Original Persian Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

‘Ömrem be-ser resīd ki ān lāf mī-zenem
Ān ki be-yād-ı la‘l-i to cān mī-dehed menem
Dīdem nişān-ı ān kef-i pā der-zemīn demī
Şod sālhā be-nevk-i müje ḫāk ber-kenem
Şükr-i Ḫudā ki der-ḳadem-i devlet-i ġamet
Her cā ki mī-resem şeved ū cāy u meskenem
Āḫir be-fikr-i la‘l-i to güm mī-şevem velī
Ne’bved ‘aceb ki perde ez-īn sır ber-efkenem
Ger mī-konī merā be-naẓar-bāzīyem naẓar
Ālūdegī-i dīde me-bīn pāk-dāmenem
Ez-gerd-i rāh-ı sümm-i semendeş resed Münīr
Z’ān-rū münevverest belī çeşm-rūşenem

In English

1. My life has come to its end, and so I make this boast: the one who gives up his soul in memory of your ruby lip is I.

2. For a moment I saw the print of that sole on the ground; for years I have been digging the earth with the tip of my eyelash. (Ersoy understands the eyelash as likened to an arrowhead.)

3. Thank God that, at the feet of the fortune of your grief, wherever I arrive becomes my home and dwelling.

4. In the end I am vanishing into the thought of your ruby lip; yet it would be no wonder if I were to cast off the veil of this secret.

5. If you look at me, look at my skill in gazing on beauties; do not look at the soiling of my eye, for I am clean of skirt. ("Pāk-dāmen", in its dictionary sense, means clean of skirt, that is, chaste.)

6. Münîr reaches the dust of the road trodden by the hoof of his horse; that is why, yes, my eye is illumined and bright.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the hundred and thirteenth of the Persian ghazals (fg 113). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". In Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with the refrain (redif) "-em" (I am); the couplet endings meet in the sound "-enem": mī-zenem, menem, ber-kenem, meskenem, ber-efkenem, pāk-dāmenem, rūşenem. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 88b) and Vienna (VY 70b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with a boast. The lover, whose life has come to an end, proclaims that he is the one who gives up his soul remembering the beloved's lip. "Lāf zeden", in its dictionary sense, means to boast, to make a bold claim; here what is boasted of is death itself. The second couplet sets an exaggerated scene. The lover once saw the beloved's footprint in the earth and for years has been scraping that earth with the tips of his eyelashes. Likening the eyelash to an arrowhead is common in divan poetry; here the arrowhead turns into a digging tool. This hyperbole also suggests that the lover never found the print again.

The third couplet shows grief as a devlet, that is, a fortune and a dominion. Under the feet of this fortune the lover has made homelessness his home: wherever he goes is his house. The fourth couplet uses the motif of the secret and the veil. While the lover vanishes into the thought of the lip, he does not shrink from revealing the secret either; between "güm şoden" (to vanish) and "perde ber-efkenden" (to cast off the veil) there is a contrast of hiding and disclosure.

In the fifth couplet the word "naẓar" occurs twice in the same line: "naẓar-bāzī" (skill in gazing on beauties, the play of glances) and "naẓar kerden" (to look). The lover grants that his eye looks soiled, stained with tears and with gazing, but says that his skirt is clean. The contrast between eye and skirt, soiling and cleanness, carries the meaning of the couplet.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) a link of sound and sense stands out. As Ersoy explains, "Münîr" in Arabic means one who illumines, who gives light; the word "münevver" (illumined, lit up) in the same couplet comes from the same root. The eye of Münîr, who reaches the dust on the road of the beloved's horse, is lit up by that dust; the phrase "çeşm-rūşen", in its dictionary sense, means bright of eye, that is, joyful. This link between the pen name and "münevver" is our own observation. The dust lighting the eye rests on the idea of drawing the dust touched by the beloved's foot onto the eye like kohl.

Bibliography

Online sources