Original Persian Text

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

Sāḳī-i mā ger to ḫᵛāhī būd der-bezm-i şarāb
Ey besā bünyād-ı tevbe bāz mī-gerded ḫarāb
Her dem ez-zaḫm-ı ḫadeng-i ġamze-i dil-dūz-ı to
Hemçü murġ-ı nīm-bismil mī-ṭapem der ıżṭırāb
Terk-i mey key bāşed ey dil ḫāṣṣa der-devrān-ı gül
‘Āşıḳī vü bī-dilī mī-bāşed ü ‘ahd-i şebāb
Bā-ruḫ-ı zerd īnçonīn der-fürḳat-i ān gül-‘iẕār
Der-miyān-ı eşk māndem hemçü nīlūfer der-āb
Ger ne-mī sūzed dilem-rā āteş-i şevḳeş Münīr
Bes ne-mī-dānem çirā āyed zi-dil būy-ı kebāb

In English

1. O our cupbearer, if you are to be present at the wine gathering, many a building of repentance will be ruined once again. (The couplet can be read in two ways. "Ḫᵛāhī būd" is a Persian future-tense form and means "if you will be present"; "ey besā", in its dictionary sense, means "many a, ever so many". Ersoy, however, understands the couplet as "if you wish to be at the wine gathering, it is enough for you to ruin the building of repentance"; in this reading "ḫᵛāhī" means "if you wish" and "besā" means "enough".)

2. Every moment, from the wound of the arrow of your heart-piercing glance, I flutter in agony like a half-slaughtered bird. ("Ḫadeng", in its dictionary sense, is an arrow, especially one made of poplar wood; Ersoy renders it as "spear". The gamze is the beloved's languid, sidelong glance.)

3. O heart, how could wine be given up, above all in the season of the rose, while love, heartlessness and the age of youth go on? ("Bī-dilī", in its dictionary sense, is having lost one's heart, one's heart having stayed with the beloved.)

4. In the separation from that rose-cheeked beloved, with this sallow cheek of mine, I have remained in the midst of tears like a water lily in water. (The sallow face is likened to the yellow water lily on the surface of the water, and the tears to the water in which the lily stands.)

5. O Münîr, if the fire of longing for him does not burn my heart, then I do not know why the smell of kebab comes from my heart. (In divan poetry the burning heart and liver are likened to kebab.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the tenth of the Persian ghazals (fg 10). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the sound "-āb": şarāb, ḫarāb, ıżṭırāb, şebāb, āb, kebāb. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 63b) and Vienna (VY 47b) manuscripts. Ersoy counts this ghazal among the seventeen Persian ghazals that are nazire (response poems) to Hâfız of Shiraz, and as its counterpart he points to page 9 of the Istanbul 1290 printing of Hâfız's Divan. Which of Hâfız's ghazals is meant is not stated by name in Ersoy and could not be determined with certainty here. The TDV article also records that seventeen Persian ghazals are nazire to Hâfız. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a poem in the rind (libertine) manner and is built around the words wine, cupbearer, repentance and the season of the rose. In the first couplet repentance is likened to a building; the cupbearer's coming to the gathering ruins this building. Thinking of repentance as a building and of wine as the flood or tremor that destroys it is a well-known metaphor (istiare) in divan poetry. In Ersoy's reading the couplet sets a condition for the cupbearer; in the reading based on the future-tense form, it announces that the cupbearer's coming will break vows of repentance. Neither reading changes the libertine mood of the couplet.

In the second couplet the lover's state is likened to the fluttering of a half-slaughtered bird. This simile (teşbih) merges with the image in which the beloved's glance becomes an arrow and the lover's heart a bird struck by an arrow. The third couplet states, in the form of a question, that it is impossible to give up wine while the season of the rose, youth and love are all together; the question expects no answer and is the libertine's defence of his own choice.

In the fourth couplet the images of colour and water come together. The lover's sallow face is likened to a yellow water lily, and the tears to the water in which the lily floats; the beloved's being "rose-cheeked" sets up a contrast between yellow and red. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) rests on the figure of feigned ignorance (tecâhül-i ârif). The poet acts as if he did not know that his heart is burning, though he knows it: if the fire of love does not burn the heart, where does this smell of kebab come from? Kebab is the familiar equivalent in divan poetry of the burning liver. The words "sūzed", "burns", "āteş" and "kebāb" form a congruence of images (tenasüp) in the couplet. The "-āb" rhyme of the ghazal also supports its libertine mood by bringing together words that belong to the life of the gathering and to the pain of love, such as wine, ruin, agony, youth, water and kebab.

Bibliography

Online sources