Chehel Asrar 35 - Thirty Fifth Ghazal

Ghazal 35

9 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 474–475

گَر آتَشِ فِراقَش با صَبْر یار بُودی

gar ātash-e ferāq-ash bā sabr yār būdī

1a  If the fire of separation from him could keep company with patience,

اَنْدوهِ اِشْتِیاقَش دَر دیدِه خَوار بُودی

andūh-e eshtiyāq-ash dar dīde khār būdī

1b  the grief of longing for him would seem a trifling thing.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker imagines a reconciliation between separation’s fire and patience: if they could live together, longing’s grief would seem insignificant. Calling patience the fire’s yār, companion, makes an inner conflict resemble a relationship that cannot settle into harmony. The condition conveys how little command the lover has over the distress being described. Khār, rendered “trifling,” concerns the grief’s standing in the lover’s eyes; its apparent weight would change if endurance were possible. The verse gives emotional force to an imagined remedy without saying that the remedy has worked. Its opening “if” establishes the poem’s recurring distance between what love makes conceivable and what the speaker can claim to possess.

وَر لَحْظِه‌ای مِیانَش غائِب شُدی زِ دیدِه

var lahze-ī miyān-ash ghāʾeb shodī ze dīde

2a  If for a moment his waist vanished from sight, [1]

جان جامِه چاک کَرْدی، دِل بیقَرار بُودی

jān jāme chāk kardī, del bī-qarār būdī

2b  the soul would tear its robe, and the heart would lose all peace.

Commentary on couplet 2

Even a momentary disappearance of the beloved’s waist would throw soul and heart into disorder. Miyān is retained as supplied, and the bodily detail keeps the scene open to the vulnerabilities of human affection. Nothing in the wording requires replacing the waist with a face or assigning it a fixed metaphysical meaning. The personified soul tears its own robe, while the heart loses its settled state: visible gesture and inward agitation answer the same absence. This miniature separation sharpens the opening fire into a particular threatened loss. The conditional remains decisive, presenting the lover’s imagined response rather than reporting an event that has already occurred. Spiritual longing may resonate with the scene without exhausting its embodied tenderness.

وَر اَز شُعاعِ حُسْنَش عَکْسی ظُهور کَرْدی

var az shoʿāʿ-e hosn-ash ʿaksī zohūr kardī

3a  If one reflection of his beauty's radiance appeared,

اَز هَر طَرَف هِزاران جانَش نِثار بُودی

az har taraf hezārān jān-ash nesār būdī

3b  thousands of souls would be offered to him from every side.

Commentary on couplet 3

The possibility of absence is answered by the possibility of appearance: a single reflection of beauty would summon thousands of offered souls. The disproportion between one glimmer and the multitude of responses gives the beloved’s attraction its scale. Shoʿāʿ, radiance, and ʿaks, reflection, make the appearance mediated; the verse does not claim that beauty has become fully available to sight. In a devotional reading, this can suggest divine disclosure, an appearance through which beauty becomes perceptible to the lover. That possibility need not turn the optical language into a complete account of God’s being. Nisār, an offering scattered or bestowed, joins reverence with lavish expenditure and prepares the closing question of whether any such gift can be adequate.

چُون حَلْقِه بَر دَرَش دِل با طَرَب عَیْش کَرْدی

chūn halqe bar dar-ash del bā tarab ʿaysh kardī

4a  Like the ring upon his door, the heart would live in joyful delight,

گَر اَز دَرَش بِیادی اُمیدْوار بُودی

gar az dar-ash be-yādī omīdvār būdī

4b  if it could hope for one remembrance from his threshold.

Commentary on couplet 4

The heart imagines a joyful life as a ring attached to the beloved’s door. Its desired position is humble and close, yet still outside: attendance at the threshold would itself be a delight. The second half makes even this happiness depend upon hope of a remembrance from within. On the supplied translation, the heart longs to be remembered; the line does not simply describe the lover’s own practice of remembrance. Repeated dar, door, keeps the image concentrated upon the boundary between access and exclusion. The ring’s attachment gives longing an enduring posture, while omīdvār, hopeful, leaves recognition unconfirmed. Being held at the door could become happiness if it carried the possibility of being noticed.

