Chehel Asrar 14 - Fourteenth Ghazal

Ghazal 14

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 456–457

چُون جَمالَش جِلْوِه بَر خُورْشِیدِ تابان مِی‌کُنَد

chūn jamāl-ash jelve bar khorshīd-e tābān mī-konad

1a  When his beauty reveals itself upon the radiant sun,

آفْتاب اَز رَشْکِ حُسْنَش رُوی پِنْهان مِی‌کُنَد

āftāb az rashk-e hosn-ash rūy penhān mī-konad

1b  the sun hides its face in envy of his loveliness.

Commentary on couplet 1

The sun becomes a rival whose own brilliance cannot withstand the beloved’s appearance. Beauty reveals itself, yet that revelation causes another face to hide: disclosure and concealment work together within the same encounter. The personification gives envy a cosmic scale, while leaving the beloved’s loveliness more compelling than the ordinary measure of radiance. An Akbarian comparison can illuminate this reach: a Futūḥāt passage translated by Morris describes beauty flowing throughout creation.[7] The comparison does not decide whether the sun here is a technical site of divine disclosure or simply a defeated competitor. The poem begins with the visible world’s response, allowing human admiration and a devotional reading of beauty to remain connected possibilities rather than mutually exclusive explanations.

تا پَرِیشان گَشْت زُلْفَش بَر رُخِ چُون آفْتاب

tā parīshān gasht zolf-ash bar rokh-e chūn āftāb

2a  Since his tresses scattered across his sunlike face,

بادِ شَوْقَش اَبْرِ جانَم را پَرِیشان مِی‌کُنَد

bād-e showq-ash abr-e jān-am rā parīshān mī-konad

2b  the wind of longing for him scatters the cloud of my soul.

Commentary on couplet 2

The beloved’s scattered hair finds an answering disturbance in the lover’s soul. Parīshān appears in both halves, making the disorder of the visible tresses pass into the inward life through the wind of longing. The soul becomes a cloud, something that can gather and dissolve under a force it does not control. Against the sunlike face, the dark tresses and moving cloud create a changing scene of brightness and obscuration. The verse makes attraction dynamic: beauty does not merely stand before a detached observer but alters the observer’s condition. Its disorder can suggest delight, bewilderment, or distress together. Nothing requires the hair to signify one fixed doctrine; its immediate work is to show how the beloved’s appearance unsettles the lover.

تِیرِ عِشْقَش کَز کَمانِ اَبْرُوان گَرْدَد رَها

tīr-e ʿeshq-ash k-az kamān-e abrūvān gardad rahā

3a  The arrow of his love, released from the bow of his brows,

عَقْل را مِی‌دُوزَد و قَصْدِ دِل و جان مِی‌کُنَد

ʿaql rā mī-dūzad o qasd-e del o jān mī-konad

3b  pins reason down and aims to take both heart and soul.

Commentary on couplet 3

The beloved’s brows become a bow, and love’s arrow first pins reason before aiming at heart and soul. Mī-dūzad suggests piercing or fastening, making reason unable to move freely under the impact. The second half extends the threat from a faculty to the lover’s whole being. Beauty’s effect is therefore more than an interesting thought: it interrupts the position from which the lover might calculate or negotiate the encounter. This is a portrait of reason overcome in love, not by itself a verdict against every form of understanding. The bodily weaponry gives attraction its force and vulnerability. Read spiritually, the arrow can expose the fragility of self-command; read as love poetry, it retains the danger of becoming answerable to another.

سَرْو آزادِی کُنَد اَز سَرْوِ قَدَّش دَر چَمَن

sarv āzādī konad az sarv-e qadd-ash dar chaman

4a  The cypress in the garden gives thanks for his cypress stature [1]

چُون هَوایِ باغ آن سَرْوِ خَرامان مِی‌کُنَد

chūn havā-ye bāgh ān sarv-e kharāmān mī-konad

4b  whenever that swaying cypress longs for the garden.

Commentary on couplet 4

A garden cypress gives thanks when the walking cypress of the beloved desires the garden. The repeated tree image transfers upright grace into human movement, then lets the actual tree acknowledge its living counterpart. The supplied sense of āzādī kardan, giving thanks, is attested in Farhang-e Nafīsī.[8] Its association with freedom adds another resonance to the unconfined, graceful bearing of the beloved. The grateful cypress responds differently from the envious sun: natural beauty can recognize a greater beauty with pleasure as well as rivalry. Havā here concerns inclination toward the garden, making the scene anticipatory and animated. This quieter couplet gives admiration room to become gratitude amid the poem’s more disruptive images of longing.

