1904.] 
Bilgrami —Quatrains of Baba Tahir . 
17 
From the translator’s note on line 1, page 54, it appears that he has 
read the word “ of a week’s duration,” with the accent on the third 
syllable, like lSj and But the accent is on the second 
syllable, and means “only a week.” Sheikh Baha-ud-Din r in his Nan-o- 
Halwa says j c***f aciU jZ . 
Here too means “ a week,” and not “ of a week’s duration.” “ If 
one were to tell you that of your life, Only a week remains, and this 
becomes certain.” 
His other remark regarding the hamza in shows that he has not 
read examples where poets use their license. He has evidently read it 
as if it consisted of four syllables, whereas in the present case, it should 
be read like a word of three syllables, i.e., it should be pronounced 
a-la-lai, and not a-la-la-ye , and thus it will not injure the metre. Innu¬ 
merable examples of this may be cited from the older authors. Khakani 
says : 
1 j ijibj j <S/o Here is pronounced bilai as a word 
of two syllables and not bila-ye. It is not so in the case of where 
th eizafat is not required at all, and so the comparison does not hold good. 
In the 3rd line, the word is the correct word, being the plu¬ 
ral of and there appears no reason to change it into an Arabic 
word, and then to corrupt it; such an emendation will spoil the sense of 
the last couplet. For the last two lines I remember having read some¬ 
where the following two lines :— ty * +&S ei 
<X±Sl& , 
3. “ Why should I bear thy tyranny for years and months, 
4. Thy friendship to friends is for a week only.” Probably these 
two lines may be the two last lines of another Quatrain, the first two 
lines of which are wanting. 
51. 
1. My heart is grieved (sorrowful) in thine absence, 
2. My pillow is a brick and bed the earth ; 
3. My sin is that I love thee, 
4. Yea, whosoever loves thee, this is his condition. 
From every point of view the Quatrain as given by the author of 
the Majma-ul-Fusaha, is preferable to every other version of the same ; 
hence my adopting it. 
52. 
1. I am that taper whose tears are of fire ; 
2. He who is burnt in heart, can his tears be other than this P 
3. All night I burn and all day I weep, 
4. Like those are my nights and such my days from thee (thy ty¬ 
ranny) . 
J. i. 3 
