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
fusuun : 'Enchantment, incantation, fascination'. (Platts p.781)
aave is an archaic form of aa))e (GRAMMAR)
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)
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' (or sometimes an 'infidel'). Who if not she would have access to all the powers of 'enchantment, incantation' (the literal meaning of fusuu;N )?
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)
== Nazm page 193