Original Persian Text

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

Ber-‘ārıżet ki dil leb-i cūyī girifteest
Dīvāne şod zi-zülf-i to ḫūyī girifteest
Bād-ı seḥer-gehī ki cihān pür zi-nükhetest
Ez-gülsitān-ı ḥüsn-i to būyī girifteest
Fikr-i miyān-ı to ki be-dil hest der-firāḳ
Gūyā zi-yādgār-ı to mūyī girifteest
Dil ez-cünūn be-silsile-i zülf-i pür-ḫamest
Āmed be-ḫod ki rūy-ı nikūyī girifteest
Īn seyl-i ḫūn-ı dīde ki her dem reved Münīr
Her laḥẓa bīnemeş reh-i kūyī girifteest

In English

1. On your cheek the heart has taken its place on the bank of a stream; it has gone mad from your lock and taken that for its habit. (Ersoy, too, says that the heart is as if it had taken the bank of a stream on the cheek. In divan poetry the brightness of the cheek is likened to water, and the down and the hair at its edge to the greenery on a riverbank.)

2. The dawn wind that fills the world with sweet fragrance has taken that scent from the rose garden of your beauty.

3. In separation the heart holds the thought of your waist; it is as if it had taken a single hair from you as a keepsake. (In divan poetry the beloved's waist is thought of as thin as a hair; the image of the waist thus resembles a strand of hair left in one's hand.)

4. In its madness the heart is bound to the chain of your curling lock; when it comes to itself, it has taken hold of a fair face. (In divan poetry madmen are put in chains; the lock is likened to that chain. Ersoy reads the couplet as "When the heart loses its reason, it is bound to the chain-like curling locks; when it comes to itself, it holds to a fair face".)

5. O Münîr, this flood of blood from the eye that runs at every moment, every time I look I see it has taken the road to the beloved's street.

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 thirty-first of the Persian ghazals (fg 31). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". In his list of refrains Ersoy places this ghazal among those with the refrain "est"; the part repeated in every couplet is in fact "-ī girifteest", that is, "has taken a …". The rhyme is the sound "-ūy": cūy, ḫūy, būy, mūy, nikūy, kūy. Each couplet thus ends by taking "a stream", "a habit", "a scent", "a hair", "a fair face" and "the road to a street"; a single verb binds all the couplets of the ghazal together. The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 69a). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real strength of the ghazal lies in its refrain (redif). In Persian the verb "girifteest" carries senses such as to take, to hold, to acquire; Münîrî uses it in a different sense in each couplet. The heart takes the bank of a stream on the cheek, that is, settles there; it acquires a habit from the lock; the dawn wind takes a scent from the garden of beauty; in separation the heart holds a hair as a keepsake; when it comes to itself it clings to a fair face; and the flood of tears takes the road to the street. The repetition of the same verb in different senses shows the ghazal's construction upon wordplay.

The rhyme words support this play as well. Cūy (stream), ḫūy (habit), būy (scent), mūy (hair), nikūy (fair) and kūy (street) are sounds very close to one another; this closeness creates a harmony of sound across the couplets. In the first couplet there is a simile (teşbih) between the stream and the cheek; in the second, beauty becomes a rose garden and the dawn wind a messenger spreading its scent over the world. In the third couplet the waist is as thin as a hair, and in separation the only thing left in hand is this hair. In the fourth couplet the mad heart is bound to the chain of the lock and, when it sobers, holds fast to a fair face; the contrast (tezat) between madness and coming to oneself expresses that in either state the lover cannot break away from the beloved.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the bloody tears flowing from the eye turn into a flood. The flood runs at every moment and at every glance seems to have taken the road towards the beloved's street. The images of flood, stream and water thus join the riverbank of the ghazal's first couplet: the ghazal opens on the bank of a stream and closes with a flood of blood. The words seyl (flood) and dīde (eye) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) that conveys weeping swollen by hyperbole to the size of a flood.

Bibliography

Online sources