zahr miltaa hii nahii;N mujh ko sitamgar
varnah
kyaa qasam hai tire milne kii kih khaa bhii nah sakuu;N
1) I can't even get poison, tyrant, otherwise
2) is it a vow about/against meeting/getting you, that I wouldn't even be
able to take/'eat' it?
When they say someone has taken a vow about doing something, it means that he refuses to do that thing. So how could the lover take a vow about meeting the beloved? Thus he says that poison is not a vow about meeting you, that I can’t take it; but because I can’t get it, for that reason I can’t take it. (146)
It's clear that the beloved's tyranny and the lover's oppressedness have reached such a limit that he wants to take poison and give up his life. And at the same time it's also clear that despite this state, it's impossible for him to take a vow about meeting the beloved.
[As for Nazm's complaint about the three k's:] Undoubtedly. But no Ustad is safe from this. (183)
[In view of the flaw pointed out by Nazm,] in this way this defect can be removed: kyaa qasam hai tire milne kii jo khaa bhii nah sakuu;N.
In the refrain of all three verses, there are two meanings. The aanaa of a person, and of time; the u;Thaanaa of words, and of a head; the khaanaa of poison, and of an oath. (258)
The meaning of the verse is, oh cruel one, you've kept me always deprived of a meeting, and thus encouraged me to die and take poison. I can't even get poison, otherwise-- it's not a vow about meeting you, that I won't be able to take it. That is, I don't get to meet you-- as though you've taken a vow about meeting me. (179)
SETS == VARNAH
SOUND EFFECTS: {26,7}
Some general comments about this ghazal appear in {89,1}.
This final verse is, to my mind, the cleverest of the lot, though all three work along the same lines. The second line gives us parenthetical knowledge as well as overt information: 'Is it [=poison] a vow about meeting you (which I could never take), that [I] can’t take [it]? Although in English we don't 'eat' vows or poison, we luckily 'take' both of them, so the effect of the shared verb can be pretty well recreated. And although in English a 'vow of meeting you' [tire milne kii qasam] has an affirmative feel, in Urdu in this case it's definitely to be taken negatively, as something like 'swearing off' an action.
The presence of varnah means that the second line can be read either in the future subjunctive (which seems to be the primary meaning), or as a kind of implicit contrafactual (an explanation not of future possibilities, but of past actions).
The 'flaw' [((aib] in the second line, of having three kaaf sounds in a row [kii kih khaa] could have easily been remedied, as Shadan notes. And when you realize that the first consonant in the line, and the last, are also both kaaf, and that that the second is the closely allied qaaf-- well, it's hard to believe that Ghalib isn't setting up this effect on purpose. The effect is not pretty, but rather seems bumpy and abrupt. Could we say that this is an effect appropriate to the harsh nature of the line?
Josh points out an additional bit of cleverness-- that perhaps the tyrant's tyranny consists in refusing to meet the lover. The proper revenge would of course be for him to swear not to meet her either. But this he can't do-- just as he can't even get (literally, 'meet') the poison that would rescue him from his suffering.
For other clever exploitations of the possibilities of qasam , see {123,6}, {136,2}, {167,3}, {170,7}, and {176,7}. And for an even greater similarly, take a way look at {20,3}, which plays with ba;Ndhnaa in the same literal vs. metaphorical way that this one plays with khaanaa .
Nazm:
In the last line there is a remarkable violation of decorum [;Ga.zab kaa tanaafur]-- three kaaf occurrences have been run right up against each other. (88)