shikvah dard-o-dard daa;G ai be-vafaa ma((;zuur rakh
;xuu;N-bahaa-e yak-jahaa;N ummiid hai teraa ;xayaal
1) complaint, pain; and pain, wound-- oh faithless one, hold [these/me] excused!
2) it is the blood-price of a 'whole-world' of hope-- the thought of you
ma((;zuur : 'Excused; — excusable; — exempted (from); — dispensed with'. (Platts p.1048)
That is, when I think of you, then in my heart is a fervor for complaints, from which pain is born; and from pain, wounds are obtained. And these same pains and wounds that the thought of you has created, are the blood-price for all my hopes, which have been slain by your faithlessness. Thus I am excused-- I cannot abandon the thought of you, so hold me excused.
Oh faithless one, if we complain about you then hold us excused for this. Because the complaint creates pain, the pain causes a wound, and the wound is pleasing to us. You have done a 'whole-world' slaughter of our hopes. For this we do not demand any blood-price from you, because when we complain to you and at that time we think of you, then that gives us a wealth of wounds. In this way we receive a blood-price.
For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.
On the concept of 'blood-price', see {21,9}. For discussion of expressions compounded with yak , see {11,1}.
The first line begins with a jumble of two small verb-free lists that seem to be equational: 'complaint pain and pain wound'. Then, on the commentators' reading, the speaker demands that the 'faithless one' should hold him to be excused. For what, or from what, should he be excused? For making lover-like complaints (perhaps she doesn't want to hear them)? For not making lover-like complaints (perhaps she does want to hear them)? For cultivating 'pain'? For not cultivating 'pain'? We have a choice of possible offenses for which the speaker wants to be 'excused'.
On my own preferred reading, the 'faithless one' should hold all these items to be 'excusable' or 'dispensed with' (see the definition above). This reading offers a tighter connection with the second line, since a person who had been accused of a crime (like murder) might be judged to be not guilty, or 'excused' from guilt.
But it doesn't really matter which reading we choose, since the beautiful second line sweeps all that jumble away as irrelevant. No 'complaint' or 'pain' or 'wound' or charge of 'faithlessness' is worth mentioning, for they are all based on the lover's 'hopes' and his fear that the faithless beloved might well 'murder' these hopes. But who cares about that! All such concerns are effortlessly cancelled out, and all such losses wholly repaid, by 'the thought of you'. It's a lovely verse of 'mood'.
Note for translation fans: On the ambiguity of teraa ;xayaal , see {41,6}.
Asi:
My complaint was erased and became pain; and the aspect of pain changed into a wound. Therefore, oh faithless one, excuse me if I have thought of you. Because the thought of you is a single blood-price for my world of hope that has been erased. So to speak, everything having been erased, only the thought of you has been given to me.
== Asi, p. 152