Ghazal 47, Verse 4x

{47,4x}

asad saa;Gar-kash-e tasliim ho gardish se garduu;N kii
kih nang-e fahm-e mastaa;N hai gilah bad-rozgaarii kaa

1) Asad, be a deep-drinker of acceptance, toward the going-round of the sphere/wheel
2) for a disgrace to the understanding of the intoxicated ones, is the complaint of ill-payment

Notes:

saa;Gar-kash : 'One who drains his cup, a toper'. (Platts p.625)

 

tasliim : 'Saluting, greeting; salutation, obeisance, homage ... ; surrender, resignation; conceding, acknowledging, granting; assenting to, accepting'. (Platts p.324)

 

gardish : 'Going round, turning round, revolution; circulation; roll; course; period; turn, change; vicissitude; reversion; —adverse fortune, adversity; —wandering about, vagrancy'. (Platts p.903)

 

garduun : 'A wheel; the heavens, the firmament, the celestial globe or sphere; chance, fortune (and her revolving wheel)'. (Platts p.903)

 

fahm : 'Understanding, conception, perception, apprehension, comprehension, intellect, intelligence, sense'. (Platts p.784)

 

rozgaarii : 'Serving; earning; —one who earns'. (Platts p.605)

Zamin:

The meaning is that if the going-round of the sky has bestowed on you adversity, then adopt patience/endurance (drink the cup of acceptance), because the intoxicated and rakish ones are not devoid of understanding like the worldly ones who abandon the going-round of the wineglass and settle down to complain of the going-round of the heavens.

== Zamin, p. 63

Gyan Chand:

The sky revolves, and brings many kinds of wonders/tricks. The poet has likened the going-round of the heavens to the going-round of the wineglass. He says that through this going-round you should drink up the cup of acceptance. That is, whatever the sky might show, bow your head in acceptance/submission before it, because to complain of a bad situation is, in the understanding of the rakish ones, a cause of disgrace. What are the ups and downs of the world, that they should be complained about? [That is, they are trivial and insignificant.]

== Gyan Chand, p. 101

FWP:

SETS
SKY {15,7}
WINE: {49,1}

For background see S. R. Faruqi's choices. This verse is NOT one of his choices; I thought it was interesting and have added it myself. For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}.

Though it wasn't chosen for the divan, this was the closing-verse of the original ghazal.

To complain about the gardish of the garduu;N -- about the going-round of something that inherently and inevitably goes round (see the definitions above)-- would do no credit to one's intelligence or understanding. For it would imply that the complainer expected something different, something fairer and better-- that he thought of himself as, say, a good worker who was unjustly deprived of his proper earnings, and so had suffered bad-rozgaarii . What a foolish kind of complaint! Any such complainer is explicitly admonished in {46,2}.

For the 'intoxicated ones' of course know better. They have no unrealistic expectations; they don't humiliate themselves, and show their foolishness, by whining about the injustice of the heavens. For they have their own refuge, and it too is another form of going-round. It is the going-round of the wine-flagons that is their real and final concern.