hu))ii yih ka;srat-e ;Gam se talaf kaifiyyat-e
shaadii
kih .sub;h-e ((iid mujh ko badtar az chaak-e garebaa;N hai
1) from excess/abundance of grief, to such an extent
the mood of joy was ruined/wasted!
2) {since / in that} the dawn of 'Id to me is {worse than / inferior to}
the tearing of the collar
ka;srat : 'Multitude, plenty, abundance, superfluity, excess, glut; plurality, multiplicity'. (Platts p.817)
talaf : 'Perishing; ruin, destruction, loss; profusion, prodigality, waste, consumption, expense; ... talaf honaa , v.n. To perish, to be destroyed or ruined; to be wasted; to meet with a loss, be unfortunate'. (Platts p.334)
He says, from an excess of grief, to such an extent joy has been erased that in my sight the dawn of 'Id is worse even than the tearing of the collar. (311)
[Disagreeing with Nazm:] When all the poets always versify it, and not even any reason for renouncing it is presented, what will we call this [objection] except 'inspiration'? (460)
SETS == KIH
CHAK-E GAREBAN: {17,9}
Indeed, what does that obtrusive, oddly-placed yih modify? We really have to go with the consensus of the commentators and read it as 'to such an extent'. For if we don't, the line in prose order has to read: yih kaifiyyat-e shaadii ka;srat-e ;Gam se talaf hu))ii . There are two problems here: the line then offers no antecedent whatsoever for what the yih could refer to; and such an antecedent is needed especially because whatever it is is now over, and thus not immediate. In addition, the line separates the yih almost impossibly far from its real, prose-order position befire kaifiyyat .
The first line does, to its credit, provide a particularly subtle and elegant wordplay between ka;srat as 'excess' or 'glut', and the meaning (see the definition above) of talaf as 'profusion' or 'waste'. The fact that talaf is so remote from the hu))ii that establishes it as part of a verb construction, encourages us to take it as a noun, and thus activate this wordplay.
Why is the dawn of 'Id compared to the tearing of the lover's collar? (For more examples, and discussion, of this collar-tearing motif, see {17,9}.) Because the dawn first shows itself as a white line along the horizon, like a narrow bright slash in the darkness; thus its shape resembles the neck-opening of a kurta. (Compare {166,1}, in which the dawn of Doomsday is compared to the narrow white line of a 'teeth-baring smile'.) And after that first white slash appears, dawn then opens itself out and widens into day-- the way the mad lover, in his frenzied grief, rips open the neck of his kurta.
And when the time comes to put the two lines together, the little kih shows its own versatility. One of the meanings it can have is 'consequently' or 'therefore': in this 'A causes B' reading, the change from joy to melancholy causes me to prefer tearing my collar over the joyous festival of 'Id. But the kih can also mean merely 'such that', so the second line may only illustrate the situation described in the first one.
Nazm:
All the poets always versify the word yih to mean 'to this extent', but it seems that this is worthy of being renounced. (254)