Chehel Asrar 37 - Thirty Seventh Ghazal

Ghazal 37

7 couplets  |  Riaz 1991, printed p. 476

صُبْحِ وَصْلَم دَمَد اَز مَشْرِقِ رُویَت رُوزی

sobh-e vasl-am damad az mashreq-e rūy-at rūzī

1a  One day the dawn of my union will rise from the east of your face;

شَبِ هِجْرَم شَوَد اَنْدَر سَرِ مُویَت رُوزی

shab-e hejr-am shavad andar sar-e mūy-at rūzī

1b  one day my night of separation will be lost in the tips of your hair.

Commentary on couplet 1

The speaker looks toward a future in which the beloved’s face becomes the eastern horizon of union and separation’s night enters the beloved’s hair. Rūzī, “one day,” leaves the moment unnamed while sustaining confidence that it can come. Dawn and dark hair make contrasting appearances part of the same beloved. The second half is compressed: “will be lost” is the supplied translation’s interpretation of the night’s movement into the tips of the hair. It suggests separation absorbed into proximity, without specifying a precise process of disappearance. The body remains present in these images of hoped-for intimacy. Their devotional possibilities arise through the language of union and separation, while the opening itself offers anticipation rather than a report of arrival.

نُورِ خُورْشِیدِ اُمِیدَم کِه فُرو شُد زِ غَمَت

nūr-e khorshīd-e omīd-am ke forū shod ze gham-at

2a  The sunlight of my hope, which set in sorrow for you,

هَم بَرآیَد زِ رَهِ مَطْلَعِ کُویَت رُوزی

ham barāyad ze rah-e matlaʿ-e kūy-at rūzī

2b  will rise again one day from the horizon of your lane.

Commentary on couplet 2

Hope’s sunlight has already set in sorrow associated with the beloved, yet the speaker expects it to rise again from the beloved’s lane. The completed forū shod, “set,” gives the promise a history of disappointment. Ham barāyad answers that setting with renewed ascent, so hope is imagined as recoverable even after its light has gone. The lane enlarges into a horizon: an ordinary place near the beloved acquires the power of an eastern sky. Both the grief and its possible reversal remain connected with the same addressee. The repeated “one day” gives the renewal a voice before it gives it a date. This is the lover’s sustained expectation, whose force comes partly from the darkness it acknowledges.

دِل کِه خُو کَرْدِهٔ لُطْف اَسْت بِخُون مِی‌گَرْدَد

del ke khū-karde-ye lotf ast be-khūn mī-gardad

3a  The heart, accustomed to kindness, is turning to blood,

تا کِه بُوئی رَسَدَش اَز گُلِ رُویَت رُوزی

tā ke būyī rasad-ash az gol-e rūy-at rūzī

3b  until one day a fragrance from the rose of your face reaches it.

Commentary on couplet 3

The heart knows kindness, but is presently turning to blood as it waits for a fragrance from the beloved’s face. That remembered gentleness makes the present anguish sharper and gives hope something to recall. Khū, habitual familiarity, is followed by khūn, blood, bringing the heart’s accustomed condition and its painful alteration into a close sound pattern. The rose makes the face a source of beauty whose influence may travel beyond immediate sight. Only a fragrance is sought, yet even that slight contact could answer the heart’s distress. In the supplied “until,” suffering remains open toward an anticipated ending. The verse does not make anguish the price that purchases kindness; the desired fragrance must still reach the waiting heart.

چَتْرِ اِقْبال بَر اَفْلاک رَسانَد بَخْتَم

chatr-e eqbāl bar aflāk rasānad bakht-am

4a  My fortune will raise the canopy of prosperity to the heavens,

گَر بِیابَد اَثَرِ مَیْل زِ سُویَت رُوزی

gar beyābad asar-e mayl ze sūy-at rūzī

4b  if one day it finds a sign of affection from you.

Commentary on couplet 4

The speaker’s fortune would raise a canopy as high as the heavens if it detected a sign of affection from the beloved. Chatr has a ceremonial sense: Dehkhoda records the canopy among the emblems of sovereignty. [1] Its height therefore magnifies the lover’s imagined dignity as well as his happiness. Bakht, fortune, acts in both halves, first lifting the canopy and then seeking the indication that would make this possible. The explicit gar, “if,” qualifies the grandeur. Mayl is an inclination toward someone; even its trace, asar, would suffice for an immense change in standing. The speaker seeks recognition that comes from the beloved, and the verse leaves that recognition unconfirmed beneath its royal promise.

تِشْنِگانِ طَلَبِ بادِیِهٔ هِجْران را

teshnegān-e talab-e bādiye-ye hejrān rā

5a  To those thirsty with seeking in the desert of separation,

شَرْبَتِ وَصْل رَسَد بَر لَبِ جُویَت رُوزی

sharbat-e vasl rasad bar lab-e jūy-at rūzī

5b  the drink of union will come one day beside your stream.

Commentary on couplet 5

The solitary lover’s hope opens outward to thirsty seekers crossing the desert of separation. Their thirst belongs to talab, seeking, while the promised refreshment belongs to union. Lab-e jūy, the bank or lip of a stream, gives their arrival a concrete edge where water becomes accessible. Hamadani’s prose closely pairs thirsty people in separation’s desert with the waters of union, reached through those close to God. [2] His passage includes spiritual guides; this couplet names none. The shared images support a devotional context without supplying the poem with an unstated intermediary. Sharbat is a drink of refreshment here, with no necessary implication of wine. Its arrival remains located in the repeated “one day,” extending the speaker’s hope to fellow seekers.

