Original Persian Text

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

Ger ṣabā burḳa‘ ber-endāzed zi-gül-ruḫsār-ı ū
Devlet-i dīdār yābed ‘andelīb-i zār-ı ū
Ḫastegāneş-rā ki bīnem fātiḥa z’ān ḫānemeş
To me-pindārī ki ber-Yā sīn resed bīmār-ı ū
Bu’gẕer ey vā‘iẓ zi-vaṣf-ı zīnet-i cennāt-i ‘adn
Ser-fürū n’āred be-cennet ‘āşıḳ-ı dīdār-ı ū
İttiṣāl-i dil be-zülfet būd rūḥānī ez-ān
Ber-reg-i cān-ı merā peyveste şod her tār-ı ū
Rūy mī-pīçed şeker terk-i diyār-ı ḫod koned
Her dem ez-āvāze-i luṭf-ı şeker-güftār-ı ū
Fikr-i cennet şod be-sīne zāhid-i kem-ḫᵛāre-rā
Der-ḫor-ı men nīst hergiz zāhid ü pindār-ı ū
Cennetü’l-me’vā maḳām-ı mā buved lā-büd Münīr
‘Āḳıbet ger cān dehem der-sāye-i dīvār-ı ū

In English

1. If the morning breeze (saba) lifts the veil from his rose-like cheek, his lamenting nightingale (the lover) will attain the happiness of seeing him.

2. When I see his sick ones, that is, his lovers, I recite the Fatiha for them; do not imagine that the Yâsin will reach his sick one in time.

3. O preacher, stop describing the adornments of the gardens of Eden; one who loves his face does not bow his head to Paradise.

4. The heart's binding to your tresses is spiritual for this reason: every one of its strands is bound to the vein of my life.

5. Sugar, whenever it hears the gracious voice of his sugar-sweet lip, turns its face away and leaves its own land.

6. The ascetic who has trained himself to eat little has thoughts of Paradise in his breast; neither the ascetic nor his conceit is ever for me.

7. O Münîr, if in the end I give up my soul in the shade of his wall, our station will without doubt be the Garden of Me'vâ.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the hundred and thirty-fifth of the Persian ghazals (fg 135). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the suffix "-ı ū" (his); in Ersoy's list of refrains this ghazal and the two that follow it are given with the same refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ār": ruḫsār, zār, bīmār, dīdār, tār, güftār, pindār, dīvār. 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 94a) and Vienna (VY 75b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) uses the image of the rose and the nightingale. The beloved's cheek is the rose, and the lover is his lamenting nightingale. Only the morning breeze can lift the veil that covers the rose face; in divan poetry this breeze is a messenger that brings news of the beloved and acts as go-between for lover and beloved. The nightingale's good fortune, its happiness, depends on this veil being lifted.

In the second couplet there is a fine calculation between prayer and death. Among the people the sura Yâsin is recited at the bedside of the dying, and the Fatiha after the dead. The lover already recites the Fatiha for the beloved's sick ones, because they do not live even long enough for the Yâsin to be read; love has long since killed them. This explanation rests on a general custom and is our own inference; Ersoy gives the meaning of the couplet in the same direction.

The true axis of the ghazal is Paradise. In the third couplet the preacher is told not to describe the adornments of Paradise, for one who loves the beloved's face does not bow to Paradise. In the sixth couplet the thought of Paradise is placed in the breast of the ascetic who eats little and disciplines himself with austerities, and the lover rejects both this asceticism and the ascetic's self-satisfied conceit. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas), however, Paradise is found in quite another place: to give up one's soul in the shade of the beloved's wall takes the lover to the Garden of Me'vâ. Eden (Adn) and Me'vâ, in their dictionary senses, are among the names of Paradise. Thus, while the Paradise of the preacher and the ascetic is rejected, the lover's own Paradise is set up; this ordering in the ghazal is our own observation.

In the fourth couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the strands of the tresses and "reg-i cān" (the vein of life). The binding of strand to vein carries the bond between heart and tresses from the body to the soul; that is why the word "rūḥānī" (spiritual) was chosen. In the fifth couplet sugar is ashamed before the sweetness of the beloved's speech, turns its face away and leaves its own land. Sugar's inability to boast of its own sweetness is a poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil) built to show the beloved's speech as superior. That the word "şeker" occurs in the same line both as real sugar and within "şeker-güftār" (sugar-tongued) also forms a repetition.

Bibliography

Online sources