Original Persian Text

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

Müjgān-ı men be-leşker-i eşkem koned nigāh
Cārūb-kār şod ki keşed ṣaf pey-i sipāh
Āyā buved ki kūşe-i çeşmet be-mā resed
Ṣad mürde-rā ki mī-koned iḥyā be-yek nigāh
Ḫaṭṭet zi-her ṭaraf ki çonīn leşkerī keşed
Goften tevān be-mülk ne-mī-künced īn sipāh
Mis̱leş de-dāşt ḥüsn-i to çün mihr-i ‘ālemest
Ber-her ki būd porsiş-i men goft lā-sivāh
Z’ān zülf ü ḫaṭ ki rūz-ı dil-i men siyāh būd
Her dūd-ı dil ki şod be-felek būd naḳş-ı āh
Ber-ḫūn-ı men şehādet-i lebhā-yı to besest
Ḫod ber-ṭarīḳ-i şer‘ dü kes mī-şeved güvāh
Ṣabr u ḳarār-ı mihr-i felek refteest Münīr
Z’īn dūd-ı dil ki āyīne-i māh şod siyāh
Şeh Bāyezīd ḫān ki ez-ān-ı veyest cihān
Sulṭān-ı ‘ālemest hemānest pādşāh
İḳbāl ü ‘ömr ü devlet ü cāheş mezīd bād
Rūḥest taḫt-rā ki buved devlet-i külāh

In English

1. My eyelashes look upon my army of tears; they have become sweepers to dress the ranks before the army.

2. Might it be that the corner of your eye, which raises a hundred dead with a single glance, should reach us too?

3. Your down draws such an army from every side that it may be said no land can hold this army.

4. Since your beauty is like the sun of the world, whomever I asked whether it had any equal said, "There is none but him."

5. Because my heart's day was made black by those tresses and that down, every smoke that rose from the heart to the sky became an inscription of sighs.

6. The testimony of your lips is enough for the shedding of my blood; in any case, by the way of the sacred law, two persons serve as witnesses.

7. O Münîr, the sun of the sky has lost its patience and composure; from this smoke of the heart the mirror of the moon has grown dark.

8. Shah Bayezid Han, whose own the world is, is the sultan of the world; he it is who is padishah.

9. May his fortune, life, state and rank increase; he is the soul of the throne, and he is the fortune of the crown. (Ersoy understands the second line as "the prince who is the soul of the throne"; the text has the word "külāh", a crown or cap.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a nine-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the hundred and forty-fifth of the Persian ghazals (fg 145). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme is the sound "-āh": nigāh, sipāh, sivāh, āh, güvāh, siyāh, pādşāh, külāh. 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 96b).

The structure of the ghazal is unusual. The pen name (mahlas) occurs in the seventh couplet, but the poem does not end there; the two couplets that follow praise Bayezid II and pray for him. These two couplets after the pen name give the ghazal the air of the close of a kaside (qasida). This structure is our own observation.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The love section of the ghazal is built from the start in a language of armies and sovereignty. In the opening couplet (matla) the tears are an army, and the lashes are the attendants who sweep the road and dress the ranks before it. In the third couplet the beloved's down too draws an army, and this army fits in no land. The words "leşker" and "sipāh" (army), "mülk" (land), and at the very end "pādşāh", "taḫt" (throne) and "külāh" (crown) prepare a natural passage from the love section to the section of praise. This congruence of images (tenasüp) is our own observation.

In the second couplet the beloved's glance is named with a power that raises the dead. In the fourth couplet the question is asked whether the beloved, whose beauty is "mihr-i ‘ālem" (the sun of the world), has any equal, and everyone answers in Arabic "lā-sivāh" (there is none but him). "Mihr", in its dictionary sense, means both sun and love, and it occurs again in the seventh couplet as "mihr-i felek" (the sun of the sky).

The fifth and seventh couplets are built on smoke and darkness. The black tresses and the down have darkened the lover's day, and the idiom "rūz-ı siyāh" (black day) has turned into a real colour. The smoke of sighs rising from the heart inscribes the writing of sighs on the sky and in the end darkens the mirror of the moon. The sixth couplet uses a rule of law as proof: in Islamic law two witnesses are needed for an event to be established; the beloved's two lips are two witnesses that the lover's blood has been shed. Ersoy too explains the couplet by this rule.

Historical Context

In the eighth couplet the person praised is named: "Şeh Bāyezīd ḫān". Münîrî was a poet who took part in the gatherings of Bayezid II while Bayezid was governor of Amasya; most of the kasides in his divan were also presented to Bayezid and to Prince Ahmed. Bayezid being called "sulṭān-ı ‘ālem" (sultan of the world) and "pādşāh" here are familiar formulas of the language of praise; there is no information, in the edition or in any other source, on when the ghazal was written. Ersoy's use of "prince" in the last couplet does not rest on any word in the text; no date should therefore be drawn from this phrase.

Bibliography

Online sources