Original Persian Text

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

Eger be-bende-i dīrīneet nigāhī nīst
Zi-baḫt-ı tīre şod ān hem to-rā günāhī nīst
Ġulām-ı bende-i muḳbil besī fütād ammā
Mis̱āl-i hindū-yı ḫāl-i ruḫet siyāhī nīst
Ḥużūr-ı kūşe-i mey-ḫāne-rā be-pors ez-men
Cüz īn be-müflis-i ‘ışḳ-ı to tekye-gāhī nīst
Ber-āstān-ı to z’ān şod teveccüh-i ‘ālem
Ki cüz ḥarīm-i deret hīc ḳıble-gāhī nīst
Ḥarīm-i vaṣl-ı to-rā key resed Münīr āḫir
Gedāy-rā çü ber-i şāh rūy u rāhī nīst
Devām-ı devlet-i şeh Bāyezīd dāyim bād
Ki cüz vücūd-ı şerīfeş merā penāhī nīst

In English

1. If you have no glance for your old slave, that too comes from my dark fortune; you bear no blame for it.

2. Many a slave has belonged to a fortunate servant, but there is no black one like the Hindu of the mole on your cheek. ("Hindū", in its dictionary sense, means "Indian"; in divan poetry it is used in the sense of a dark-skinned slave, and the black mole on the cheek is likened to it. The word "siyāhī" means both "blackness" and "a black slave". Ersoy explains the couplet as "there are many pleasing, favoured slaves, but no one has the blackness of the mole on your cheek".)

3. Ask me about the peace of the tavern corner; for one bankrupted by your love there is no other place to lean on. ("Tekye-gāh", in its dictionary sense, is a place to lean or rest on; the word "tekye" also evokes the meaning of a dervish lodge (tekke).)

4. The world has turned its face to your threshold for this reason: apart from the sanctuary of your door there is no qibla at all. ("Ḥarīm" is the inviolable inner precinct of a house or a holy place.)

5. How should Münîr ever reach the sanctuary of union with you, when a beggar has neither the face nor the way to come before the king? ("Gedā" means beggar; Ersoy renders it as "slave". "Rūy u rāh", face and way, here means courage and means.)

6. May the continuance of the reign of King Bayezid last forever, for apart from his noble person I have no refuge.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the sixteenth of the Persian ghazals (fg 16). The metre is "mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the word "nīst"; in Ersoy's list of refrains this is the only Persian ghazal with the refrain "nīst". The rhyme is the sound "-āhī": nigāhī, günāhī, siyāhī, tekye-gāhī, ḳıble-gāhī, rāhī, penāhī. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 65a) and Vienna (VY 49a) manuscripts. According to Ersoy's apparatus, the word "hīc" in the fourth couplet is missing in the Vatican manuscript.

Ersoy counts this ghazal among the seventeen Persian ghazals that are nazire (response poems) to Hâfız of Shiraz, and as its counterpart he points to page 42 of the Istanbul 1290 printing of Hâfız's Divan; he does not name the ghazal. The TDV article also records that seventeen Persian ghazals are nazire to Hâfız. Hâfız's ghazal written in the same metre and with the same rhyme and refrain begins with the opening line "Cüz āstān-ı toem der-cihān penāhī nīst". The two ghazals agree in metre, rhyme and refrain; in addition, Hâfız's rhyme words "penāhī", "günāhī", "nigāhī", "rāhī" and "siyāhī" are also used by Münîrî, and the word "āstān", threshold, in Hâfız's ghazal also occurs in Münîrî's fourth couplet. This comparison rests on reading the two texts side by side; it does not appear in Ersoy.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The language of the ghazal is built around the notions of servitude and service. The lover counts himself the beloved's old slave, and even if the beloved does not look at him, he finds the fault in his own dark fortune. In the second couplet the notion of the slave is tied to a conventional image of beauty: the black mole on the cheek is likened to a Hindu slave, and it is said that no fortunate servant has ever had so black a slave. The fact that the word "siyāhī" means both "blackness" and "a black slave" gives the couplet the depth of a double entendre (tevriye).

The third and fourth couplets treat the tavern and the place of worship on the same plane. The tavern corner is the "tekye" of one bankrupted by love, and the beloved's door is the qibla toward which the world turns. The words tekke, qibla and sanctuary form a religious congruence of images (tenasüp); this congruence is used in a libertine context. In the fifth couplet the lover is likened to a beggar and the beloved to a king, and the impossibility of union is expressed through this social distance.

The last couplet closes the ghazal with a prayer. In this couplet, which comes after the pen name (mahlas) has appeared in the fifth couplet, the ruler Bayezid is mentioned by name and the poet says that he has no refuge but him. The simile of the beggar and the king in the fifth couplet thus turns in the last couplet toward a real king; and the words "there is no qibla but you" spoken to the beloved find their counterpart in the words "there is no refuge but you" spoken to the ruler.

Historical Context

"Şeh Bāyezīd", named in the last couplet, is Bayezid II, in whose circle Münîrî took part. The TDV article writes that Münîrî was present in the intimate gatherings of Bayezid II; Ersoy associates this circle with the years of Bayezid's governorship of the sanjak of Amasya. According to Ersoy, a Topkapı Palace library catalogue dated 1503 records a divan by Münîrî in the private library of Bayezid II. Whether the ghazal was written during Bayezid's years as prince or during his reign is not stated in the sources. The use of the word "şeh", king, in the couplet is not in itself enough to give a date.

Bibliography

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