morning we sigh, that too works as the morning breeze; that is, it makes the beautiful ones even more uncompassionate. Among 'dawn-time', 'morning breeze', and 'candle-faced' there is wordplay.

== Gyan Chand, p. 339

FWP:

SETS
CANDLE: {39,1}

For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. This verse is NOT one of his choices; I thought it was interesting and have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.

The lover's hot sighs not only fail to 'warm up' the beloved-- alas, they have just the opposite effect! They act like the brisk morning breeze, and 'cool off' her treatment of the lover. The unexpected, almost paradoxical inverseness is enjoyable in its own right, as in {205,2}. In both verses, the wordplay is elaborate.

But in the present verse there's an extra touch of poignancy, provided by sham((a-ruuyaa;N -- which, as a 'punch'-word, doesn't appear until the last possible moment. For in the ghazal world candles are imagined as being 'burnt out' by the end of the night, as in the gorgeous {169,13}. Even as the candles are gradually guttering out, the onslaught of breezes-- whether sighs or winds, hot or cold-- can only cause them to flicker, to struggle for life, and perhaps to go 'cold' as their flame finally dies. So the increased 'coldness' of the 'candle-faced ones' seems also to presage, or even to show, their own doom. In this light, the lover's complaint rings somewhat hollow.