Original Persian Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Merdüm-i çeşm merā ṣoḥbet-i nūş-ā-nūşest
Mī-nümāyed ki nigūn geşte sebū ber-dūşest
Ez-mey-i la‘l-i to z’ān cür‘a ki ber-ḫāk resīd
Bāde der-kūşe-i ḫum-ḫāne be-ḫum der-cūşest
Şerbet-i tīġ-i to bihter buved ez-āb-ı ḥayāt
Ber-dil-i ḫaste ki nīş-i to bih ez her nūşest
Gerçi ġāyib şode-est īn dil-i küşte-i men
Mī-nümāyed ki der-ān piste yekī ḫāmūşest
Hīc ber-dāmen-i vaṣleş ne-resed dest-i Münīr
Ber-dilem şāhid-i maḳṣūd ki der-āġūşest

In English

1. The pupil of my eye is my companion in the drinking party where cups are clinked back and forth; it looks as if it carries an overturned jug on its shoulder. ("Merdüm", in its dictionary sense, means both "person" and "pupil of the eye". "Nūş-ā-nūş" is a gathering where people drink to each other, calling "drink, drink". The couplet can be read in two ways: it is the jug that is overturned, its mouth turned downward; Ersoy, however, likens the pupil to someone whose back is bent from carrying a jug.)

2. Because of that sip of the wine of your ruby lip that fell upon the earth, the wine in the vat in the corner of the tavern is seething. ("Cür‘a" is the last sip left at the bottom of the cup or poured onto the ground. Ersoy understands the second line as a simile: "is like the wine overflowing from the vat".)

3. The sherbet of your sword is better than the water of life, for to the wounded heart your sting is better than any honey. ("Nīş", in its dictionary sense, is a sting, thorn or lancet; "nūş" is honey, a sweet drink and an antidote. Ersoy takes "nīş" as a lancet and stinging words, and "nūş" as an antidote.)

4. Although this slain heart of mine has disappeared, it seems that someone sits silent in that pistachio. ("Piste" is the pistachio, which in divan poetry describes the beloved's tiny mouth. The lost heart is said to sit silently in the beloved's mouth.)

5. Münîr's hand never reaches the hem of union with him; yet in my heart the longed-for beauty is in my embrace. (The couplet can be read in two ways. According to the wording of the lines, while the hand cannot reach union, the heart embraces the beloved; Ersoy, however, understands the second line as "in the heart there is the desire to embrace the beauty we long for".)

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 fourteenth of the Persian ghazals (fg 14). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". In Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal appears among those with the refrain (redif) "est". The rhyme is the sound "-ūş": nūş-ā-nūş, dūş, cūş, nūş, ḫāmūş, āġūş. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 64b) and Vienna (VY 48b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets of the ghazal are woven of tavern imagery. In the first couplet the lover's pupil becomes his companion at the drinking party. Because the word "merdüm" means both "person" and "pupil of the eye", the pupil can be imagined as a person at the gathering; this person carries an overturned jug on his shoulder. The tears pouring from the weeping eye resemble wine flowing from a jug turned mouth-down. In the second couplet a sip that falls from the beloved's lip to the earth is powerful enough to make the vats of the tavern seethe. Pouring a sip from the cup onto the ground is a familiar gesture of tavern custom; by linking this gesture to the beloved's lip, the poet says that even wine is stirred to a ferment before him.

The third couplet is built on contrast (tezat) and pun (cinas). The beloved's sword kills, yet its sherbet is better than the water of life; the beloved's sting wounds, yet to the wounded heart it is better than any honey. The single-letter difference between "nīş" and "nūş" sets bitter and sweet side by side in the same mould. In the fourth couplet the beloved's mouth is likened to a pistachio, and the lost heart is said to sit there in silence; the conventional image of the tiny mouth turns into a scene of hiding. The word "ḫāmūş", "silent", also joins the smallness of the mouth to not speaking: the mouth is so small that the heart inside it cannot make a sound. The rhyme "nūş" in the third couplet comes from the same word as "nūş-ā-nūş" in the first; and the words "ḫum", "ḫum-ḫāne", "sebū", "cür‘a", "mey" and "bāde" (vat, tavern, jug, sip, wine) in the first two couplets form a broad congruence of images (tenasüp) belonging to the tavern.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) rests on the opposition between hand and heart. Münîr's hand cannot reach the beloved's hem, but his heart embraces him. Ersoy understands the couplet as a sentence of desire; if one keeps to the wording of the line, a contrast emerges between the state of the hand and that of the heart. Although images of drink, wounding and vanishing come to the fore in the separate couplets, the beloved's lip unites the ghazal as a whole: wine drips from his ruby lip, and the heart hides in his pistachio mouth.

Bibliography

Online sources