Original Persian Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Kāf u lām u zī vü rī vü dāl-ı men
Key koned yā Rab naẓar ber-ḥāl-i men
Ānçonīn k’üftāde-i ‘ışḳ-ı toem
Kes ne-dāned çün buved aḥvāl-i men
Devlet-i ‘uḳbā buved k‘ez ‘ışḳ-ı to
Pür şeved ger nāme-i a‘māl-i men
Mihr-i ruḫsāret ki nā-geh rū nümūd
Şod be-dīdāret mübārek fāl-i men
Şod seg-i kūy-ı to-rā hem-dem Münīr
Be’nger āḫir devlet ü iḳbāl-i men

In English

1. O Lord, when will my kaf, lam, ze, re and dal (my yellow rose) cast a look upon my state? (Ersoy gives the meaning of the letters in brackets as "gül-i zerd", that is, yellow rose.)

2. I have fallen so deep into your love that no one knows how my state is.

3. If my book of deeds is filled with your love, that is the felicity of the hereafter. (Ersoy understands the couplet as "even if my book of deeds is full, the true felicity of the hereafter comes from your love".)

4. The sun of your cheek suddenly showed its face; by seeing you my omen became blessed, my luck opened.

5. Münîr has become the companion of the dog of your street; look at the fortune and prosperity I have reached at last.

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-ninth of the Persian ghazals (fg 129). The metre is "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 "-āl": dāl, ḥāl, aḥvāl, a‘māl, fāl, iḳbāl. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 92b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a letter riddle. The first line of the opening couplet lists the names of five letters: kaf, lam, ze, re and dal. Ersoy gives their meaning as "gül-i zerd" (yellow rose). In Arabic script the Persian word "gül" (rose) is written with the letters kaf (or its three-dotted form gaf) and lam, and the word "zerd" (yellow) with ze, re and dal; so instead of naming the beloved directly, the poet refers to him by letters. This arrangement of letters recalls the genre of the muamma (name riddle); in the opening couplet of fg 109, a little earlier in the edition, brow, eye and mouth were likewise likened to the letters nun, ayn and mim. Why the beloved is called a "yellow rose" is not explained in the couplet.

The second and third couplets describe the lover's state. The lover has fallen so deep into love that no one can know his state; the word "ḥāl" (state) comes into the rhyme in the opening couplet, and "aḥvāl" (states) in the second. The third couplet uses the language of the hereafter. The book of deeds is the book in which a person's good and bad deeds are written and which will be set before him at the Last Judgement; the lover counts the filling of this book with love as the felicity of the hereafter. Ersoy connects the couplet a little differently; we have shown both readings in the In English section.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's cheek is a sun that suddenly rises, and seeing it makes the lover's omen blessed. "Fāl", in its dictionary sense, means a sign taken for the future; the idea that meeting a beautiful face is lucky is expressed through this word. There is also a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "mihr" (sun) and "rū nümūden" (to show one's face, to rise).

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) returns to the image of the street dog that occurs often in Münîrî's ghazals in this section (fg 106, fg 121, fg 128). Münîr has become friends with the dog in the beloved's street and presents this as a great piece of luck, a "devlet ü iḳbāl" (fortune and prosperity). Presenting friendship with the dog as an elevation rests on the idea that everything near the beloved's door gains worth.

Bibliography

Online sources