na:z:zaaragii : 'Seeing, looking at; sight; observation; — s.m. Beholder, spectator'. (Platts p.1142)
:tasht : 'Cup, bowl, basin, charger, platter, salver'. (Platts p.324)
:tasht : 'A bason; a salver; a ewer-stand; ... — tashti o az bām uftād, (met.) His secrets were discovered; he was disgraced'. (Steingass p.302)
:tasht az baam uftaadah = to be disgraced. That is, last night the sun [Zamin's text has aaftaab instead of maahtaab] secretly and furtively watched the spectacle of the beauty of the idols. It received its punishment when at dawn it fell down from the roof of the sky. When the sun rises, then it is from below the horizon, which the poet imagines as az baam uftaadan .
If at noon the spectacle of the beauty of idols had been shown, and the sun had fallen from the roof of the sky at evening, then through the affinity with the setting of the sun that would have been more perfect, compared to saying that the rising sun is in a state of having fallen from its chamber.
na:z:zaaragii = a gazer. baam se :tasht girnaa = for a secret to become apparent. Who is doing the gazing, the sky or the moonlight? From the two of them, two meanings emerge. First let's take the sky. In the night the sky had taken upon his head-- that is, the roof-- the bowl of the moon, and was gazing at the faces of the idols. At dawn, carelessly, the bowl of moonlight fell from his head. The allusion is to the fact that the moon was less beautiful than the faces of the beautiful ones.
The second is this: that the sky's secret became apparent, that despite being the lord of the moon, he was gazing at other beautiful ones-- that is, in his view they were more beautiful than the moon.
If the gazer is the moon, then the meaning is that all night long it kept on watching the beautiful ones. That is, it too agreed that the idols were more beautiful than itself. At dawn, this secret was revealed to everyone.
SETS == IDIOMS; MUSHAIRAH
IDOL: {8,1}
NIGHT/DAY: {1,2}
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
The first line is quite ambiguous: we know nothing about who might have been doing the observing, or under what circumstances. And mushairah performance conditions would of course oblige us to wait as long as conveniently possible before being allowed to hear the second line.
Even when we hear the second line, then in true mushairah-verse style, not until the last possible moment, when we hear the rhyme-word :tasht , do we suddenly get what's going on. For the distinctive word :tasht evokes what was obviously a well-known Persian idiom-- well enough known to have a special entry in Steingass (see the definitions above). All three of the commentators obviously know the idiom. Literally, the expression would mean something like 'His bowl/tray fell from the roof'. Any such accident would cause a loud, conspicuous crash down in the street; everyone would at once look up at the roof, where the furtive person would be revealed to the public-- and thus disgraced.
As usual, Ghalib has made the idiom do a most enjoyable double duty. In the metaphorical sense, the moon was 'disgraced' and its 'secret was revealed' because through its fall, everyone could tell that it had been undone by its own less radiant beauty as compared to that of the beautiful idols at whom it had been staring. And in the literal sense, the moon is round like a bowl-- a bowl of 'moonlight', of course-- and it does in fact set, and thus 'fall from the roof of the sky'-- not really at dawn, but that would be the time when early risers would notice that it had gone.
Asi:
Oh Asad, last night the moonlight was gazing on the beauty of the idols. At dawn, for exactly this reason its bowl fell from the roof of the sky. [In Persian] :tasht az baam uftaadan is for a secret to become revealed.
== Asi, p. 96