نالِهایِ آتَشِینَم دَر فِراقَش هَر سَحَر

nāle-hā-ye ātashīn-am dar ferāq-ash har sahar

5a  Each dawn, my fiery laments at our separation [2]

قَصْدِ اِحْراقِ حُجُب بالایِ کَیْوان مِی‌کُنَد

qasd-e ehrāq-e hojob bālā-ye Kayvān mī-konad

5b  seek to burn away the veils above Saturn.

Commentary on couplet 5

At each dawn, separation becomes a fire carried upward by the lover’s lament. Its intended reach extends above Saturn, the outermost of the seven traditional planetary spheres in the Ptolemaic ordering described by Gingerich.[9] The detail enlarges the lament’s ambition without identifying Saturn as the boundary of everything that exists. Hojob, veils, names what still obstructs encounter at these imagined heights. The repeated qasd, intention or aim, also answers the love-arrow’s earlier assault: the wounded lover now directs an answering force toward concealment. The verb describes an attempt, so the veils need not already have burned away. Dawn renews the desire for disclosure, giving the vast celestial image the rhythm of repeated personal grief.

چَرْخ چُون تابِ غَمَش ناوَرْد زِین رُو هَر زَمان

charkh chūn tāb-e gham-ash nāvard z-īn rū har zamān

6a  Since the heavens could not bear his sorrow, for that reason, at every moment,

جانِ ما اَفْسُوس بَر گَرْدُونِ گَرْدان مِی‌کُنَد

jān-e mā afsūs bar gardūn-e gardān mī-konad

6b  our soul mocks the revolving sphere. [3]

Commentary on couplet 6

The heavens fail to bear the beloved’s sorrow, and the human soul answers their ceaseless rotation with mockery. Afsūs kardan is retained in the classical sense of derision, attested in Moʿīn’s dictionary.[8] The change from cosmic grandeur to incapacity lets the small sufferer challenge what usually seems overwhelming. A related pattern appears in Qur’an 33:72, where the heavens decline the trust that humanity assumes.[10] This is a possible resonance, not proof that the poem’s sorrow simply means that trust. The Qur’anic verse also criticizes human wrongdoing and ignorance, so it cannot serve as uncomplicated confirmation of the speaker’s boast. The ghazal’s audacity remains audible: bearing love’s pain gives the soul a new measure of the heavens.

گَر دَمِی وَصْلَش بِصَد جانَت مُیَسَّر مِی‌شَوَد

gar damī vasl-ash be-sad jān-at moyassar mī-shavad

7a  If one moment of union with him can be yours for a hundred lives,

رَو گِران‌جانِی مَکُن چُون دُوسْت اَرْزان مِی‌کُنَد

row gerān-jānī makon chūn dūst arzān mī-konad

7b  go, do not cling so heavily to life when the friend offers it so cheaply. [4]

Commentary on couplet 7

The poem turns from description to direct advice: accept a moment of union even at the price of a hundred lives. Gerān joins heaviness with high price, while arzān declares the seemingly impossible bargain cheap. Gerān-jānī consequently suggests both clinging heavily to life and haggling over what the lover will surrender. The exaggeration measures the incomparable value of an encounter, rather than offering a literal account of payment. Its conditional opening still leaves union a possibility, not an entitlement. The Friend’s favorable offer introduces generosity into the transaction: willingness alone does not set the terms. The verse asks what the lover values most, expressing wholehearted commitment through a price no ordinary calculation can make proportionate.

جان کِه شِیبِ خاک دامَنْگِیرِ اُو شُد جان نَبُرْد

jān ke shīb-e khāk dāmangīr-e ū shod jān nabord

8a  The soul whose skirts are caught by earth’s downward pull cannot escape alive,

کُو بِجُرْأَت قَصْدِ خَلْوَت‌گاهِ سُلْطان مِی‌کُنَد

k-ū be-jorʾat qasd-e khalvat-gāh-e soltān mī-konad

8b  for it boldly seeks the Sultan’s private chamber.

Commentary on couplet 8

A soul whose skirts are caught by earth’s downward pull nevertheless attempts the Sultan’s private chamber. The contrast between entanglement and bold access makes the approach dangerous. It can warn against presumption before the attachments that obstruct intimacy have loosened; the preceding price of union also lets the threat of losing one’s protected identity resonate. Neither possibility guarantees successful arrival. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name, compares divine approach with royal service requiring adab, fitting conduct, and guidance from those familiar with the court.[6] This is a close contextual parallel, with the attribution qualification recorded below. The private chamber gives intimacy a threshold: desire to enter must confront the conditions of the one who seeks admission.

