Original Persian Text

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

Der-her zemīn behr-i to ḫūnhā çekāndeīm
Ez-dūd-ı dil be-çarḫ ‘alemhā nişāndeīm
Ez-müşkilāt-ı ‘ışḳ-ı to āvāze-i süḫan
Ber-lā-mekān-ı ‘ālem-i ‘ulvī resāndeīm
Ber-şaḫṣ-ı dehr-i dūn ki çonīn püşt-i pā zedīm
Dād-ı dil ez-‘acūze-i dünyā sitāndeīm
Behr-i ġubār-ı gerd-i rehet k’ūst kīmyā
Bā-dāmen-i dü dīde cevāhir feşāndeīm
Mest-i ḫarāb-ı ‘ışḳ-ı toyīm ez-berā-yı ū
Bī-iḫtiyār u bī-dil ü bī-‘aḳl māndeīm

In English

1. For your sake we have let blood drip in every land; from the smoke of the heart we have planted banners on the sky.

2. Because of the hardships of your love we have carried the echo of our words to the placeless height of the higher world. ("Lā-mekān", in its dictionary sense, means placelessness.)

3. We so spurned the person of the base age with the back of our foot that we took the heart's due from the old hag of the world. ("Püşt-i pā zeden", in its dictionary sense, means to strike with the back of the foot, to kick away in contempt.)

4. For the dust of your road, which is the elixir, we have scattered jewels from the skirts of our two eyes. ("Kīmyā" here means the elixir believed to turn copper into gold; Ersoy too explains it as "able to turn stone into gold".)

5. We are the ruined drunkards of your love; because of it we have been left without will, without heart and without reason.

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 nineteenth of the Persian ghazals (fg 119). 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) "-īm" (we have); the couplet endings meet in the sound "-āndeīm": çekāndeīm, nişāndeīm, resāndeīm, sitāndeīm, feşāndeīm, māndeīm. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The ghazal has no pen-name couplet (mahlas); the poet's name does not occur in the last couplet. The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 90a). To whom and when it was written is not known.

The ghazal is in the same metre and on the same refrain "-īm" as fg 106, which comes earlier in the edition; both speak in the voice of "we", and in both the phrase "‘ālem-i ‘ulvī" (the higher world) occurs. This resemblance is our own observation.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a poem of boasting that lists the great deeds lovers have done together. In the opening couplet the lovers have let blood drip everywhere and, with the smoke rising from their hearts, planted banners on the sky. Picturing the smoke of sighs rising from the heart as a standard reaching to heaven forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) between fire, smoke and sky. The second couplet continues this ascent: the lovers' voice has reached the highest level, where not even place exists. "Lā-mekān", in its well-known sense in Sufi language, refers to the divine realm that no place can contain.

The third couplet is a challenge to the world. The age is pictured as a base person and kicked away with the back of the foot; the world is likened to an old hag. Showing the world as a deceitful old woman is a well-known motif of divan poetry. The lovers have taken the heart's due from this hag, that is, they have not bowed to the world. "Dehr-i dūn" (the base age) and "‘acūze-i dünyā" (the hag of the world) are two parallel personifications.

In the fourth couplet the dust of the beloved's road is likened to the elixir that turns whatever it touches into gold. For this dust the lovers have scattered jewels, that is tears, from the skirts of their eyes. Scattering gifts from one's skirt is pouring offerings on the path of something precious; thinking of the eyelids as "skirts" ties this scene to tears. The link between dust and jewel, earth and gold, is the mainstay of the couplet.

The last couplet ends the boasting with surrender. The lovers who did such great deeds are left in the end, as drunkards of love, without will, without heart and without reason; the threefold repetition of the prefix "bī-" (without) lists these losses.

Bibliography

Online sources