Reading and understanding a ghazal is unlike reading and understanding any other type of poetry, especially western poetry. We're used to looking for and explicating a linear argument. We want the poem as a whole, even if it's fragmented, to hang together and make sense. But that's not the way ghazals work. Frances Pritchett offers a way into the form:
Formally speaking, a ghazal is a set of two-line verses (they aren't technically "couplets," since in most of them the two lines don't rhyme). Ideally there are to be an odd number of them, and ideally the number is to be something like seven or nine. They share a strictly-defined Arabic-derived quantitative meter. And at the end of each verse they also share a common rhyme syllable, and after it usually common refrain word(s) as well. Beyond this, the verses of a ghazal share only the larger ghazal universe of stylized characters, scenes, actions, and images. A ghazal, in short, is a series of semantically independent two-line mini-poems that have a strong formal unity -- but usually no particular unity beyond that. Thus in performance, oral reciters and singers freely reorder the verses of a ghazal, and almost always omit a good number of them.
So abandon your desire to make some overall sense of any particular ghazal. You don't move from Point A to Point B in a ghazal. Rather, you dance around a strict rhythmic form with a specific set of repetitive words, and you see what gets created in the process. There are constellations of images that couplets in a ghazal might share (or they just as easily might be disparate in their imagery), but they usually possess a strong underlying sense of melancholy, of loneliness for love lost or unattainable.
The ghazals in your Norton Anthology are an interesting lot, because they take advantage of this lack of linearity in the form. The Norton ghazals are, on the main, reordered couplets from ghazals which are longer. V, for instance, actually contains ten couplets, in a different order than you have them in your text. Since the ghazal is not a linear form, this reordering and cherry-picking is easy to do.
The numbering of the ghazals in your Norton is also pretty arbitrary. It's based on a 1971 collection of some of Ghalib's ghazals by Aijaz Ahmad. The standard way of presenting a poet's work in Urdu is alphabetically, so, for instance, V here is actually number 48 in a proper divan of Ghalib's poetry.
Below is a contextualizing of Ghazal V, the first one in your Norton. For each couplet, you'll find a literal translation, some alternate translations, necessary definitions, and a collection of commentaries on the couplet.
'ishrat-e qạṭrah hai daryā meñ
fanā ho jānā
dard kā ḥad se guzarnā hai davā ho jānā
| Literal Translation: 1) the joy/sociability/mingling of the drop is, to become obliterated in the sea |
Norton, Thomas Fitzsimmons, trans: Waterbead ecstasy: dying in a stream;
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| Jim Yagmin, trans: The joy of the drop is to die in the river |
Jason Francisco, trans: The happiness of the drop: to die in the river. |
Definitions:
'ishrat : "Social or familiar intercourse, pleasant and familiar conversation, society; pleasure, enjoyment, mirth." (Platts p.761)
Commentaries:
Hali:
That is to say, when pain passes beyond the limit, he will die, that is, be obliterated, the way a drop is swallowed up in the sea; and this is his goal. Thus pain's passing beyond the limit is for it to turn into a medicine. p. 143 in Hali, Yadgar-e Ghalib
Nazm:
For pain to pass beyond the limit, that is, to bring about oblivion; and to attain oblivion is exactly the goal. (43)
Chishti:
Note: The first line is an illustration [tam;siil] of the second one. (392)
Frances Pritchett:
This is one of a number of drop-and-ocean verses; in general they seem to be mystically inclined, for obvious reasons.
In this one, we see the common "A - B" pattern of two abstract statements, with no indication how they're to be connected. Are they parallel cases? Contrasting cases? Two descriptions of the same case?
We know from . . . other verses that it's a proper ultimate destiny, and apparently a happy one, for the drop to merge into the sea and abandon its individual life (if in fact it ever had more than an illusory pretense of one). The drop starts in an unknown state; we are told only that its progress ends in an joyful mingling of obliteration. The lover starts in a state of pain, moves through a pain beyond all bounds, and ends with a cure: an obliteration of pain in death. These don't seem to be the same journey. But are they parallel ones, or contrasting ones?
To believe the journeys are parallel, we would need to see strong resemblances between the lover and the water-drop. The drop is made of water, it is water, and its merging with the sea is a homecoming. Can we say that the lover is made of pain, that in some sense his identity is pain, and that for him to be entirely submerged in pain, to the point of death, is an equally overwhelming (and curative) homecoming? Even for the ghazal, it sounds a bit extreme; moreover, the intolerable pain becomes a metaphorically detached "medicine" for the lover, not a medium in which he is submerged.
