Original Persian Text

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

Ān ki ġulām-ı kemter-i pīr-i muġān-ı māst
Sulṭān-ı her dü ‘ālem ü şāh-ı cihān-ı māst
Gerçi faḳīr ü ḫᵛār u gedāyīm ü bī-nevā
Her şeb ḫayāl-i dil-ber-i mā mīhmān-ı māst
Endīşe-i cihān-ı müzaḫraf kocā konīm
Cān hem be-rāh-ı ‘ışḳ-ı to bār-ı girān-ı māst
Dil der-ḫayāl-i ān dehen ü zülf ü ‘ārıżest
Fikr ü ḫayāl-i çeşm-i to der-ḳaṣd-ı cān-ı māst
Şod gūşvār-ı īn ṣadef-i pür-żiyā Münīr
Her gevherī ki ez-süḫan-ı dür-feşān-ı māst

In English

1. He who is the lowliest slave of our pīr-i muġān is the sultan of both worlds and the king of our universe. ("Pīr-i muġān", in its dictionary sense, means the elder of the Magi, the fire-worshippers; in divan poetry he appears as the keeper of the tavern and the guide of the libertines. Ersoy renders it as "a humble servant of the cupbearer".)

2. Though we are poor, despised, beggars and destitute, every night the image of our beloved is our guest.

3. Why should we worry about the gilded world, when on the road of your love even our soul is a heavy burden to us? ("Müzaḫraf", in its dictionary sense, means gilded, ornamented, bright on the outside and hollow within.)

4. The heart is lost in the image of that mouth, that lock and that cheek; while the thought and image of your eye are bent on taking our life.

5. O Münîr, every jewel born of our pearl-scattering speech has become an earring for this radiant shell. (Ersoy explains "this radiant shell" as the beloved's ear. The shell is likened to the shape of the ear and the poet's words to pearls; the pearl forms inside the shell, and the poet's words become an earring in the beloved's ear.)

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 twenty-first of the Persian ghazals (fg 21). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is "māst"; in Ersoy's list of refrains this ghazal is shown together with the preceding one as having the refrain "māst". The two ghazals are written in the same metre and with the same refrain and follow one another in the edition. The rhyme is the sound "-ān": muġān, cihān, mīhmān, girān, cān, dür-feşān. The ending of every couplet with the refrain "māst" gives the whole ghazal the voice of the first person plural, that is, of a shared community of libertines. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 66b) and Vienna (VY 49b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a libertine reversal. The lowliest slave of the tavern elder is counted the sultan of both worlds. The contrast (tezat) between slavery and sultanship replaces the world's measures of value with those of the tavern circle. The words "sulṭān", "şāh" and "ġulām" (sultan, king and slave) in the first couplet and "faḳīr", "gedā" and "bī-nevā" (poor, beggar and destitute) in the second draw two separate social strata; the ghazal changes the places of these two strata by the measure of love and libertinism. The second couplet carries the same contrast forward through poverty: the lover is poor, a beggar and helpless, yet every night he hosts the beloved's image as his guest. That the poor lover entertains a guest every night lends the couplet a subtle wit.

In the third couplet the world is said to be gilded and deceptive; since even the soul is counted a heavy burden on the road of love, there is no room left for worrying about the world. In the fourth couplet the heart thinks of the beloved's mouth, lock and cheek, while the beloved's eye is bent on the lover's life. A reciprocity is set up between the heart's thinking of the beloved and the eye's thinking of killing the lover.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) is about the poet's own speech. Ersoy states that, when assessing his own poetry, Münîrî uses the attribute "dür-efşân", pearl-scattering, and cites this couplet as an example. In the couplet the words are pearls and jewels, the beloved's ear is the shell, and the poem itself is the earring. The words gevher (jewel), sedef (shell), dür (pearl) and gūşvār (earring) form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The poet's speech becoming an earring in the beloved's ear means that this speech is listened to and valued. In Turkish, too, "to become an earring in one's ear" is an idiom meaning not to forget a piece of advice; the image in the couplet can be considered together with this idiom.

Bibliography

Online sources