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Monday, 24 February 2020

Ghalib's Ghazal 61

These are the first three couplets from Ghazal 61. See Frances Pritchett's Desertful of Roses for commentary.

laraztā hai mirā dil zaḥmat-e mihr-e daraḳhshāñ par
maiñ hūñ vuh qat̤rah-e shabnam kih ho ḳhār-e bayābāñ par
 nah chhoṛī ḥaẓrat-e yūsuf ne yāñ bhī ḳhānah-ārāʾī
safedī dīdah-e yaʿqūb kī phirtī hai zindāñ par

fanā-taʿlīm-e dars-e be-ḳhvudī hūñ us zamāne se
kih majnūñ lām alif likhtā thā dīvār-e dabistāñ par

My heart trembles that, by its Razor of Radiance, the Sun's Sorrow so Ruthlessly is shorn
 I am Laceration's self-distilling tear-drop atop the blossomless Sahara's solitary thorn

Just as Joseph's prison cell, Pathos' Mother of Pearl so panels to adorn
Father Jacob's delving eyes' white, of its one light, yet forlorn

Mine is the schooling that reverses El's ciphering of Dream's Gates of Horn
Like Qais, his Lailah's Lamed Aleph, so of Love Nothing be born

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