Original Persian Text

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

Ey be-endūh-ı to ḫurrem cān-ı ġam-perverd-i men
V’ey zi-nūş-ı nīş-i to bāşed ‘ilāc-ı derd-i men
Īnçonīn k’ez ḫᵛān-ı vaṣl-ı to cüdā üftādeem
Mī-şeved ḫūn-ı ciger bes her dem-i āb-ḫord-ı men
Ṭavf-ı kūyet-rā resīden reh ne–mī-yābem meger
Mī-resāned ‘āḳıbet bād-ı ṣabā ez-gerd-i men
Her dem ez-derd-i derūn-ı dil güvāhī mī-dehend
Hemçü nāy īn nālehā-yı zār u rūy-ı zerd-i men
Bī-gül-i ruḫsār-ı to ber gül-şen-i ‘ömr-i Münīr
Mī-vezed bād-ı ḫazān āḫir zi-āh-ı serd-i men

In English

1. O you, through whose sorrow my grief-nurtured soul is glad, and from the honey of whose sting comes the cure of my pain. ("Nūş", in its dictionary sense, means honey, a sweet drink; "nīş" means a needle, a bee's sting. Ersoy understands "nīş" as a glance like a lancet.)

2. I have fallen so far from the table of union with you that liver's blood suffices me as drinking water at every moment.

3. I find no road to reach the circling of your street; but in the end, it seems, the morning breeze will carry some of my dust there.

4. Like the reed flute, these moans and laments of mine and my yellowed face bear witness every moment to the pain within my heart.

5. Without the rose of your cheek, the autumn wind will at last blow upon the rose garden of Münîr's life from my cold sigh.

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 twenty-fifth of the Persian ghazals (fg 125). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the phrase "-i men" (of mine); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-erd": ġam-perverd, derd, āb-ḫord, gerd, zerd, serd. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 91b) and Vienna (VY 73a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on two contrasts. In the first line the lover's soul finds gladness in the beloved's sorrow; "endūh" (sorrow) and "ḫurrem" (glad) face each other. In the second line the cure for pain comes from the beloved's sting. The words "nūş" (honey) and "nīş" (sting) differ by a single sound; there is a pun (cinas) between these near-sounding words, and at the same time it sets up a contrast between the sweet and the wounding. Naming honey and sting together also calls the bee to mind; this is our own inference. Pain as cure and sorrow as joy express the lover's acceptance of everything that comes from the beloved.

The second couplet uses the image of a table. Union is a banquet table, and the lover has fallen far from it; all that is left for him to drink is the blood of his liver. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "ḫᵛān" (table) and "āb-ḫord" (drinking water). In divan poetry the liver's blood is named as the source of deep suffering and of bloody tears.

In the third couplet the beloved's street is again thought of as a holy place to be circled. The lover finds no road there, but hopes that after he has died and turned to dust the morning breeze will carry his dust there. This thought is also seen in fg 107 and fg 122, earlier in the edition: saba carries the lover's dust to the beloved's street. In the fourth couplet the lover moans like the reed flute; the moaning and the yellowed face are witnesses to the pain within. "Zerd" (yellow) and "derd" (pain) come side by side in the rhyme.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes with an image of the seasons. Münîr's life is a rose garden, but so long as the rose of the beloved's cheek is absent, an autumn wind blows upon this garden, and this wind is born of the lover's cold sigh. The cold sigh turning into the autumn wind carries the contrast of rose and autumn, spring and withering, into the lover's life. There is also a repetition resting on the word rose between "gül-şen-i ‘ömr" (the rose garden of life) and "gül-i ruḫsār" (the rose of the cheek).

Bibliography

Online sources