هَر کِه سَرْگَشْتِهٔ چَوْگانِ غَمَت گَشْت چُو گُوی

har ke sargashte-ye chowgān-e gham-at gasht cho gūy

6a  Whoever became a ball driven astray by sorrow’s polo stick for you

سَر چُو چَوْگان نَهَد اَنْدَر سَرِ کُویَت رُوزی

sar cho chowgān nahad andar sar-e kūy-at rūzī

6b  will one day lay his head, bent like that stick, at the entrance to your lane.

Commentary on couplet 6

The lover first resembles a ball driven about by sorrow’s polo stick, then imagines laying a head bent like that stick at the beloved’s lane. The comparison changes within the couplet: uncontrolled motion gives way to a posture of attendance. Sar recurs through sargashte, bewildered or wandering, the head itself, and the head or entrance of the lane, gathering movement toward a place of rest. ʿAttar likewise brings together a head laid in the beloved’s lane and lovers’ heads as polo balls, though his stick is the beloved’s tresses. [3] The parallel preserves this poem’s distinct turn from ball to bowed head. Sorrow has driven the seeker, but the anticipated arrival takes the form of lowering himself at the threshold.

سُوخْت بَر دَرْگَهِ تُو جانِ عَلایی عُمْری

sūkht bar dargah-e to jān-e ʿAlāʾī ʿomrī

7a  For a lifetime ʿAlāʾī’s soul has burned at your threshold,

بِاُمِیدی کِه شَوَد زِنْدِه بِبُویَت رُوزی

be-omīdī ke shavad zende be-būy-at rūzī

7b  hoping one day your fragrance will bring it to life.

Commentary on couplet 7

The closing names ʿAlāʾī’s soul as having burned for a lifetime at the beloved’s threshold, sustained by the hope of life through fragrance. The burning is asserted within the poem; the revival is still awaited. Be-omīdī makes explicit the hope that has supported each earlier “one day.” Hamadani distinguishes bodily existence from the heart’s spiritual life, associating that life with knowledge of God, love, and faith. [2] This supplies a devotional sense of renewed life alongside the emotional force of revival through a beloved’s scent. The poem leaves the character of that revival open. Fragrance returns from the suffering heart of couplet 3, now carrying the promise of life for the soul. The signature gathers the wider company of seekers back into one enduring, vulnerable petition.

Understanding this ghazal

“One day” holds this ghazal together. Each return of rūzī opens the present toward a future in which separation might be answered, while leaving the day itself unspecified. The speaker addresses an unnamed beloved through face, hair, lane, stream, and threshold. These details preserve the intimacy of human affection and allow a devotional reading through the vocabulary of union, seeking, and renewed life. Hope has already darkened, the heart is suffering now, and the soul has burned for a lifetime. Restoration, by contrast, is repeatedly spoken into the future. The poem’s confidence is the voice of expectation within that unequal distribution of experience.

Light, fragrance, and water make the anticipated renewal tangible. The face offers a dawn; the lane becomes a horizon; a rose’s scent might reach the wounded heart; a stream promises relief to thirsty seekers. Each image gives the desired relationship a different mode of approach. Darkness is gathered into the beloved’s hair, and distance may be crossed by fragrance before the face is seen. These possibilities need not form a fixed sequence of spiritual stages. They are ways of imagining how the one whose absence hurts could also become the source of restoration.

The royal canopy briefly enlarges that restoration into public distinction, but its rise depends upon a mere sign of affection. The thirsty company then broadens the individual longing, and the polo image turns bewildered motion toward a bowed arrival. Hamadani’s prose supplies a close parallel for the desert and waters, while elsewhere distinguishing hopeful preparation from divine gifts beyond personal control. [2] These contexts help hold effort and reception together. The poem neither erases the seeker’s longing and attendance nor gives them control over the beloved’s response. Its images of glory remain answerable to dependence.

At the close, ʿAlāʾī’s soul is still at the threshold. A lifetime of burning has not become a report of completed union, yet the repeated future has also kept suffering from having the final word. The awaited fragrance is slight in comparison with the duration of pain, and immense in what it could accomplish. The closing hope clarifies the opening dawn: the lover speaks as someone who continues to expect life from the beloved before possessing the renewal he names.

Sources and textual notes

1. ʿAli-Akbar Dehkhoda, Lughat-nāma, entry “chatr”, available through Vajehyab. Consulted for the ceremonial canopy’s role as an emblem of sovereignty alongside the banner, throne, and crown.
2. 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 p. 336, on the heart’s spiritual life; printed p. 393, on thirsty seekers, separation’s desert, and waters of union through spiritual guides; and printed p. 414, on preparation and divine gifts. The English translation was checked; the Persian wording was not independently collated.
3. ʿAttar, ghazal 122, couplets 3 and 5 in Ganjoor’s numbering. The Persian text places the lover’s head in the beloved’s lane and compares the beloved’s tresses to a polo stick, with lovers’ heads as balls. Cited as shared imagery, without a claim of direct borrowing.

Editorial note: The supplied Riaz 1991, printed p. 476 reference and the signature ʿAlāʾī are retained unchanged. That edition and the attribution of this ghazal have not been independently verified. The commentary distinguishes the supplied translation’s interpretive completion in couplet 1b from the compressed Persian wording, and the poem’s hoped-for renewal from an account of completed attainment.