Original Persian Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Ey sefer kerde’ī cānān-ı kesī
Ne-şevī hīc to mihmān-ı kesī
Be-sūy-ı gül-şen-i cānem be-ḫırām
Yek reh ey serv-i ḫırāmān-ı kesī
Ḳıṣṣa-i mā ki cihān-rā be-girift
Kes ne-mī-ḫᵛānd zi-destān-ı kesī
Şod ez-ān-ı to heme ḫalḳ-ı cihān
Çi buved ger to şevī ān-ı kesī
İmşeb ez-pertev-i ān şem‘-i Münīr
Pür-żiyā külbe-i aḥzān-ı kesī

In English

1. O you who have set out on a journey, you are someone's beloved; will you never be anyone's guest? (Ersoy understands the first line as a question, "whose beloved are you".)

2. O someone's gracefully swaying cypress, sway just once toward the rose garden of my soul.

3. Our story has so filled the world that no one reads anyone's tale any more.

4. All the people of the world have become yours; what would it matter if you became someone's?

5. Tonight, by the glimmer of that illuminating candle (or of Münîr's candle), someone's hut of sorrows has filled with light.

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 fiftieth and last of the Persian ghazals (fg 150). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". In Ersoy's list of refrains the refrain (redif) of the ghazal is given as "-ī"; since the word "kesī" (someone) is repeated at the end of the lines in every couplet, the refrain can also be thought of as "-ı kesī". The rhyme is the sound "-ān": cānān, mihmān, ḫırāmān, destān, ān, aḥzān. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 98a) and Vienna (VY 79a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known. In the edition the Turkish ghazals begin after this ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Every couplet of the ghazal ends with the word "kesī", "someone, somebody". This indefinite word gives the poem both a note of secrecy and a tone of reproach: the beloved is "someone's" beloved, "someone's" cypress, but whose is never said. The vagueness itself becomes a means of expression.

The opening couplet (matla) addresses a beloved who has set out on a journey. The beloved is a traveller, yet is never anyone's guest; the lover's wish is that he should stay just once at his door. Ersoy understands the first line as a question, "whose beloved are you"; "cānān-ı kesī" in the text means word for word "someone's beloved". There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "sefer" (journey) and "mihmān" (guest).

In the second couplet the beloved is likened to a swaying cypress and is called to the rose garden of the soul. In the third couplet the lover's story has spread through the whole world and taken the place of other stories. That the story of lover and beloved is on everyone's lips is a thought often found in divan poetry; here it also carries a note of pride.

In the fourth couplet the word "ān" sets up a play on words. In Persian "ān-ı to" means "what is yours, your property", and with this sense the couplet reads "the whole world has become yours; what would it matter if you became someone's". In divan poetry the same word, in its dictionary sense, is also used for the beloved's indescribable beauty and charm. That this second sense can also be felt in the couplet is our own inference.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the word "Münīr" has two meanings. Ersoy understands it as "illuminating" and ties the candle to the beloved's cheek. The word is also the poet's pen name; the line can also be read as "the glimmer of Münîr's candle". The phrase "külbe-i aḥzān" (hut of sorrows) recalls in divan poetry the house of sorrow in which the prophet Jacob shut himself away when parted from his son Joseph; this connection is our own inference. The ghazal ends with the image of the house of sorrow lit up by the beloved's one-night visit, and this image seems to answer the wish for hospitality in the opening couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources