Original Persian Text

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

Çihre-i zerd-i men ez-ḫūn-ı dilem şod cigerī
‘Aceb ez-ḥāl-i men-i ḫaste çirā bī-ḫaberī
Be-hevā-yı to çonīn raḳṣ-konān ber-ḫīzem
‘Āḳıbet ger zi-ser-i türbet-i men mī-güẕerī
Behr-i īs̱ār-ı reh-i ‘ışḳ-ı to ey mūnis-i cān
Ber-i her mūy-ı ten-i men şeved ey kāş serī
Be’gẕer ez-dāniş-i iksīr-i ġınā-baḫş-ı fenā
Güher-i ma‘rifet āmūz ki bā-hem be-berī
Yār nezdīk-i to bāşed ü to ġāfil ez-ū
Tā-be-key mī-şeved ey dil ‘aceb īn bī-baṣarī
Ġālib ānest ki şod ‘ömr-i raḳīb-i to tamām
Nāvek-i çend firistādem ez-āh-ı seḥerī
Ger be-ümmīd-i viṣāl-i to reved cān-ı Münīr
‘Arż-ı ḥāleş ne-koned z’ānk to ṣāḥib-naẓarī

In English

1. My yellowed face has turned deep red like liver with the blood of my heart; strange, why are you unaware of the state of me, the sick one?

2. If in the end you pass by the head of my grave, I will rise from it dancing like this with longing for you.

3. O companion of the soul, if only there were a head beside every hair of my body, to sacrifice on the path of your love.

4. Give up the knowledge of the elixir that bestows riches; learn the jewel of true knowledge that you can take with you. (The couplet can be read in two ways; the details are in the commentary.)

5. O heart, the beloved is close to you, yet you are unaware of him; strange, how long will this blindness last?

6. It seems the life of your watchful rival has come to an end; I sent him a few arrows from my dawn sighs.

7. Even if Münîr's soul departs in the hope of union with you, he will not lay his state before you; for you have insight and understand at a glance.

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 forty-ninth of the Persian ghazals (fg 149). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the suffix "-ī", and it is given thus in Ersoy's list of refrains too. The rhyme is the sound "-er": cigerī, ḫaberī, güẕerī, serī, berī, baṣarī, seḥerī, naẓarī. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 97b) and Vienna (VY 78b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet (matla) yellow and red face each other. The lover's face has yellowed from the pain of love, but the blood coming from his heart has made this yellow face "cigerī", the colour of liver, a deep red. In divan poetry the staining of the liver with blood is a sign of deep pain. The lover wonders that, despite all these visible marks, the beloved is unaware of his state.

In the second couplet the lover's grave is named; in the previous ghazal (fg 148) too the beloved was imagined passing by the lover's tomb. Here the lover says that if the beloved passes by the head of his grave, he will rise dancing with longing for him. That even death cannot stop love is tied to the idea that the beloved has a power that raises the dead. In the third couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "ser" (head) and "mūy" (hair): the lover wishes he had as many heads as the hairs on his body so that he could sacrifice them all on the beloved's path.

The fourth couplet is counsel and can be read in two ways. "İksīr" (elixir), in its dictionary sense, is the substance old alchemists believed turned base metal into gold. Ersoy understands the phrase "iksīr-i ġınā-baḫş-ı fenā" as "the elixir that bestows riches in this transient world"; in this reading the counsel is to stop chasing worldly goods and to seek the knowledge that can be carried to the next world. Since the word "fenā" also means in Sufism the passing away of a person from his own being, the phrase can also be understood as "the elixir that bestows the riches of self-annihilation"; this second reading is our own inference. In both readings it is the "jewel of true knowledge" that endures.

In the fifth couplet the heart is warned: the beloved is near, but the heart cannot see him. The word "bī-baṣarī" (blindness, lack of insight) faces "ṣāḥib-naẓar" (one with insight) in the pen-name couplet (mahlas): the heart does not see the beloved, while the beloved sees the lover's state without its needing to be told. This contrast is our own observation. In the sixth couplet the dawn sigh becomes an arrow and ends the rival's life. Ersoy explains "raḳīb" as the keeper who watches over the beloved. In the pen-name couplet the lover will not lay his state before the beloved even if his soul departs; the beloved already knows everything.

Bibliography

Online sources