We have discussed cases of ambiguity that fail due to some infelicity of the poet's. Ambiguity that is far-fetched belongs in a separate category. This type of ambiguity comes about when a condition or attribute pertaining to the explicitly-stated referent is transferred to a referent that is hidden, or vice versa. Without full exercise of the poet's discrimination, comprehension, and taste, this type of ambiguity cannot be achieved, as it was by Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Tilimsani in these verses [corrected against the edition of Shams al-Din's poems by Shakir Hadi Shukr, ditt. Charakh, meter: basīṭ]:
Many are stripped of intellect by a certain gazelle fawn
who abandons them ungently to their passions.
How many are slain by his come-hither looks
that fill their hearts with obsession?
They cast a spell that never gets old,
ever spinning and speaking of passion
Here the word maghzal "spinning" denotes the action of the spinner's tool called al-mighzal. Neither of these is an affiliated noun [of ghazal "amorous discourse"]. Maghzal in this context makes no sense, but when poets expand the ghazl that is spinning to mean the ghazal that is flirtatious speech, they are forgiven, it being so commonplace.
And that is how the act of spinning became attributed to the look in someone's eye. If you think about what I'm saying, the truth of it will dawn on you—because the same poet is correct [in his critique of the idiom] in another poem where he said (meter: ṭawīl):
Your looks are virile weapons—nothing like
widows at their spinning, as has been claimed
And ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Amidi (meter: sarī‘):
Fenced by hateful censure
is the garden of his face.
The orb of his eye lodges in my heart.
It is a widow who lives by her spinning
From Breaking the Seals on Ambiguity and Polysemic Usage
by al-Khalil ibn Aybak al-Safadi
