Interpretation-Ghazal-58




1.
I have died,that was good,beauty was freed from the tug-of-war of coquetry,
As long as I was alive,every beautiful one was ensnared in the expression of coquettish graces,in order to make me mad for her.
(After me,now there is not another lover left at all in the world upon whom the beautiful ones would shower the arrows of their coquettish glances.)
(We know the beloved will no more be happy without a lover than tiger would be content to fore-go the tension of hunting its prey.)
2.
Now no one remained worthy of the ministry of the passion,
The post has become vacant,and along with that the airs and graces of the beloveds have become useless and void.
(Because of the airs and graces I am finished.As a punishment for this crime,the beloveds dismissed them,for because of their tyranny such a lover no longer remained.)
(All airs and graces are in utter disarray,without lover how can it function.)
3.
When a candle is extinguished,the flame that manifests itself by turning into smoke is in reality not smoke,but rather the flame becomes black-robed in mourning for the dead candle,
In the same way,after my death the flame of passion has become black-robed in grief.
(Without a doubt this is among the best verses in Urdu poetry.)
(After being extinguished,a candle can be relit,but the flame that submerges itself in blackness can not be lit again.)
4.
My heart,in the grave turns to blood at the state of the beloveds,
After my death,they gave up applying henna.
(The beautiful ones used to apply my blood as henna,so that in their henna there would be a brilliant colour like that of our blood.After my death,they were compelled to apply ordinary henna.)
(The beloved's habitually gouging and scratching my heart with her bloody fingernails.That is why when I see their fingernails without henna my liver and heart bursts in sympathy.)
5.
Now the display of the cruelty of injustice,the coquetry of the beloved finds no one on which its glory could fully display itself,
Thus the glance of coquetry is disgusted with collyrium.
(When no one can even endure the glance of those collyrium-stained eyes,then applying collyrium is useless.)
(Because I am not there to provide an ideally devoted and submissive audience for the coquettish glances,so the beloved decides to stop bothering with her eye makeup.)
(Because the coquettish glances worked all the well,and killed me,so that from now on they must be a bit toned down,to avoid such loses of suitable prey in the future.)
6.
After me,madness is becoming separated from the people of madness,
And tearing is becoming separated from the collar.
(It was me along who,in the turmoil of madness,seized my garment and turned the tearing of collar and the tearing of the garment-hem into the same act.Now nobody will be able to do this feat.)
(After me tearing would not come,even by accident,near any collar.The age will be devoid of accomplished ones,no such lover as I will be born again.)
7.
Who can withstand the man-killing wine of passion,not me I died of it,and not anybody else either,
After my death the cup-bearer often calls out for drinkers,but in vain.
(After my death the cup-bearer goes around calling out many times,who can withstand the man-killing wine of passion.)
(After me no buyer of the wine of passion remained.)
8.
I died of grief because along with my dying,love and faithfulness too would come to an end,
And then there is not even any body who would mourn for love and faithfulness after me.
(No one will even think to go and say a few words of consolation to love and faithfulness,who will be grieving for the irreplaceable of a lover like me.)
(I am so faithful that faithfulness itself will mourn for me.)
9.
Oh GHALIB,I weep for the loneliness and helplessness of passion,
After my death,who will become its host,and to whose house will the flood of disastrous-passion go.
(He has constructed passion itself as the flood of disasters.)
(I do not see anyone else the courage to accept this flood of disasters.)
(And then he shed tears for the flood of disaster's helplessness,that it will not find a place again.)
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