Original Persian Text

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

Ber-levḥ-i dil ki mühr-i ḫat-ı to raḳam keşīd
Ḫaṭṭ-ı diger ki hest der-īncā ḳalem keşīd
Kūy-ı to-rā resem ki merā kes be-vāḳı‘a
İmşeb be-seyr-i gül-şen-i bāġ-ı İrem keşīd
Şod şöhre-i cihān be-ḫarābī ki tā-ġamet
Leşker be-mülk-i dil ki be-ṭabl u ‘alem keşīd
Key mī-şeved be-dest-i ṣabā nüsḫa-i dürüst
Ez-sebze-i ḫaṭ-ı to gül-i ter ki nem keşīd
Ḳassām-ı Lem-yezel be-dem-i ḳısmet ey Münīr
Dāġ-ı ġulāmīyeş be-cebīn-i dilem keşīd

In English

1. Since the seal of your down has drawn its script on the tablet of the heart, the pen has been struck through every other script that was there. ("Ḫaṭ" in divan poetry is the down on the beloved's face, while "ḫaṭṭ" is script, writing; "ḳalem keşīden", in its dictionary sense, is to strike through a piece of writing and cancel it.)

2. I shall reach your street; for tonight in a dream someone took me to view the rose garden of the orchard of Iram. ("Vāḳı‘a", in its dictionary sense, means a dream, a vision; Iram is a legendary garden likened to paradise. Ersoy, too, understands the dream as a sign of reaching the place where the beloved is.)

3. Since your grief marched its army with drum and banner into the land of the heart, (the heart) has become famous throughout the world for its ruin. (The couplet can be read in two ways: what has become famous throughout the world may be the ravaged land of the heart, or, as Ersoy understands it, the army of grief that has won renown for its destructiveness.)

4. When will the fresh rose that has drawn moisture from the greenness of your down pass into the hand of the morning breeze as a true copy. (The couplet is obscure. Ersoy understands the fresh rose as the beloved's cheek and explains it as "When will a proper copy come into the hand of the dawn breeze"; it seems to be meant that the morning breeze cannot find a true copy of the cheek.)

5. O Münîr, the eternal Distributor of portions, at the moment when portions were given, pressed upon the brow of my heart the brand of servitude to her. ("Ḳassām-ı Lem-yezel", in its dictionary sense, is the everlasting, eternal Distributor, that is, God; "dāġ-ı ġulāmī" is the brand burned on slaves.)

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-second of the Persian ghazals (fg 42). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "keşīd"; in Ersoy's list of refrains two ghazals are shown with this refrain, fg 42 and fg 47. The rhyme is the sound "-em": raḳam, ḳalem, İrem, ‘alem, nem, dilem. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 71a) and Vienna (VY 55a) manuscripts. No manuscript variants are recorded for this ghazal in Ersoy's apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is that the refrain is used with a different meaning in each couplet. The Persian verb "keşīden" means to draw, but its meaning changes with the idiom it forms: in the opening couplet "raḳam keşīd" means drew a script, "ḳalem keşīd" struck through; in the second couplet it means to take someone to view, in the third to march an army, in the fourth to draw moisture, in the fifth to press a brand. Six separate uses of a single verb are a clear example of Münîrî's fondness for wordplay.

The opening couplet is built on the image of writing. The heart is a tablet; once the beloved's down has pressed its seal and written its script on it, all other writings are cancelled. "Ḫaṭ" (down) and "ḫaṭṭ" (script) come side by side in the same couplet and form a paronomasia (cinas); the words tablet, seal, figure, script and pen also form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The image of the tablet of the heart rests on imagining the heart as a page reserved for the beloved's writing alone. This image of writing reappears in the fourth couplet with the word "nüsha" (copy). In the second couplet the dream, as often in divan poetry, is the herald of a coming union. The couplet takes a dream as good tidings: to see the rose garden of the orchard of Iram in a dream is a sign of reaching the beloved's street. The third couplet uses the language of war. Grief has opened a campaign with drum and banner against the land of the heart, and the land has been ruined. The words army, drum, banner and land form a congruence of images; imagining the heart as a land is common in divan poetry.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) completes the image of the seal in the opening couplet with the brand. In pre-eternity, when portions were being distributed, the brand of servitude to the beloved was pressed upon the brow of the heart. Presenting love as a destiny fixed in pre-eternity is frequent in divan poetry; here it is made concrete through the image of the brand burned on slaves. The ghazal, in which the heart is likened to a tablet, a land and a branded slave, describes love's dominion over the heart through different images.

Bibliography

Online sources