Original Persian Text

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

Dil bā-ḫayāl-i ‘ışḳ-ı to tā-şod zi-men cüdā
Men nīz geştem ez-ḫodī vü ez-vaṭan cüdā
Ez-morden-i raḳīb-i to ey dost ġam me-ḫor
Ān bih ki şod zi-ḥūr-ı cinān Ehrimen cüdā
Fāriġ ne-mī-şeved dilem ez-derd-i ‘ışḳ-ı to
Tā der-cihān ki cān ne-buved ez-beden cüdā
Ber-‘āşıḳān-ı ḫaste-dil-i zār u derd-mend
Yā Rab me-bād ez-to demī zīsten cüdā
Bī-gül-sitān-ı ḥüsn-i to ber-ḥālet-i Münīr
Gül nāle-ger cüdā şod u murġ-ı çemen cüdā

In English

1. Ever since my heart, with the image of your love, parted from me, I too have fallen apart both from myself and from my homeland. ("Ez-ḫodī cüdā" means word for word "apart from myself"; Ersoy renders it as "I lost myself".)

2. O friend, do not grieve over the death of your rival; it is better that Ahriman be parted from the houris of Paradise. (Ahriman (Ehrimen), in its dictionary sense, is the being held to be the source of evil in ancient Iranian belief. The rival is likened to Ahriman and the beloved to a houri. Ersoy explains the rival as the person who watches over and guards the beloved. In the Vatican manuscript this couplet stands fourth.)

3. As long as in this world the soul is not parted from the body, my heart will not be free of the pain of your love.

4. O Lord, may your heart-wounded, moaning and sorrowful lovers never have to live apart from you for a single moment. (Ersoy understands the couplet as an address to the beloved; the text has the invocation "Yā Rab", O Lord.)

5. Without the rose garden of your beauty, over Münîr's state the rose wept on its own, and the bird of the meadow, that is, the nightingale, on its own. (The couplet can be read in two ways. Ersoy understands it as "Münîr's state is like that of the nightingale parted from the rose"; the text can also be saying that the rose and the nightingale each lamented separately over Münîr's state.)

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 third of the Persian ghazals (fg 3). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". Every line ends with the word "cüdā", "apart"; this word is the refrain (redif) of the ghazal. The rhyme is the sound "-en": men, vaṭan, Ehrimen, beden, zīsten, çemen. In the list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction, the count of the Persian ghazals begins with the first, second, fifth and sixth ghazals, and this ghazal does not appear there; as to rhyme, Ersoy shows it among the examples of rhyme built on the rhyme letter alone. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 62a) and Vienna (VY 46b) manuscripts; the only difference between the two is that the second couplet stands fourth in the Vatican manuscript. In the Vatican order the couplet on the rival's death comes after the prayer that lovers may never "live apart from you". Although the couplets of the ghazal are linked by the redif, each carries a thought complete in itself, so this difference of order does not change the meaning of the poem. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is separation, and the redif takes it up anew in every couplet. In the first couplet separation advances like a chain: the heart has parted from the poet, and the poet has fallen apart from himself and from his homeland. The second couplet treats separation from the opposite side: the rival's death should not grieve the beloved, for it is a blessed separation, like Ahriman being parted from the houris. In the third couplet separation is tied to the parting of soul and body, that is, to death; only then will the pain of love end. In the fourth couplet the poet prays that lovers may not live apart from the beloved. In the pen-name couplet the poet's state is told through the image of the rose and the nightingale left apart from the rose garden.

The comparison in the second couplet is the most striking point of the ghazal. The rival is likened to Ahriman and the beloved to a houri of Paradise; the rival's death is thus shown as darkness being removed from light. In the third couplet the parting of "cān" (soul) and "beden" (body) is a familiar expression for death, and it says that love will last until death. In the fifth couplet the words gül-sitān, gül and murġ-ı çemen stand in congruence of images (tenasüp); by saying "the bird of the meadow" the poet means the nightingale without naming it. That the redif carries a different kind of separation in each couplet gives the ghazal a unity that turns around a single thought for five couplets. Ersoy says that Hâfız's influence is clearly seen in Münîrî's Persian ghazals, but he does not count this ghazal among the seventeen nazires (response poems) to Hâfız.

Bibliography

Online sources