گَر بِدِین جانِ مُحَقَّر اَز عَلایِی قانِعَنْد

gar be-dīn jān-e mohaqqar az ʿAlāʾī qāneʿ-and

9a  If they are content with this paltry life from ʿAlāʾī,

خُوش بَراَفْشان، گَر چُو لُطْفَش کار آسان مِی‌کُنَد

khosh barafshān, gar cho lotf-ash kār āsān mī-konad

9b  gladly pour it out, since his grace makes the task easy. [5]

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing name places ʿAlāʾī’s own small offering beside the extravagant price just proposed. If this life is accepted, the speaker urges its generous release, with gracious kindness making the act possible. The linkage gar cho remains awkward, so the supplied interpretation of the exhortation is provisional. The first half’s plural form also leaves the receiving subject unspecified. What is clearer is the change of scale: the life clung to as precious can be offered as little, while luṭf, gracious gentleness, answers the preceding danger. Darwīshiyya similarly joins demanding self-examination with hope in generosity that cleanses and rescues.[6] The comparison supports the turn toward grace without resolving the syntax. The poem closes through encouraged giving rather than a secure claim of possession.

Reading notes

[1] 4a: Āzādī kardan has the classical sense “to give thanks”; it also recalls the cypress’s freedom and uprightness.

[2] 5a: نالهای is retained as the source’s contracted spelling of nāle-hā-ye, “laments of.”

[3] 6b: Afsūs kardan is read in its classical sense “to mock, deride.”

[4] 7b: Gerān, “heavy/dear,” plays against arzān, “cheap”: do not haggle over the price of union.

[5] 9b: The linkage گر چو is awkward; the translation provisionally takes the close as an encouragement to offer one’s life.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal explores how beauty overturns familiar measures of power and value. The sun hides, the soul becomes a scattered cloud, reason is pinned, and the heavens prove unable to bear the beloved’s sorrow. These are varied responses to one attraction rather than steps in a single necessary sequence. The cypress’s gratitude provides a gentler alternative to envy and assault. Beauty can disturb, expose, and invite acknowledgment; the poem preserves those differences instead of making every image convey the same inward event.

The speaker becomes increasingly involved in what is described. Cosmic rivalry gives way to ‘my soul’ and the laments of separation, then to ‘our soul,’ direct counsel, and finally the name ʿAlāʾī. Alongside that changing voice, the repeated qasd links love’s arrow, the lament’s assault on veils, and the soul’s attempt to approach the private chamber. The lover is both acted upon and moved to act. The encounter never becomes a neutral object of knowledge, but this does not require the poem to deny every role for thought or to resolve the beloved into one fixed symbolic identity.

The later couplets test the audacity of the earlier ones. Mocking the heavens is easier than relinquishing what catches the soul’s skirts. A moment of union may be worth a hundred lives, yet boldness alone cannot settle the terms of admission. Darwīshiyya offers relevant contexts in its concern for preparation before the royal presence and for grace alongside self-scrutiny.[6] These parallels help explain the tension between aspiration and receptivity. The private chamber remains an image of intimacy whose approach can expose the very self-attachment that longing has not yet undone.

The final offer gathers this tension into a small, uncertain act. The awkward wording prevents a fully settled grammatical reading, but the supplied interpretation allows gracious kindness to answer the fear and cost of surrender. The life called paltry is still the life the speaker must give. This is the poem’s most intimate reversal of value: the lover who imagines challenging the heavens is finally asked to release a claim much nearer at hand. Beauty’s power becomes decisive where the voice of vast longing can answer with a particular offering.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes [1]–[5] reproduce the supplied notes. The contracted spelling in couplet 5, the classical senses in couplets 4 and 6, the uncertain gar cho linkage in couplet 9, and the closing name ʿAlāʾī remain unchanged. References [6]–[10] support the added commentary. The cited parallels do not resolve the closing syntax or establish a prior interpretation of this exact ghazal.

6. Darwīshiyya, printed under Hamadani’s name in Muhammad Riaz, Aḥvāl o āsār o ashʿār-e Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī, second edition, Islamabad, 1991. Printed p. 492 compares approach to divine presence with royal service requiring appropriate conduct and experienced guidance. Printed p. 499 joins inward scrutiny with hope in divine generosity, figured through cleansing and rescue. These passages were checked against the scans. Riaz’s introduction, printed p. 486, defends Hamadani’s authorship against a competing attribution to Sayyid Muhammad Nurbakhsh; that qualification is retained. Digitized Riaz edition.
7. James Winston Morris, Ibn ʿArabi’s “Short Course” on Love, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society, 50 (2011), translating al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, chapter 73, Question 118. Used comparatively for beauty expressed throughout creation, without identifying the sun in couplet 1 as a fixed technical symbol.
8. Farhang-e Nafīsī, āzādī entry in the Wikisource transcription, explicitly records āzādī kardan as giving thanks. Moʿīn’s Persian dictionary, afsūs kardan entry hosted by Vajehyab, records mocking or deriding. These verify the lexical senses retained in supplied notes [1] and [3]; their application to the poem remains contextual.
9. Owen Gingerich, Islamic Astronomy, Scientific American, April 1986; text hosted by King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. The discussion of nested planetary spheres gives their order from the Moon through Saturn. Used only to clarify the historical scale of the celestial imagery in couplet 5.
10. Qur’an 33:72, al-Aḥzāb. The heavens, earth, and mountains decline the trust, while humanity assumes it; the verse also describes human wrongdoing and ignorance. Used as a possible resonance for the heavens’ inability to bear sorrow, without identifying sorrow with the trust or presenting the verse as uncomplicated praise of human superiority.

