Original Persian Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Sāḳīyā der devr-i gül żāyi‘ me-kon eyyām-rā
Dem-be-dem ya‘nī bi-y-āşām īn mey-i gül-fām-rā
Zindegānī bī-mey-i la‘let me-rā bāşed ḥarām
Cür‘a’ī fermā zi-luṭf īn rind-i dürd-āşām-rā
Ger ne-ḫᵛāhī sāḳīyā esrār-ı mā şod āşkār
Puḫtegān-rā deh pey-ā-pey īn şarāb-ı ḫām-rā
Ez-leb-i la‘let reved pīş-i ṣurāḥī-rā müdām
Secde-i şükreş dilā bes lāzım āyed cām-rā
Pīş-i ruḫsāreş çü bülbül bā-hezār efġān be-nāl
Ḫoş ġanīmet dān Münīr īn furṣat u hengām-rā

In English

1. O cupbearer, do not waste the days in the season of the rose; that is, drink this rose-coloured wine at every moment. ("Devr-i gül" is the season of the rose; the word "devr", in its dictionary sense, also describes the cup passing from hand to hand at a gathering.)

2. Life without the wine of your ruby lip is forbidden to me; be kind and give a sip to this rind (libertine of the tavern) who is used to drinking the dregs. ("Dürd-āşām" is one who drinks the dregs at the bottom of the flask, that is, a rind content with whatever he has. Ersoy understands the first line as a wish, "let it be forbidden".)

3. O cupbearer, if you do not want our secrets to come out, serve this raw wine again and again to the seasoned ones. ("Puḫte", in its dictionary sense, means cooked, ripe; "ḫām" means raw, unripe. Ersoy explains "the cooked ones" as those who have matured on this path. The mature keep a secret; the raw let it out.)

4. O heart, since wine flows constantly from your ruby lip to stand before the flask, the cup ought indeed to bow in a prostration of thanks to it. (The couplet is not entirely clear; Ersoy understands it as "since the cup passes before your ruby lips, it ought to make a prostration of thanks to them". "Müdām", in its dictionary sense, means both "constantly" and "wine".)

5. O Münîr, lament before his cheek like the nightingale with a thousand cries; count this chance and this hour as precious gain. ("Hezār", in its dictionary sense, means "a thousand" and is also used as a name for the nightingale; since it stands beside the nightingale in this couplet, both meanings can be thought of together.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian, and it is the first of the 150 Persian ghazals in the edition (fg 1). The ghazal is a verse form made of couplets (beyit) bound by the same rhyme and refrain (redif), whose first couplet is the opening couplet (matla) and whose last is the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The redif is the suffix "-rā"; the rhyme is the sound "-ām": eyyām, gül-fām, dürd-āşām, ḫām, cām, hengām. In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy shows this ghazal and the second ghazal that follows it as having the redif "-ra"; as to rhyme, he counts this ghazal among the examples of kafiye-i müreddefe, rhyme in which a long vowel precedes the rhyme letter. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 61b) and Vienna (VY 46a) manuscripts. The edition follows the arrangement of the Vatican manuscript; in this arrangement the Persian ghazals come after the kasides, terci-bends, the murabba and the tahmis, and before the Turkish ghazals. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a poem of the drinking gathering: in four couplets the cupbearer or the heart is addressed, and in the pen-name couplet the poet speaks to himself. Its main idea is the brief life of the rose season and the need to make use of this chance. The first couplet begins "do not waste the days", and the fifth closes with "count this chance and this hour as gain"; the beginning and the end of the ghazal thus meet in the same thought. Between them come images of wine and the gathering: the rind who drinks the dregs, raw wine and seasoned drinkers, flask and cup. Ersoy, who says that Hâfız's influence is plain in Münîrî's Persian ghazals, does not count this ghazal among the nazires (response poems) to Hâfız. Ersoy considers the poet a rind and a lover and says that he describes himself as a wine-drinking rind; the rind who drinks the dregs in the second couplet fits this poetic persona.

In the third couplet there is a clear antithesis between "puḫte" and "ḫām", and the meaning of the couplet rests on this contrast: the wine being raw and the drinker seasoned is the condition for keeping the secret. In the fourth couplet a "secde-i şükr", a prostration of thanks, is attributed to the cup; an object of the gathering is thus associated with an act of worship, and the beloved's lip is exalted as if it were the source of the wine. In the fifth couplet the image of lamenting like the nightingale ties the ghazal, which opened with the rose season, to the motif of the rose and the nightingale; the word "hezār" carrying the meanings of both "a thousand" and nightingale strengthens this link. The "gül-fām", rose-coloured wine, of the first couplet stands in congruence of images (tenasüp) with the season of the rose.

Bibliography

Online sources