Ghazal 389x, Verse 4

Asi:

Through the reflection of my beloved's face, the mirror became a glass of wine, because she was rose-colored, and wine too is rose-colored. From the appearance of this reflection, it seemed that the glass was full of wine; and from the reflection of the beauty-spot on her face one suspects that in the glass the spot/stain of Portuguese wine has come about.

== Asi, pp. 227-228

Zamin:

For the reflection of the beauty-spot on the face, he has given the simile of a spot/stain of wine.

== Zamin, p. 343

Gyan Chand:

The wineglass is usually made of colored glass. Through the reflection of the beloved's red-colored face, the mirror became colorful, like a glass of wine. Along with that, through the reflection of the beauty-spot, it seemed as though in an empty glass, in one place there would be a spot/stain of wine.

Asi has considered the mirror to be a filled glass, but in my opinion it is an empty glass, so that the spot/stain of wine would be able to be seen. In a full glass, a spot/stain of wine is meaningless.

== Gyan Chand, p. 349

Faruqi:

As usual, the theme is trivial, but in this case executed nicely. It doesn't matter whether the glass is full or not. Here is how it works: The beloved's face is gul-guu;N =red, or pink  and red, like a flower. Now when she took the glass in her hand, the wineglass, because of the refulgent face of the beloved, became bright like a mirror-- so much so that it began reflecting things. For instance, it reflects her face, because she has the wineglass in her hand. 

The beloved has a beauty-spot on her face. And if the wineglass is a mirror, how does it manage to reflect it? That's easy. There is a stain of wine on the glass. So that stain is the beauty spot. Wineglass=mirror; the face is so bright that its contours are not clearly reflected. But the beauty spot is of denser stuff. The wine stain on the glass is actually the reflection of her beauty spot in the wineglass-mirror.

The weakness in the theme is its foundation, too: that the wineglass becomes a mirror in the hands of the beloved. No ground has been prepared for it. Calling her face gul-guu;N doesn't do the trick.

(-- Personal communication, August 2020)

FWP:

SETS == SYMMETRY
MIRROR: {8,3}
WINE: {49,1}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.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

At first I was expecting that there would be some special spot or stain associated with Portuguese wine in particular, and that the commentators would describe it; but apparently sharaab-e purtugaalii is just in there to provide a refrain.

The real question seems to be whether the 'wineglass' of the mirror is empty or full. Gyan Chand criticizes Asi for maintaining that it's full, because in that case how can the reflection of the beauty-spot on the beloved's face create a special spot or stain? That's an excellent point, but then, the mirror is explicitly said to become a 'glass of wine' through reflecting the beloved's roseate face-- so how can the glass be empty?

Gyan Chand tries to solve the problem with a quick fix: a bland assertion that wineglasses were made of colored glass. This claim is implausible both in terms of ghazal imagery (the universal assumption is that the wine is red and the glass is clear) and in esthetic terms (red wine in a colored glass would look murky and decidedly unattractive).

So-- which horn of the dilemma do we prefer? Might there actually be something esoteric about Portuguese wine (a tendency to form clotted lees?), and the commentators just didn't know it? After all, we know that Ghalib was extremely fond of European wines; we could give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he had expert knowledge.

This verse nagged at me, so I finally asked Faruqi for his thoughts, and he was kind enough to provide them. I've reproduced his comments above. They made me realize that the principle of symmetry was notably operative in this verse. The commentators read 'the mirror became a glass of wine'; with equal justification Faruqi reads 'the glass of wine became a mirror'. The verse isn't all that great in any case, but the usefulness of recognizing 'symmetry' (as I should have done myself), is a valuable point to remember.