اَز رَوْضِهٔ وِصالَش بُوئی بِجان رَسیدی

az rowze-ye vesāl-ash būyī be-jān rasīdī

5a  A fragrance from the garden of union with him would reach the soul,

دَرْیایِ شَوْقِ اُو را گَر خُود کِنار بُودی

daryā-ye showq-e ū rā gar khod kenār būdī

5b  if the sea of longing for him had any shore at all.

Commentary on couplet 5

A fragrance from union’s garden is imagined as reaching the soul, but the second half makes that arrival conditional upon a shore for longing’s sea. The garden suggests a place of rest and intimacy; the sea unsettles the possibility of reaching it. “Any shore at all” makes the condition sound scarcely fulfilable, so the couplet sustains desire rather than announcing union. Hamadani’s prose describes lovers receiving the beloved’s fragrance and conveying benefit to others. [3] That is a documented parallel for fragrance as a received spiritual good; here its arrival remains hypothetical. The passage from ocean to garden need not form a literal itinerary. It expresses the difficulty of finding an end to desire within desire itself.

گَبْرِ هِزارسالِه گَر بُویِ اُو شَمیدی

gabr-e hezār-sāle gar bū-ye ū shamīdī

6a  If a thousand-year-old Zoroastrian caught his fragrance,

دَر جَمْعِ سالِکان نیز اُو مَرْدِ کار بُودی

dar jamʿ-e sālekān nīz ū mard-e kār būdī

6b  he too would become a man of true accomplishment among the seekers.

Commentary on couplet 6

The fragrance now carries the imagined power to transform someone placed far outside the seekers’ company. Gabr historically designates a Zoroastrian and also acquired a derogatory force. [4] A “thousand-year-old” adherent makes established religious difference seem almost immovable; the exaggerated age measures persistence. Yet nīz, “too,” grants him a place among the accomplished if the fragrance reaches him. Sālekān are those who travel a spiritual path, and mard-e kār names someone capable of its serious work. The verse’s generosity retains its own hierarchy: the outsider’s transformation is measured by admission to that company. It neither describes his actual beliefs nor explains whether conversion is intended. Its immediate claim concerns beauty’s surprising power to awaken spiritual capacity beyond an expected boundary.

رُویِ زَمین بِه پَهْلُو گَرْدیدَمی زِ شادی

rū-ye zamīn be pahlū gardīdamī ze shādī

7a  I would roll upon the earth for joy,

گَر دَر جَنابِ قُرْبَش اُمیدِ بار بُودی

gar dar janāb-e qorb-ash omīd-e bār būdī

7b  if there were hope of being admitted to the precinct of his nearness.

Commentary on couplet 7

The speaker would roll upon the ground for joy if there were even hope of admission to the beloved’s nearness. The explicit first person brings the preceding imagined transformations into the lover’s own body. Bār is admission or audience here, extending the courtly setting of the door and threshold. Joy depends upon the possibility of access, not upon access already granted. If the beloved is understood devotionally, qurb, nearness, requires care: Hamadani’s prose denies spatial containment of God while describing a nearness exceeding that of one’s own breath. [3] The courtly precinct accordingly gives relationship a spatial image without locating God in a bounded chamber. The earthbound gesture intensifies the joy while keeping the speaker outside the hoped-for audience.

طُغْرایِ عِزِّ عاشِق اَز چَرْخ دَر گُذَشْتی

toghrā-ye ʿezz-e ʿāsheq az charkh dar gozashtī

8a  The sovereign seal of the lover's glory would rise beyond the heavens, [2]

دَر خَیْلِ کُشْتِگانَش گَر دَر شُمار بُودی

dar khayl-e koshtegān-ash gar dar shomār būdī

8b  if the lover were counted among the ranks of those he has slain.

Commentary on couplet 8

The lover’s sovereign emblem would rise beyond the heavens if he were counted among the beloved’s slain. As the supplied note explains, the tughrā belongs to the language of royal authority; here it marks an honor conferred upon someone apparently defeated. [5] The contrast is made especially sharp by khayl, the ranks or company, which places the lover among many while the emblem gives his standing a sovereign distinction. Such killing belongs to the poem’s language of overwhelming attraction and surrender. The verse supplies no historical death or particular account of martyrdom. Its condition also withholds the honor: the lover desires to be counted, and cannot award himself the rank that dependence upon the beloved might confer.