More plausibly, the two lines and the two journeys can be contrasted. For the drop, life is simple and untroubled: it anticipates a glorious, joyous, merging or homecoming of annihilation, in which will (re)gain its true essence. For the lover, by contrast, life is full of incurable and increasing pain, and the only end is the forced termination of being finally "put out his misery" by an unendurable extremity of pain. So the drop is much more fortunate than the lover.
What the drop and the lover have in common is a means of escape from life "here," in this finite, doomed world; but in all else they differ -- and greatly to the advantage of the drop.
ẓu'f se giryah mubaddal bah dam-e sard hu'ā
bāvar āyā hameñ pānī kā havā ho jānā
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Literal Translation: 1) from weakness, weeping became changed into cold breaths/sighs |
Norton, Thomas Fitzsimmons, trans: So weak now we weep sighs only;
|
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Jim Yagmin, trans: Our weakness has weakened even our tears |
Jason Francisco, trans: Our weakness: that our tears become mere sighs. |
Definitions:
mubaddal : "Changed, altered; exchanged; substituted." (Platts p.989)
dam : "Breath, vital air, life . . . ; --breath or blast (of a furnace or oven); a puff, whiff." (Platts p.525)
bāvar : "Belief, faith, confidence, trust, credit; —adj. True, credible, trustworthy." (Platts p.128)
Commentaries:
Nazm:
That is, previously we didn't understand the changing of one element into another; now we have tested it, and it has become credible. (43)
Bekhud Dihlavi:
Up till now we were not convinced about the problem of the changing of elements. But when we saw that because of weakness and feebleness, our weeping changed into cold sighs, then after such a test we were convinced. (86)
Bekhud Mohani:
There was such an excess of weakness that neither did blood remain in the body, nor did the strength for weeping remain in the heart. Now instead of tears dust flies in my eyes. Indeed, I constantly heave cold sighs. Now, through experience, I've understood the problem of the changing of elements -- that water becomes air. (109)
Frances Pritchett:
Ghalib suggests that the process of evaporation is analogous to the way weeping gives way to sighing after exhaustion sets in. If he had said that the process was identical, we'd have the official form of "elegance in assigning a cause." Instead, he presents his own experience as an illustrative example, a means of enhancing his understanding of scientific principles. For the lover, the whole cosmos revolves around the experience of passion: he accepts scientific principles only because they correspond to emotional realities. What teaches him about evaporation is not the observation of sun and water, but the experience of tears and sighs.
There's also a lovely bit of wordplay or "script play": hu'ā in the first line and havā in the second line are spelled identically. In fact at the end of the first line, the dam-e sard , "cold breaths/sighs," makes it very tempting to read the following word as havā, "air." This gives us, so to speak, two havā occurrences in the verse, along with bāvar to emphasize the sound effects. In addition, we have mubaddal bah dam, which contains the great aural phrase "baddal badam" that itself sounds like some kind of a small conversion.
hai mujhe abr-e bahārī kā baras kar khulnā
rote rote ġham-e farqat meñ fanā ho jānā
Literal Translation: 1) to me, the raining/bursting and opening/unravelling of the spring rain-cloud is |
Norton, Thomas Fitzsimmons, trans: Spring cloud thinning after rain:
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Jim Yagmin, trans: Spring clear after heavy rains it seems the cloud |
Jason Francisco, trans: After heavy rain, the spring cloud clears: |
Definitions:
barasnā : "To rain, be wet; to fall like rain, fall in showers, be poured or showered down; to be showered, shed, scattered; . . . to burst, discharge (as a boil)." (Platts p.147)
khulnā: "To open, come open or undone; to open, expand . . . ; to open out, unravel; to be opened (as a knot)." (Platts p.871)
Commentaries:
Hali:
That is to say, to weep and weep in the grief of separation and be finished off is, in my view, as commonplace a thing as for the spring clouds to open and rain down. This is an entirely original simile.
in Hali, Yadgar-e Ghalib
Nazm:
That is, to weep and weep until I die is for me a cause for joy. I consider it to be like the way the clouds rained down and became a cause for joy. The excellence in this is the freshness of the simile. (43)
Bekhud Mohani:
The refinement and colorfulness of the simile is worthy of praise. (109)
Frances Pritchett:
This verse is an obvious companion piece to {48,5}. Compared to that one it's an even clearer example of "elegance in assigning a cause," because the equation is made explicit. The speaker maintains that in his opinion the bursting open and raining down, and thus the vanishing, of the spring rainclouds "is" their weeping their hearts out in the grief of separation, until they become entirely empty and obliterated.
