Ghazal 246x, Verse 6

Zamin:

He says that the imagination, in the thought of her coming, has decorated the chamber of the heart in various ways; but when the thought of the glory/appearance of her beauty came, then all the equipment for adornment that was in the mind-- what happened to it was like what happens to dew from the glory-scattering of the sun.

But the words of the verse are insufficient to present the meaning. If instead of jalvah-e ;xvur in the first line there were jalvah-e ;husn , then the glory/appearance of the beloved would have become manifest and the meaning would have been illumined; for the completion of the simile the 'leisure of a single dew-place' was enough.

== Zamin, pp. 101-102

Gyan Chand:

shabnamistaa;N = for drops of dew to be lying in every direction. Here the word 'adorning' [aaraa))ii] is omitted. The poet wants to say 'the leisure for adorning/preparing a single dew-place' [fur.sat-e yak shabnamistaan-aaraa))ii].

In former times, when some king or great man entered a city, then 'mirror-binding' used to be done. We thought that when the glory/appearance of the sun would be visible, then it should be welcomed with the adorning of a dew-place. We kept thinking and imagining in what way we would do 'mirror-binding' of the gathering. Finally we decided that if in every direction the mirrors of dew-drops would be arranged, then this would be the most beautiful 'mirror-binding', in which the glory/appearance of the sun would be doubled.

The glory/appearance of the sun became visible-- and in a single moment our imaginary (and the real) 'dew-place' vanished. There was not even the chance to adorn a single dew-place. In one other place he has said: {78,5}.

== Gyan Chand, p. 143

FWP:

SETS
JALVAH: {7,4}
MIRROR: {8,3}
SUN: {10,5}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

No doubt the first line is a bit sketchy, as the commentators note. What it really means to say-- and does in fact manage to suggest-- is that the sun didn't give (to someone or something) even as much of an interval (before obliteration) as it would give to a field of dew. To whom or what did the sun deal such instantaneous oblivion? Of course, under mushairah performance conditions, we are made to wait and hope for more information from the second line.

Then the second line highlights, in the key rhyme-word position, aa))iinah-bandii , literally 'mirror-binding'. What exactly is this? It doesn't appear anywhere in the published divan. (But compare aa))iinah-band in {128,3x}.) Platts recognizes it as a term, but defines it only as 'decoration with mirrors'; Steingass doesn't recognize it at all. Does it have anything to do with the concept of a 'mirror-chamber' (on this see {10,5})? My own feeling is that Ghalib himself may not have had much more of a sense of it than the convenient, piquant term itself. This would put it in the same amorphous category as the 'lamp-display' (see {5,5}), or the 'wine-duck' in {49,1}.

In any case, 'imagination' had created something that involved (probably) many small mirrors-- something, that is, like a field of dew (because each dewdrop glitters reflectively like a mirror in the sun). So was the imagination echoing or imitating a field of dew, and thus calling down the sun upon itself, in order to find rapturous (mystical?) oblivion?

Note for grammar fans: It would really be better to have kiyaa thaa in the second line, to make it clear that the action of the imagination had preceded the appearance of the sun. But we've got what we've got.