Ghazal 420x, Verse 4

{420x,4}*

jo ʿazā-dār-e shahīdān-e nafas-duzdīdah ho
nauḥah-e mātam bah āvāz-e par-e ʿanqā kare

1) the one who would be a mourner for the martyrs who have held/'stolen' their breath
2) he would/should do the lamentation of mourning with the sound of the wing of the Anqa

Notes:

ʿazā-dār : 'In mourning; — one who mourns or is in mourning'. (Platts p.761)

 

duzdīdah : 'Stolen, purloined, pilfered; a furtive glance; by stealth, clandestinely; — duzdīdah būdan , To be stolen'. (Steingass p.518)

 

nauḥah : 'Lamentation; moaning, moan; wail (over the dead)'. (Platts p.1159)

Asi:

The person who would mourn and grieve for the people who have held their breath and held their tongues and sat silently-- he ought to mourn by means of the sound of the wing of the Anqa. It's obvious that the Anqa himself is called a nonexistent thing; and when he is nonexistent, then the sound of his wing too will be nonexistent.... That is, that person ought also to mourn in such a way that the mourning would not be known.

== Asi, pp. 294-295

Zamin:

Its meaning too acts as the Anqa! nafas duzdīdah -- that is, someone who would have held his breath. From holding the breath, how would anyone become a martyr?! Or how does a martyr have any breath remaining, so as to hold it?!

== Zamin, p. 424

Gyan Chand:

nafas duzdīdah = one who holds his breath. Those martyrs who have restrained their breathing, and held their breath-- those who mourn for them ought to lament with the sound of the fluttering of the Anqa's wing. The sound of the Anqa's wing will be nonexistent. Thus it's clear that in mourning for silence-afflicted martyrs, lamentation too ought to be done with silence.

== Gyan Chand, p. 433

FWP:

SETS

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

In the Raza text, the duzdīdah appears as durdīdah (missing the dot); I have given the corrected form.

If you're confused about the word nafas , see the discussion in {15,6}.

Breathing makes a small susurration; so does the flapping of a bird's wing. The martyrs who have 'held their breath' have rendered even this tiny sound nonexistent; the wing movements of an Anqa must be equally silent.

The most probable ghazal-world reason for the martyrs to have held their breath would be that they were in a state of mystical 'amazement'; on the nuances of ḥairat see {51,9x}. We are surely meant to assume not that they (impossibly) held their breath until they died, but rather that they died in a state of ecstatic, self-transcendent 'amazement'.

For the lover to die in such a way, ravished by the beauty of the Beloved, would be a glorious fate. So perhaps people ought not to mourn at all? As Faruqi has pointed out (July 2000), to say muddaʿā ʿanqā hai , 'the meaning is an Anqa', is also an idiomatic way of saying that something is meaningless. So perhaps the verse also suggests that for such martyrs, the sound of mourning ought to be as nonexistent as the sound of the Anqa's wing.

Note for grammar fans: nafas-duzdīdah in Persian literally means 'breath-stolen'. The commentators unanimously maintain that it refers to someone who has actively held/'stolen' his own breath. Otherwise, shahīdān-e nafas-duzdīdah would seem equally capable of meaning 'martyrs whose breath has been stolen away' (presumably by 'amazement').


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