Thus the macrocosm is identified with the microcosm: the causes that inform the lover's behavior operate on the spring rainclouds as well. Not that this claim is made with a show of objectivity: on the contrary, it is true "to me" [mujhe]. But what else does the ghazal universe consist of, except the passionate lover's subjectivity?
tā kih tujh par khule i'jāz-e havā-e ṣaiqal
dekh barsāt meñ sabz ā'ine kā ho jānā
Literal Translation: 1a) so that the wonder/miracle of the desire for polishing would {open/be revealed} to you 2) look at, during the rainy season, the becoming green/grey of the mirror |
Norton, Thomas Fitzsimmons, trans: Would you riddle the miracle of the wind's shaping?
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Jim Yagmin, trans: To understand the wonder of an air that cleans |
Jason Francisco, trans: The miracle of the polishing winds and mildew: |
Definitions:
i'jāz : "Disappointment; wonder, astonishment, amazement, surprise, a miracle." (Platts p.60)
havā : "Air, atmosphere, ether, the space between heaven and earth; . . . --affection, favour, love, mind, desire, passionate fondness; lust, carnal desire, concupiscence;--an empty or worthless thing." (Platts p.1239)
ṣaiqal : "A polisher, furbisher; (in Hind. and Persian) polishing, polish, cleaning (arms or tools); furbishing; --a polishing instrument." (Platts p.747-48)
sabz : "Green, verdant; fresh; flourishing; raw, unripe; grey-coloured or iron-grey (a horse); of a bluish hue; black, dark." (Platts p.632)
Commentaries:
Nazm:
In the rainy season, verdigris [zangār] develops on a metal mirror -- as if it's greenery which the cleansing air has created . . . The conclusion is that ardor is something that has an effect even on metal. (44)
Hasrat:
The poet's point is that nowadays the miracle of desire has increased to such a degree that in desire [havā] too the same effect and miraculous power has come to exist, as is in the real air [havā]. (47)
Bekhud Dihlavi:
From the air of the rainy season, verdigris [zang] appears on a metal mirror. Mirza Sahib says, by way of an example, that the effect of the spring season is apparent not only in the garden and the wilderness, but rather, even a metal mirror is influenced by it. The meaning is that one ought to find rest and enjoyment in the air of spring. (86-87)
Bekhud Mohani:
Solution 1: If you want to see the miracle-working power of the air of spring, then look how in the rainy season even a metal mirror becomes green. That is, the spring air is something that has the power not only to bring about growth in plants, and vitality in animals, and enthusiasm and increased beauty in humans. Rather, even a hard thing like metal is not deprived of its benefit and effect-- the color of spring has overspread it too.
Number 2: The longing to create color and form afresh, and the desire for a renewal of ardor, show us miracles. If you want to understand this problem, then take a look at a metal mirror. In the rainy season, verdigris [zang] runs over it so that it will again shine brightly after polishing. (110)
Faruqi:
Because the polisher is in the capacity of the beloved or the desired one, and the polisher gives attention to the mirror only when it is covered with verdigris [zang], the mirror, because of its intensity of emotion, makes itself verdigris-covered. It's impossible to do sufficient justice to this "delicacy of thought" . . .
The polishing done by spring is that greenness that silently appears and fills in brownness, colorlessness, the ugly earth, with greenness. The polishing breeze has such an intensity of effect that even the metal polish-marks of the mirror can't help but be affected by it, and the mirror too becomes green. The simile of greenery for polish-marks on metal Ghalib has used elsewhere: {217,2}. . . .
Anyway, let's now consider the wordplay [in both verses of the verse-set, this one and {48,9}, taken together]: glory/appearance and spectacle; rose and color; eye and color; . . . color and the greenness of the mirror; eye and mirror; rose (red flower) and a green color; an open eye and seeing; and the delight on top of delight is that one is being invited to look at a green mirror -- that is, a mirror in which nothing can be seen. And instead of looking into a mirror, one is asked to look at the mirror. The glory/appearance of the rose and the spring; . . . spectacle and look. In short, it's a mirror-chamber in which the mind loses itself. (1989: 61) [2006: 76-78]
Frances Pritchett:
This verse marks the end of a two-verse verse-set that includes {48,9-10}. The two verses are united by their emphasis on the importance of seeing nature -- with, of course, the right kind of revelatory vision.
