Original Persian Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Maṭla‘-ı ṣubḥ-ı sa‘ādet āftāb-ı rūy-ı tost
Ṣūret-i şeb der-siyāhī-i sevād-ı mūy-ı tost
Vā‘iẓ-i şehrem ki dī ez-nār-ı dūzaḫ şerḥ kerd
Yek şerer ez-āteş-i hicr-i ruḫ-ı nīkū-yı tost
Gerçi der-çarḫ-ı melāḥat mī-şeved meh-rū besī
Kevkeb-i burc-ı şeref māh-ı nev-i ebrū-yı tost
Ey dil ez-fikr-i hilāl-i ebruveş ḫod-rā be-keş
Ān kemān-ı zūr-ver ne der-ḫor-ı bāzū-yı tost
Dūş ber-kūyeş fiġān u nāleem be’şnīd ü goft
Ey Münīr īn kīst goftem bülbül-i ḫoş-gūy-ı tost

In English

1. The rising place of the morning of felicity is the sun of your face; the dark aspect of night comes from the blackness of your hair. ("Maṭla‘", in its dictionary sense, means the place where the sun rises; the first couplet of a ghazal is also called the matla.)

2. Yesterday the preacher of our city described the fire of hell; that fire is but a spark from the fire of separation from your fair cheek.

3. Though there are many moon-faced beauties in the sky of loveliness, the star of the house of exaltation is the new moon of your brow. ("Burc-ı şeref" in old astronomy is the sign of the zodiac in which a planet is held to be at its strongest; "māh-ı nev", in its dictionary sense, is the crescent, the new moon.)

4. O heart, draw yourself back from thinking of her crescent-like brow; that mighty bow is no match for your arm. (The brow is likened to a bow; the lover lacks the strength to draw that bow.)

5. Last night in her street she heard my cries and moans and said, "O Münîr, who is this?"; and I said, "It is your sweet-singing nightingale." (The couplet can be read in two ways: the words "Ey Münīr" may belong to the beloved's question or, as Ersoy understands it, be the poet's address to himself.)

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-ninth of the Persian ghazals (fg 39). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". In his list of refrains Ersoy shows this ghazal alone as having the refrain (redif) "tūst"; in the text every couplet ends with the words "-yı tost" (is yours, is your …). The rhyme is the sound "-ū": rūy, mūy, nīkū, ebrū, bāzū, ḫoş-gūy. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 70b) and Vienna (VY 54b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the contrast of night and day. The beloved's face is the place where morning rises, her hair the darkness of night; a contrast is drawn between face and hair, morning and night, light and darkness. Since the first word, "maṭla‘", is both the place where the sun rises and the name of the first couplet of a ghazal, the poet begins his ghazal precisely with the words "rising place"; this may be counted a double entendre (tevriye) that works both meanings of the word together. The second couplet is a libertine comparison. The fire of hell that the preacher describes to frighten is no more than a spark beside the fire of being apart from the beloved. The preacher in divan poetry represents the dry piety that stands against the lover, and he occupies the same place in this couplet.

The third and fourth couplets are built on the brow. In the third couplet loveliness is imagined as a sky and the beauties as the moons of this sky; the most exalted star among them is the beloved's crescent-like brow. The words sphere, moon-faced, sign of the zodiac, star and new moon form a congruence of images (tenasüp) through their connection with the sky. In the fourth couplet the same brow is now a bow. The curved form of the crescent calls up the bow; that bow is so mighty that the lover's arm is not enough to draw it. Here the poet addresses his heart and counsels it not to long in vain. The passage from crescent to bow is the carrying of the same comparison from one couplet to the next and its linking to a new meaning.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) is a small scene of conversation. At night the beloved hears the voice of the lover moaning in her street and asks "who is this"; the poet presents himself as her nightingale. The nightingale's lament for the rose is among the best-known conventional images of divan poetry; the epithet "ḫoş-gūy" (sweet-speaking) brings together the nightingale's song and the poet's verse in one word. That the moan is counted sweet song is an expression of the lover's turning his cry into poetry.

Bibliography

Online sources