Couplet 6a changes the terms of our Qur'anic parallel. The manuscript reads بارِ عشقش, not the printed تابِ غمش — "the burden of love for him" in place of "the endurance of his sorrow." The verb that follows is also written differently, and the manuscript has رو هر زمان where the print has زین رو. Our commentary treats Qur'an 33:72 as a possible resonance, hedged because sorrow is not the trust. With بار the hedge weakens considerably: the burden the heavens cannot carry is precisely the vocabulary of the amāna that the heavens, earth and mountains declined. The manuscript reading makes the allusion structural rather than atmospheric, and the couplet's audacity sharpens — the soul mocks the spheres for refusing a weight it has taken up.

Couplet 9b dissolves our crux. Where Riaz prints گر چو لطفش, the manuscript reads کو ز لطفش . The closing then runs cleanly: khosh barafshān k-ū ze lotfash kār āsān mī-konad, "gladly pour it out, for through his grace he makes the task easy." Reading note [5] records the گر چو linkage as awkward and marks our translation provisional; that provisionality was an artefact of the printed text. The sentence in our commentary about the syntax remaining unresolved would need rewriting, and the closing turn toward grace becomes grammatically secure rather than conjectural.

Two smaller observations. Beside couplet 8 stand two short collation notes in the right margin, each under a validation mark; The superscript marks are the same on all three pages. I compared this one against the marks above the marginal notes on the Ghazal 11 and Ghazal 12 pages: the same two-stroke flourish, a short rising stroke into a loop and tail. That is صح, ṣaḥḥ, the standard validation mark. Both notes here carry it, so both were entered by a corrector confirming a reading against another copy rather than proposing a rival one.

Two separate one-word notes, not one phrase. Each has its own ṣaḥḥ, which rules out reading them together as a formula such as نسخه بدل.

The left note reads جانی, with reasonable confidence. Three written units: a bowl carrying one dot beneath with the alef riding on it (the جا ligature), then a tooth carrying one dot above (medial ن), then a wide dotless sweep to the left (final ی). The dot pattern — one below, one above, none on the final — fits جانی and excludes most alternatives. Couplet 7b supplies the context: رو گران جانی مکن. The corrector was confirming گران جانی.

The right-hand note is settled: بجرأت. Your first image gives the manuscript's own second hemistich clearly — کو بجرأت قصد خلوتگاه سلطان می‌کند — and the scribe's بجرأت there carries exactly the diacritic signature I traced in the margin: two dots beneath at the opening, one under the ب and one under the ج, the ر descender, the hamza-bearing alef, and the two dots of the final ت above. That matches the note and rules out چون, which would have needed three dots below at the head and a single dot above at the close.

Two things would settle the right-hand one. The stronger is a crop of any other ṣaḥḥ note on the same page or the facing page, since a corrector's ت and his final ن are habits that repeat and can be matched directly. The weaker but quicker check is the main text: if you send couplet 8b at this same magnification, I can compare the note's letterforms against the scribe's own بجرأت a few centimetres away on the same leaf.

Both notes confirm rather than emend, and on this page the corrector had two readings in couplets 7 and 8 that he thought worth vouching for. That is the third page in a row showing systematic collation, and it strengthens the case that the divergences from Riaz — بارِ عشقش in couplet 6, کو ز لطفش in couplet 9 — are transmitted readings that a corrector saw and let stand, not slips.

The more consequential matter is couplet 8a itself. Both witnesses read مشتِ خاک, not the شیبِ خاک of our working text, and both open جان چو rather than جان که. Our second hemistich also reads خلوتگاه in both, against the خلوت‌گه you have.

That changes the couplet. مشتِ خاک is the ordinary Persian figure for the body as a handful of dust, and the hemistich then runs roughly: the soul, once a handful of dust has caught at its skirts — with کو in the second hemistich reading naturally as the interrogative, how does it boldly make for the Sultan's private chamber? The couplet becomes a rhetorical question rather than a statement. Our commentary already reaches toward that sense when it says the approach can warn against presumption before attachments have loosened; with مشت and an interrogative کو, that is not an interpretive option but the plain grammar. The translation, and reading note-level phrasing about earth's downward pull, would need rewriting.