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0480,
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{480,1}

kis :taur hame;N ko))ii farebandah lubhaa le
aa;xir hai;N tirii aa;Nkho;N ke ham dekhne-vaale

1) in what way would/could any deceiver allure/entice us?!
2) after all, we are your companion/trainee/'eye-seer'

 

Notes:

farebandah : 'Deceiving; delusive; fallacious; —a deceiver'. (Platts p.780)

 

lubhaanaa : 'To tantalize, to cause (one) to covet; to allure, attract (by), entice, tempt, seduce; to draw or win over; to fascinate, charm'. (Platts p.949)

*Platts Dictionary Online*

S. R. Faruqi:

The opening-verse is by way of an introduction. Except for the wordplay of aa;Nkho;N and dekhne-vaale , there's nothing in it. The meaning of kisii kii aa;Nkh / aa;Nkhe;N dekhnaa or kisii kii aa;Nkh / aa;Nkhe;N dekhe hu))e honaa is 'to be a companion of someone, to have been trained by someone'.

This theme, that 'he who has looked at you will never look toward anyone else', Sa'di has [in Persian] raised to the level of the skies:

'Alas for the eye that has never seen your face,
Or has seen it, and after you looks at someone else!'

In truth, after this, Mir ought not to have made an attempt. Sa'di's verse is the height of 'mood' and 'tumult-arousingness'.

FWP:

SETS == IDIOMS
MOTIFS
NAMES
TERMS == RHYME

Oh, here I don't think SRF gives Mir's verse nearly enough credit. Consider Ghalib's irresistibly convoluted

G{97,6},

which highlights the treacherousness of the beloved, who 'would deny the very possibility of faithfulness'. Since she is so deceitful herself, why should the lover worry about the presence or fortunes of any Other? She will easily out-deceive any potential deceiver.

The present verse strongly implies a parallel situation. Who could possibly trick or deceive the lover, and how? After all, he has been trained by an expert! He has spent time with, or under the supervision of, the beloved-- with the deceiver of all deceivers. Any other would-be deceiver could only seem childish and naive by comparison. This reading gives the verse a wonderfully sarcastic punch.

But there's another possibility as well. After all, the normal meaning of dekhne-vaalaa is the active 'seer, beholder', rather than the passive 'seen, beheld' sense invoked by SRF. The passive sense certainly evokes the idiom, which is a delightful effect. But in addition, ham terii aa;Nkho;N ke dekhne-vaale hai;N can hardly fail to mean 'We are a seer/beholder of your eyes'. Once the speaker has looked into the beloved's eyes, he's immune to everything (else) that's alluring or deceitful. Is this because of the beloved's supreme (and possibly mystical) beauty, or because of her own supreme trickiness or treachery? (Or, of course, both?) As so often, we're left to decide for ourselves.

Note for meter fans: This ghazal has no refrain, but how should we describe its rhyme? In the two lines of this opening-verse we have the two possibilities: as aa le , or as aale . Either way, of course, we'll have many deviations. Since it's a nine-verse ghazal, there are ten instances of the rhyme. As it happens, five go each way, so we can take our pick. The real moral is, in my view, that Mir didn't bother much at all about the kind of trivial irregularities or 'flaws' [((aib] that some later critics love to castigate.