Analysis of the ghazal “Ustina” and lyric poetry

The ghazal with the radif “Ustina” counts among the most famous works of Uzbek classical literature. In the matla the beloved’s brow is likened to the Arabic letter “nun” and her eye to “sod”; written together the two letters form the word “nas” (decree), meaning that the brow and the executioner-eye have issued the decree to execute the lover. Making a word out of letters and applying it to a picture is Ogahiy’s novelty. In the second couplet her stature is like a boxwood tree and her face like a rose: “a rose grafted on a boxwood”; the order of sentence parts is changed for poetic reasons (inversion). In the third couplet coquetry, charm and glances attack the lover without pause; in the sixth, exaggeration reaches its highest level: even if the heavens rained a thousand Besutun mountains on Farhod, it would not equal a thousandth of the lover’s sorrow. In the ghazal “Qish” the word “qish” serves as rhyme and radif, and the poet says no winter was ever harsher than this one; he depicts the hardship of the old and weak who cannot find warm clothes while the rich protect themselves from the cold with furs.