Original Persian Text

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

Eşk ü sirişk-i men ki heme la‘l-i nāb şod
Ber-merdüm-i dü dīde ez-ān fetḥ-i bāb şod
Eşk-i revān-ı men ki merā mī-bered çonīn
Gūyā vücūd-ı bende be-rūyeş ḥabāb şod
Ger ‘aḳdhā-yı zülf-i to behr-i sirişk-i māst
Bu’gẕer zi-‘aḳdhā-yı vey ān bī-ḥisāb şod
Nezdīk-i şeb ki āmedī vü reft āftāb
Peydā şod āftāb u revān māh-tāb şod
Ez-ẕerrehā-yı ḫāk-i reheş her ki şod Münīr
Lā-büd be-çeşm-i devr-i cihān āftāb şod

In English

1. My tears and teardrops have turned wholly red like pure ruby; for this reason doors have opened for the two pupils of my eyes. ("Fetḥ-i bāb", in its dictionary sense, is the opening of a door, and figuratively the easing of affairs, success; Ersoy, too, explains it as "their affairs became easy". "Merdüm" means both the pupil of the eye and a human being.)

2. My ceaselessly flowing tears carry me off in such a way that it is as though the being of this servant has become a bubble on its surface. ("Ḥabāb", in its dictionary sense, is a bubble on water; Ersoy imagines the tears as a sea.)

3. If the knots of your tresses are for our tears, give up those knots; for the tears have gone beyond all reckoning. ("‘Aḳd", in its dictionary sense, means a knot, a tie; the name is also given to the signs made when counting on the fingers, which is why it is linked with the word "reckoning". Ersoy understands it as "you may untie those knots, for our weeping has gone beyond all measure".)

4. As night drew near you came and the sun departed; at that moment the (true) sun appeared and the moonlight departed. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the sun in the second line is the beloved herself, and at her coming the moonlight goes out; Ersoy, however, explains the couplet as a comparison: "Just as the moonlight vanishes when the sun appears, so when night draws near you come and the sun vanishes".)

5. O Münîr, whoever becomes one of the motes of the dust of her road cannot help becoming a sun in the eye of the world.

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-eighth of the Persian ghazals (fg 48). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "şod" (became); in Ersoy's list of refrains fg 48, 49, 54 and 69 are shown with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-āb": nāb, bāb, ḥabāb, ḥisāb, māh-tāb, āftāb. 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 73a) and Vienna (VY 56b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first three couplets of the ghazal are about tears. In the opening couplet the bloody tears are likened to pure ruby, a precious red stone. Doors open for the pupils of the eyes that possess these rubies; the double meaning of "merdüm", both pupil of the eye and human being, also calls up the opening of doors before a wealthy man. Thus in the couplet the turning of tears into a precious treasure and the figurative sense of the idiom "fetḥ-i bāb" work together. In the second couplet the tears have become a flood or a sea and carry the lover off; the lover's being is no more than a bubble on the surface of this water. The bubble in divan poetry is the symbol of short-lived and passing existence; the lover's seeing his own being in this way expresses his smallness before love.

The third couplet links the knots of the tresses with reckoning. The word "‘aḳd" is both a knot and the sign for counting on the fingers; since the tears are "beyond reckoning", the knots of the tresses are no longer enough to count them. A congruence of images (tenasüp) is thus formed among the words knot, reckoning and tears. The fourth couplet is a hyperbole resting on the exchange of night and day. The beloved comes at night; the real sun has set, but with the beloved's coming another sun rises, and this time it is the moonlight that vanishes. Contrast and congruence of images are formed together among the words sun, night and moonlight.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) sets the mote against the sun. To be a mote in the dust of the beloved's road is enough to become a sun in the eye of the world. The difference in size between the mote and the sun is often used in divan poetry through the image of dust motes visible in sunlight; here the small becomes the greatest through its nearness to the beloved. The word "āftāb" (sun) occurring three times in the fourth and fifth couplets binds the end of the ghazal with an image of light.

Bibliography

Online sources