تصویر درد

اگر دیکھا بھی اس نے سارے عالم کو تو کیا دیکھانظر آئی نہ کچھ اپنی حقیقت جام سے جم کو

English translation

Even if he viewed the whole world, what did he see? Jam could not see his own reality in the wine cup.
(Jam: This is the abbreviation for the name of a famous Persian monarch, Jamshid who is believed to have possessed a wine cup in which he could see the whole world.)

Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil

About this couplet

This is couplet 48 of 69 in “⁨تصویر درد⁩” (Picture of Pain) in the section Part 1 -- Before 1905, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bang-e-Dara (⁨بانگِ درا⁩), published in 1924.

Read it in the poem

۴۸ / ۶۹