Original Persian Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Be-ruḫsāret ki īn gül-zār bāşed
Çü bülbül behr-i ū gül zār bāşed
Be-nāl ey ‘andelīb-i hicr-dīde
Ki vaṣl-ı gül hemān ber-ḫār bāşed
Ne-mī-māned çü bülbül ḫār-ı gül-rā
Kesī k’ū ṭālib-i dīdār bāşed
Zi-gül ger bāġ-bān-rā behre’ī hest
Naṣīb-i bülbül āh u zār bāşed
Zer-i gül behr-i ḫūn-ı ‘andelībest
Ez-ān der-muşt-ı gül her bār bāşed
Münīrī behr-i yek gül mis̱l-i bülbül
Hezār ender-hezārān kār bāşed

In English

1. Since your cheek is this rose garden, let the rose, too, lament for it like the nightingale. ("Gül-zār" means rose garden, while "gül zār" means the rose lamenting; the two phrases, with the same sound, stand at the ends of the lines.)

2. Lament, O nightingale that has tasted separation; for union with the rose falls to the thorn alone.

3. Whoever longs to see the beloved's face does not stay caught on the rose's thorn like the nightingale. (Ersoy understands it as "is not deceived by the rose's thorn". The verb "māndan" in Persian means both to stay and to resemble; the line can also be read as "does not resemble the rose's thorn as the nightingale does".)

4. If the gardener has a share of the rose, the nightingale's portion is to sigh and lament.

5. The rose's gold is the price of the nightingale's blood; that is why it is always in the rose's palm. (The yellow pollen in the middle of the rose is likened to gold; Ersoy, too, says "the blood money for the nightingale's blood". The Vatican manuscript has "dest-i" instead of "muşt-ı"; both mean hand, palm.)

6. Münîrî, like the nightingale, has a thousand upon thousands of labours for a single rose; that is, he laments without end. ("Hezār", in its dictionary sense, means both a thousand and the nightingale. Ersoy understands the couplet as "he moans and weeps countless times".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the forty-fourth of the Persian ghazals (fg 44). The metre is "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün"; the ghazal is written in a metre with shorter lines. The refrain (redif) is the verb "bāşed" (let it be, it is); in Ersoy's list of refrains fg 44 and fg 68 are shown with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ār": gül-zār, zār, ḫār, dīdār, zār, bār, kār. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme preceded by a long vowel). The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 71b) and Vienna (VY 55b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole ghazal is built on the conventional image of the rose and the nightingale, and each couplet works a different side of this image. The opening couplet begins with a paronomasia (cinas): "gül-zār" (rose garden) at the end of the first line and "gül zār" (the rose lamenting) in the second line carry the same sound but differ in meaning. There is also a reversal of roles in the couplet: since the beloved's cheek is the rose garden, it is now the rose itself that must lament like the nightingale. Thus the rose falls into the lover's position before the beloved's beauty.

The second and fourth couplets describe the nightingale's ill fortune. It is not the nightingale but the thorn that attains the rose; it is the gardener who takes a share of the rose, and only lamenting is left to the nightingale. The thorn and the gardener evoke, in divan poetry, the rival who is close to the beloved and profits from her without knowing her worth. The third couplet gives counsel: whoever longs for the beloved's face must not stay caught on the thorn like the nightingale. The fifth couplet carries the subtlest image of the ghazal. The yellow pollen in the middle of the rose is imagined as gold; this gold is the blood money of the nightingale whose blood was shed for the rose, and that is why the rose always holds it in its palm. Because a poetic cause is found for an appearance in nature, this couplet is an example of fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The words gold, blood and blood money form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) again ends with wordplay. "Hezār" means both the number thousand and the nightingale; the phrase "hezār ender-hezārān" (a thousand upon thousands) therefore also calls up the nightingale. Münîrî likens himself to the nightingale and says that he laments countless times for a single rose. The poet who at the beginning of the ghazal made the rose lament like the nightingale puts himself in the nightingale's place at the end; thus the roles of rose, nightingale and lover change places throughout the ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources