us chashm-e fusuu;N-gar kaa agar paa))e
ishaarah
:tuu:tii kii :tara;h aa))inah guftaar me;N aave
1) if it would obtain a sign/gesture from that spell-casting
eye
2) like a parrot, the mirror would enter into speech
He says, if it would obtain a sign/gesture from her spell-casting eye, then the mirror too, like a parrot, would begin to speak. (249)
First of all, the association of parrots with mirrors is well-known; often they put a picture of a parrot on the back of a mirror. The second meaning is also that when she speaks in signs/gestures, then those with understanding consider that a sweet-speaking parrot is warbling. (338)
MIRROR: {8,3}
Bekhud Mohani says that people often put a picture of a parrot on the back of a mirror. And pet owners (and experimenters) often provide parrots with mirrors, to see how the birds will react. (Do they recognize themselves? Do they talk to the mirror-parrot as to another bird?) So parrots and mirrors have their own relationship already. For more on such parrot-and-mirror verses, see {29,2}.
The mirror is a passive, dead, reflector, while the parrot is an active, living, sound-producer, so the two are radically different. Yet there's a strong similarity as well: the mirror is an imitator of one's appearance; the parrot is an imitator of one's voice. The beloved's smallest sign or gesture is so potent that it overrides the boundaries between the two: when the mirror perceives/reflects the beloved's gesture, it 'becomes' a parrot, and begins to speak.
What is the nature of the 'sign/gesture' that inspires the parrot?
=It could be simply that the irresistible beauty of the beloved's every eyelash-flicker moves the parrot to transcendance. Her gesture, reflected in the mirror, might not even have been intended for the parrot in the first place.
=It could be that the beloved has given a particular sign of command to the parror: 'Speak!' (since this event is hypothetical anyway, and all the verbs are in the subjunctive). Her imperiousness and powers of command at once compel the parrot's obedience.
=It could be that the beloved is a magician, and has deliberately enchanted the parrot, and the sign is a magic invocation of some sort. This wouldn't be at all surprising, either metaphorically (in English too, we use 'enchanting' for beauty), or literally-- for though magic is forbidden to good Muslims, we know that the beloved is an 'idol' and/or an 'infidel'. Who if not she would have access to all the powers of darkness?
Nazm:
The beloved's eye famously has the quality that it would speak through a sign/gesture. So when that sign/gesture would be visible in the mirror, the mirror too will speak like a parrot. Here the author has rejected the word 'speaking' [su;xan-go] in favor of 'spell-casting' because for a mirror to speak is unusual and magical. (193)