Original Persian Text

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

Dil-rā ḫayāl-i ḫadd-i to bustān-serā koned
Şūrīde-bülbülīst ki destān-serā koned
Goftem zekāt-ı la‘l-i lebet hest goft lā
Cān-ı merā ki her çi koned īn belā koned
Ber-şerbet-i ṭabīb ne-mī bāşed iḥtiyāc
Ḫūn-ı ciger çü merdüm-i dīde ġıdā koned
Ez-āh-ı men füzūn şeved īn āteş-i derūn
Her cā ki āteş ūfted efzūn hevā koned
Rūşen-dil ez-żamīr-i meh ü mihrem ey Münīr
Her şeb ṭulū‘-ı ṭal‘at-ı ān meh-liḳā koned

In English

1. The image of your cheek turns the heart into a garden pavilion; and there the heart is a frenzied nightingale reciting tales, that is, singing. ("Bustān-serā", in its dictionary sense, is a garden house, a pavilion; "destān-serā" means one who recites tales, who sings, and is an epithet of the nightingale. Ersoy understands the couplet as "it turned my heart into the garden in the courtyard of houses (stained it with blood)".)

2. I said, "Is there an alms-tax due on your ruby lip?"; she said "lâ", that is, "no". Whatever has befallen my soul comes from this affliction. ("Lā" is Arabic for "no"; "belā" means misfortune in Persian and "yes" in Arabic. The Vatican manuscript has "nīst", that is, "there is not", instead of "lā". The alms-tax of the lip is a kiss.)

3. When the pupil of the eye takes the blood of the liver as its food, there is no need for the physician's syrup. ("Merdüm" means both the pupil of the eye and a human being. Ersoy notes that the blood comes from much weeping.)

4. From my sigh this fire within me grows; wherever fire falls, the air increases it. ("Hevā", in its dictionary sense, means both air, wind and desire, longing.)

5. O Münîr, because the face of that moon-faced beloved rises every night, my heart is brighter than the inner heart of the moon and the sun. ("Rūşen-dil", in its dictionary sense, is one whose heart is bright; "żamīr" means the inner self, the heart. Ersoy understands it as "our heart is brighter than both the sun and the moon".)

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 fifty-first of the Persian ghazals (fg 51). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "koned" (does, makes); in Ersoy's list of refrains this ghazal stands alone with the refrain "koned". The rhyme is the sound "-ā": bustān-serā, destān-serā, belā, ġıdā, hevā, liḳā. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 73b) and Vienna (VY 57a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Ersoy counts this ghazal among the seventeen Persian ghazals that are response poems (nazire) to Hâfız of Shiraz and gives its counterpart by page number in the 1290 (1873-74) Istanbul printing of Hâfız's Divan; the TDV article also records that seventeen Persian ghazals are response poems to Hâfız. The ghazal of Hâfız in the same metre, rhyme and refrain begins with the opening couplet "Ger mey-fürūş ḥācet-i rindān revā koned / Īzed güneh be-baḫşed ü def‘-i vebā koned" (If the wine-seller grants the libertines their need, God will forgive sin and drive away the plague).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with a paronomasia (cinas). The first line ends with the word "bustān-serā" (garden pavilion), the second with "destān-serā" (reciting tales, singing); the two words differ by a single letter. The heart first turns into a garden pavilion through the image of the beloved's cheek, then becomes a frenzied nightingale singing in that garden. The words garden, pavilion and nightingale form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

The second couplet is the wittiest place in the ghazal. The lover asks the beloved for the alms-tax of her lip, that is, a kiss; the beloved answers with the Arabic "lâ" (no). The word "belā" at the end of the second line means misfortune in Persian; but in Arabic it means "yes", and in divan poetry it recalls the scene in pre-eternity in which the souls answered God's question "Elestü bi-rabbiküm" (Am I not your Lord?) with "belâ" (yes). This correspondence between "lā" and "belā" builds a play of both sound and meaning: the beloved's "no" becomes an affliction upon the lover's head. The presence of "nīst" instead of "lā" in the Vatican manuscript does away with this play. In Hâfız's ghazal, too, the rhyme "belā koned" occurs; there the cupbearer's giving wine with justice prevents the beggar from growing jealous and filling the world with affliction.

In the third couplet the physician and the syrup are named: because the pupil of the eye is nourished on the blood of the liver, there is no need of medicine. In Hâfız's ghazal, too, there are images of pain, cure and life-giving breath; Hâfız counts union with the beloved or pure wine as the cure for the pain of love. The fourth couplet rests on an observation: wind makes fire grow, and the lover's sigh likewise increases the fire within him. Placing a general truth in the couplet as proof is the figure of proverbial illustration (irsal-i mesel); that the word "hevā" means both air and desire suggests that what increases the fire is at the same time the lover's longing. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the beloved's face is a moon that rises every night, and the lover's heart is therefore brighter than the inner heart of the moon and the sun. There is a congruence of images among the words moon, sun, rising and brightness.

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