صَد جان عَلی بِهَر دَم کَرْدی نِثارِ راهَش

sad jān ʿAlī be-har dam kardī nesār-e rāh-ash

9a  ʿAlī would offer a hundred souls at every breath upon his path,

گَر نَه جَلالَتَش را زین تُحْفِه عار بُودی

gar na jalālat-ash rā z-īn tohfe ʿār būdī

9b  if such a gift would not bring shame upon his majesty.

Commentary on couplet 9

The closing names ʿAlī as someone who would offer a hundred souls at every breath, then interrupts that generosity with the beloved’s majesty. The obstacle is no shortage of willingness: even the lavish gift might be too slight for its recipient. The conditional “if not” lets the lover question the offering before presenting it. “Shame upon his majesty” expresses the disparity between gift and recipient, without necessarily implying a deficiency in the beloved’s dignity. Hamadani’s prose places even angelic devotion before divine self-sufficiency, challenging pride in spiritual achievement. [3] This parallel illuminates the offering’s inadequacy. Nisār returns from the thousands of souls in couplet 3, but multiplication no longer settles the matter: quantity cannot make the lover’s gift commensurate with the one he loves.

Understanding this ghazal

This ghazal speaks through possibilities whose fulfilment repeatedly withdraws from view. Its recurring būdī, “would be,” and related conditional forms give longing a grammar of imagined consequences: grief could become bearable, the heart could rejoice, the lover could receive a rank beyond the heavens. The beloved remains unnamed, approached through bodily beauty, fragrance, a door, and a courtly majesty. These images sustain human and devotional possibilities together. Their force depends upon a speaker who can imagine the effects of intimacy with great precision while remaining uncertain of the smallest access to it.

Small occasions produce immense responses. A moment without the waist would disorder soul and heart; one reflection would receive thousands of lives; a fragrance could transform a religious outsider into an accomplished seeker. The repeated disproportion measures attraction without explaining it away. At the same time, the poem reduces what the lover asks to receive: remembrance from the threshold, a scent from the garden, even hope of an audience. Vast willingness coexists with a modest petition. The shoreless implication of longing’s sea makes that petition difficult to complete, since the desire for union seems unable to find its own boundary.

Hamadani’s prose supplies limited, useful parallels: fragrance can describe a benefit received by lovers, and nearness can be affirmed alongside God’s freedom from spatial containment. [3] These contexts help explain the devotional possibilities without authenticating this ghazal or resolving every image into doctrine. The Zoroastrian’s imagined admission also deserves its particular emphasis. The verse challenges an expected boundary of spiritual accomplishment while judging the newcomer by the seekers’ standard. Its conditional welcome should retain both the surprise of inclusion and the hierarchy through which that inclusion is expressed.

The final two couplets test what exaltation and generosity would mean. The lover’s sovereign distinction depends upon being counted among the slain, while ʿAlī’s abundant offering encounters the possibility of its own inadequacy. This ending returns to the lives offered at the first glimpse of beauty and asks whether any number can answer majesty. The poem’s conditions therefore do more than delay fulfilment: they expose a distance between longing’s power to offer everything and its inability to determine what the beloved will receive.

Sources and textual notes

Reading notes

[1] 2a: Miyān, waist, is retained as printed: the beloved's slender waist is a conventional image of beauty.

[2] 8a: A tughrā is a ruler's calligraphic emblem or signature, here an image of the lover's exalted rank.

Editorial references

3. Hamadani, Dhakhīrat al-mulūk, consulted in Mohammad Umar Farooq, Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani’s Dhakiratul Muluk: An Annotation and Translation (PhD thesis, University of Kashmir, 2009), printed pp. 61–62, on divine transcendence and nearness; printed pp. 365–366, on lovers receiving fragrance and transmitting benefit; and printed p. 443, on divine self-sufficiency and the inadequacy of spiritual achievement as grounds for pride. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
4. Mansour Shaki, “Gabr,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. X, fasc. 3 (2000), pp. 239–240. Consulted for the term’s historical designation of Zoroastrians and its pejorative implications.
5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tughra (Insignia) of Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent, ca. 1555–60, object 449533. The museum’s account confirms the tughrā’s function as a calligraphic emblem of sovereign authority. This later Ottoman example illustrates the supplied definition; its particular design is not attributed to the poem.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 474–475 reference, the signature ʿAlī, and both reading notes are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied reading from the documented prose parallels and other contexts cited here.