Original Persian Text

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

Gerçi mī-gūyend la‘let rīḫt ḫūnem-rā ṣarīḥ
Bāverem ne’bved ki iḥyā mī-şeved kār-ı Mesīḥ
Ber-cerāḥathā-yı dil la‘l-i to ger rīzed nemek
Ġam ne-mī-bāşed kebāb ez-milḥ mī-gerded melīḥ
Bī-ḳarārī-i men ey dil ġālib ez-āh-ı menest
Cünbiş-i ḫāşāk ne’bved ger ne-şod taḥrīk-i rīḥ
Her süḫan ke’z muṣḥaf-ı mihr-i cemālet gofteem
Her yekī z’ū cāmi‘-i ma‘nī şod ü ḳavl-i ṣaḥīḥ
Der-ġazel goften Münīr er sāḥirī āmūḫtī
‘Ayb ne’bved ‘ilm-i her fen z’ān ki cehl āmed ḳabīḥ

In English

1. Though they say that your ruby lip has openly shed my blood, I do not believe it; for your lip brings (the dead) back to life, and bringing to life is the work of the Messiah. (In divan poetry the beloved's lip is likened to the breath of Jesus, which raised the dead. Ersoy, too, explains the couplet as "raising the dead is the work of Jesus".)

2. If your ruby lip sprinkles salt on the wounds of the heart, I do not grieve; kebab becomes tasty with salt. ("Nemek" and "milḥ", in their dictionary sense, mean salt; "melīḥ" means both salty, tasty and beautiful, charming. In divan poetry the burnt liver is likened to kebab.)

3. O heart, my restlessness, it seems, comes from my sigh; unless the wind stirs them, the straws and chaff do not move.

4. Every word I have spoken from the holy book of love for your beauty has become a word that gathers meanings in itself and is sound. ("Muṣḥaf", in its dictionary sense, is a copy of the Qur'an, a book. "Mihr" means both love and the sun; Ersoy takes this word in the sense of sun, as "the holy book of your face bright as the sun". "Ḳavl-i ṣaḥīḥ", in its dictionary sense, means a true, sound saying.)

5. O Münîr, if you have learned sorcery in the making of ghazals, this is no shame; the knowledge of every art is needed, for ignorance is ugly.

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 forty-first of the Persian ghazals (fg 41). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif). The rhyme is the sound "-īḥ", and all the rhyme words are Arabic: ṣarīḥ, Mesīḥ, melīḥ, rīḥ, ṣaḥīḥ, ḳabīḥ. According to Ersoy's apparatus the poem is found only in the Vienna manuscript (VY 55a); it is absent from the Vatican and Istanbul manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with a denial. Everyone says that the beloved's lip sheds the lover's blood, but the lover does not believe it; for that lip, like the Messiah, brings back to life. The likening of the beloved's lip to the life-giving breath of Jesus is among the most widespread conventional images of divan poetry; here the image is used like a proof, and a contrast is drawn between killing and bringing to life. The second couplet is built on the image of salt. Even if the lip sprinkles salt on the wound, the lover is not grieved, for kebab gains its flavour from salt. "Milḥ" (salt) and "melīḥ" (salty, beautiful) come from the same root; the double meaning of "melīḥ", both tasty and beautiful, suggests that the beloved's bitter words are beautiful too.

The third couplet has the air of a proverb. If the wind does not blow, the straws and chaff do not move; the lover's restlessness, too, comes from the wind of his own sigh. Placing a general truth in the couplet as an example is the figure of proverbial illustration (irsal-i mesel). The link between the sigh and the wind rests on imagining the sigh as a breeze.

The last two couplets are about poetry, and in his introduction Ersoy cites both as examples of the poet's views on his own verse. In the fourth couplet the poet says that he speaks from the "holy book" of his love for the beloved's beauty; each of his words gathers meanings in itself and is sound. The words holy book, sound and "câmi‘" (gathering) come from the language of the religious sciences and form a congruence of images (tenasüp). According to Ersoy, the poet here holds that each of his words brings together various meanings and is sound. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the poet likens his mastery in the making of ghazals to sorcery and grounds it in learning: the knowledge of every art is needed, ignorance is ugly. Ersoy cites this couplet as an example of the poet's holding learning necessary in every art and notes that Münîrî, long before Fuzûlî, said that sound poetry must rest on learning. The correspondences between sorcery and learning, ignorance and ugliness give the couplet a didactic tone.

Bibliography

Online sources