Original Persian Text

Metre: fā’ilātün fā’ilātün fā’ilün

Tā fedā dil kerdemeş cān nīz hem
Düşmenem şod ḫalḳ u cānān nīz hem
Yek ramaḳ bī-la‘l-i vey ez-cān ne-mānd
Her dem ender-ıẓṭırāb ān nīz hem
Zaḫm-ı tīret ger be-dil şod yādgār
Der-ciger z’ū mānd peykān nīz hem
Vāy-ı men ger hemçü ṣabr u ṭāḳatem
Rūy mī-gerdāned efġān nīz hem
Dūr ez-ān meh-rū koned mā-rā Münīr
Ṭāli‘-i vārūn u devrān nīz hem

In English

1. Since I sacrificed my heart to him, and my soul as well, the people have become my enemy, and the beloved as well.

2. Without his ruby lip not a hair's breadth of life has remained; and that too is in torment at every moment. (In the Vienna manuscript "be-mānd" (has remained) is read instead of "ne-mānd" (has not remained); since one letter could not be printed in the edition's record, the words have been completed from the text. Ersoy understands the line as "my soul is a hair's breadth from departing".)

3. If the wound of your arrow has remained in the heart as a keepsake, its arrowhead has remained in the liver as well. (The arrowhead is the pointed iron at the tip of the arrow.)

4. Woe is me if, like my patience and my strength, my outcry too turns its face from me.

5. O Münîr, perverse fortune drives us far from that moon-faced one, and the turning sky as well.

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 hundred and second of the Persian ghazals (fg 102). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the phrase "nīz hem" (also, as well); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ān": cān, cānān, ān, peykān, efġān, devrān. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 86a) and Vienna (VY 69b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The words "nīz" and "hem" in the refrain both mean "also, as well". Two words of the same meaning standing side by side give a sense of addition and increase at the end of every couplet. All the couplets of the ghazal are therefore built on pairs: heart and soul, people and beloved, soul and torment, wound and arrowhead, patience and strength and outcry, fortune and sky. The lover's losses and enemies grow by one more in every couplet.

In the opening couplet "cān" (soul) and "cānān" (beloved) stand side by side in the rhyme. The closeness of sound between the two words sharpens the bitter thought of the couplet: the lover has sacrificed his soul to the beloved, and in return the beloved too has become his enemy. Naming the enmity of the people together with that of the beloved leaves the lover wholly alone.

In the second couplet the rhyme word "ān" means "that" in Persian; the same sound also recalls "ân" (moment, instant), a word of Arabic origin, and a link with this second sense is felt through the phrase "her dem" (at every moment) in the line. The bond between lip and soul rests on the beloved's lip granting life in divan poetry; without the lip the soul is about to run out. The reading of the Vienna manuscript gives directly the sense "a hair's breadth remained".

The third couplet elaborates the image of the arrow. The arrow's wound has remained in the heart, its head in the liver; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between arrow and arrowhead, heart and liver. In the fourth couplet patience and strength are long gone; the lover fears that his outcry will follow them, for the outcry is the last thing left to him. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) ties the cause of all these losses to something outside the lover, to perverse fortune and to the sky, which is spoken of for its fickleness. The words "devrān" (the sky, time) and "vārūn" (reversed) bring to mind the turning of the sky and its perversity together.

Bibliography

Online sources