Original Persian Text

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

Di be-āvāz-ı bülend īn dil-i bī-çāre be-goft
Cān-ı men bād fedāyeş ki merā bord u nühoft
Be’nger üstādī-i īn nāvek-i müjgān ki merāst
Der-şeb-i tār zi-behr-i leb-i la‘let dür soft
Şermsārīm ü ḫacil ez-seg-i kūy-ı to ki vey
Yek şeb ez-nāle vü zārī-i men-i ḫaste ne-ḫoft
Lāyıḳ-ı dīden-i rūyet ne-buved dīde henūz
Sālhā şod ki be-müjgān reh-i kūy-ı to be-roft
Der-miyān-ı dil ü cān-ı men-i bī-çāre Münīr
Şükr-i Īzed ki ne-şod cüz süḫaneş goft u şinoft

In English

1. Yesterday this helpless heart said in a loud voice: "May my life be a sacrifice for the one who carried me off and hid me away." ("Di", in its dictionary sense, means yesterday.)

2. Behold the mastery of this arrow of eyelashes that is mine: in the dark night it pierced pearls for your ruby lip. (Ersoy explains "pearl-piercing" in parentheses as "weeping". The eyelash is likened to an arrow; the drops of tears falling from lashes sharp as arrows resemble pearls pierced to be strung on a thread.)

3. We are ashamed and abashed before the dog of your street, for not one night could it sleep because of the moaning and weeping of sick me.

4. For years the eye has swept the road to your street with its lashes, yet it has not yet become worthy of seeing your face.

5. O Münîr, thanks be to God, between the heart and the soul of helpless me nothing was said or heard but his word. ("Goft u şinoft", in its dictionary sense, means saying and hearing, that is, conversation.)

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-third of the Persian ghazals (fg 23). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the sound "-oft": goft, nühoft, soft, ḫoft, roft, şinoft. In Persian these are the past-tense forms of the verbs to say, to hide, to pierce, to sleep, to sweep and to hear; the ghazal thus rhymes entirely on verbs. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 67a) and Vienna (VY 50b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Ersoy counts this ghazal among the seventeen Persian ghazals that are response poems (nazire) to Hâfız of Shiraz and gives its counterpart by page number in the Istanbul printing of Hâfız's Divan of 1290 (1873-74); the TDV article likewise records that seventeen Persian ghazals are responses to Hâfız. The ghazal of Hâfız in the same metre and rhyme is the one opening "Ṣubḥ-dem murġ-ı çemen bā gül-i nev-ḫāste goft" (At dawn the bird of the meadow said to the newly blown rose).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with something the heart said yesterday. The heart is ready to sacrifice its life for the beloved who carried it off and hid it; the verbs "to carry off" and "to hide" build the image of a stolen heart. In the second couplet the eyelash is an arrow, the tear a pearl, and weeping the piercing of pearls. The dark night, as the hour when tears are shed, gives this image its setting. The words arrow, piercing and pearl form a congruence of images (tenasüp); between arrow and eyelash, pearl and tear, there is an evident metaphor (istiare).

The third couplet leans on a familiar scene of divan poetry: the dog at the beloved's door enjoys a closeness that even the lover envies. Münîrî turns the scene around; the lover does not envy the dog but is ashamed before it, because his own moaning has kept it sleepless. In the fourth couplet the eye sweeps the beloved's road with its lashes for years and is still not counted worthy of seeing the face. The likening of the eyelash to a broom conveys at once the eye working like a servant and its humility. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the only subject of the conversation between heart and soul is the beloved's word.

Compared with Hâfız's ghazal, most of the rhymes turn out to be shared. In Hâfız's ghazal, too, a pearl is pierced with the tip of the eyelash ("ey besā dür ki be-nevk-i müjeet bāyed soft"), the dust of the tavern door is swept with the cheek ("roft"), and in the last couplet the tear is said to have thrown reason and patience into the sea while the grief of love could not be hidden ("nühoft"). Hâfız's seventh couplet ends "kūtāh kon īn goft u şinoft" (cut short this saying and hearing); Münîrî, too, closes his pen-name couplet with the same pair "goft u şinoft". The images of piercing pearls with the eyelash and sweeping the road are common to the two ghazals; Münîrî, however, turns Hâfız's conversation between the bird of the meadow and the rose into a conversation between the heart and the soul.

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