This is another of Ghalib's many "mirror" verses. For more on the "rainy season," see {48,7}.
Faruqi explicates first (1a), then (1b), showing how havaa-e .saiqal can be read with remarkable sophistication and effectiveness in both senses. (The passages here are excerpted from a longer discussion; as always, he is well worth reading in the original.) If we read "desire for polishing," we have the mirror as an ardent lover, doing anything necessary to solicit the beloved's attention, no matter how harsh or painful the form that attention will take. And if we read "cleansing air," we have the radiant greenness of the rainy season showing its creative, revitalizing power -- even on a metal mirror.
Truly, it's a marvelous verse. The two readings of the first line are so striking, and so strikingly different, and yet they both work most remarkably with the second line. Here is Ghalib being Ghalib.
The meaning of i'jāz as "disappointment," which presumably comes from the root meaning of 'jāz, "to lack strength," is one that I've never encountered; and the only other time in the divan that the word appears, the sense is certainly "miracle, wonder." But if we do take "disappointment" as a secondary meaning in the present verse, that too-- such is the "miracle" of Ghalib's word-sense -- works elegantly with the second line. For the greening or greying of the mirror can just as readily signify a failure, a weakness, a disappointment of desire, as it can signal a passionate desire for polishing, or the verdant "greening" of springtime.
Though it doesn't insist on it, the verse also offers a double instance of "elegance in assigning a cause." Did you think you knew why mirrors go green in the rainy season? Well, think again -- here are two new causes, both of them witty and revelatory.
baḳhshe hai jalvah-e gul żauq-e tamāshā ġhālib
chashm ko chāhiye har rang meñ vā ho jānā
Literal Translation: 1) the glory/appearance of the rose bestows a relish for spectacle, Ghalib |
Norton, Thomas Fitzsimmons, trans: Rose, Ghalib, the rose changes give us joy in seeing.
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Jim Yagmin, trans: The rose is budding a desire for its witness |
Jason Francisco, trans: The rose guards the desire to see, Ghalib! |
Definitions:
rang : "Colour, colouring matter, pigment, paint, dye; colour, tint, hue, complexion; beauty, bloom; expression, countenance, appearance, aspect; fashion, style; character, nature; mood, mode, manner, method; kind, sort; state, condition." (Platts p.601)
Commentaries:
Nazm:
That is, seeing flowers of many colors blooming in the garden, there is born a relish to have the eye remain open in every color/mood, and see every kind of sight. . . . The second line explicates the "relish for spectacle." (44)
Bekhud Mohani:
Oh Ghalib, the springtime/flourishing of flowers gives pleasure. The duty of humans is that in whatever state they might be, they should behold the scenery of the world. (110)
Faruqi:
In former times it was a common custom to end a ghazal with a verse-set, and in order to indicate where the verse-set begins, they put the pen-name in its first verse. By Ghalib's time this custom had not remained very prevalent, but neither had it entirely vanished. Thus these two verses are of this type. Those editors of the dīvān-e ġhālib who didn't know about this custom have assumed the verse with the pen-name to be the closing-verse and have put it at the end. (59)
Frances Pritchett:
This marks the beginning of a two-verse verse-set that includes {48,10}. Some editors, including Hamid, don't mark the verse-set, and reverse the order of the two verses so that the formal closing-verse is at the very end. As always, I follow Arshi.
This stark verse feels very modern, doesn't it? The rose's glory/appearance lures us on, so that we crave to see and enjoy the loveliness of the world, we have a relish for its "spectacle." But there's no good cheer here, no emphasis on the beauties of nature or the flowers that bloom in the spring. The second line is suddenly bleak: the eye should, no matter what, be open. We humans should look fate in the eye. Although it shouldn't be forgotten that sometimes that eye is a mystical one.
Of course there's also the wordplay of har rang meñ, in every "color/ style/ mood/ aspect"; "color" is exactly the chief glory of the rose, and the source of its allure. But the rose's color is all too probably a dazzling veneer that coats a darker reality. It gives us a relish for looking at the world. And looking at the world seems to be a kind of grim act of noblesse oblige, a requirement of fully human integrity: the eye "ought to" become open, no matter what kind of reality it is destined to behold.
In any case, the other verse of the verse-set, {48,10}, with its imagery of the mirror and the spring greenery, gives a more fruitful and hopeful twist to the idea of looking.