Original Persian Text

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

Derd-i ‘ışḳet-rā ki dil der-cān-ı men mī-pervered
Āfet-i ḫᵛīş ü belā-yı cān u ten mī-pervered
Bā-ümīd-i la‘l-i şekker-bār u Mıṣr-ı ḥüsn-i ḫod
Yūsuf-ı dil-rā der-ān çāh-ı ẕeḳan mī-pervered
Ṭūṭī-i ḫaṭṭeş ki der-minḳār-ı ḫod gīred şeker
Mī-nümāyed k’ez leb-i şekker-şiken mī-pervered
Müşk-i Çīn ber-ḫāk-i pāy-i to ne-mī-gīred revāc
Gerçi der-nāfe-i ḫod āhū-yı Ḫuten mī-pervered
Ber-dehāneş mühr zed ān dem der-āġūşeş ki şod
Duḫter-i rez-rā ki ḫum der- ḫᵛīşten mī-pervered
Bende-i ān ‘ārifem k’ū-rā be-künc-i mey-gede
Ḥażret-i pīr-i muġān bā-dürd-i den mī-pervered
Der-ṣadef gūyā derūn-ı baḥr-i eşk-i mā Münīr
Dīde behr-i yār-i men dürr-i ‘Aden mī-pervered

In English

1. The heart nurtures the pain of your love within my soul; that is, it nurtures its own calamity, the affliction of soul and body.

2. (The beloved,) in the hope of her sugar-scattering ruby lip and of the Egypt of her own beauty, nurtures the Joseph of the heart in that well of the dimple of her chin. (The prophet Joseph was thrown into a well by his brothers and later rose to high station in Egypt; the couplet rests on this story. Ersoy, too, indicates in parentheses that the subject is the beloved.)

3. Your down, like a parrot holding sugar in its beak, looks as though it were fed by a sugar-breaking (sweet-spoken) lip. ("Şekker-şiken", in its dictionary sense, means sugar-breaking, one who speaks sweet words. The down is likened to the parrot because of its green colour.)

4. Though the gazelle of Khotan nurtures the musk of China in its own navel, that musk finds no currency beside the dust of your feet. ("Nāfe", in its dictionary sense, is the musk pod in the navel of the musk deer. Khotan and China are Eastern lands known for their fine musk.)

5. The jar, the moment it took into its embrace the daughter of the vine that it nurtures within itself, set a seal upon her mouth. ("Duḫter-i rez", in its dictionary sense, is the daughter of the vine, that is, wine; the mouths of wine jars used to be closed with a seal.)

6. I am the servant of that gnostic whom the elder of the Magi nurtures, in a corner of the tavern, with the dregs of the jar. ("Pīr-i muġān", in its dictionary sense, is the elder of the Magi, in divan poetry the old master of the tavern or a spiritual guide. "Dürd" means dregs, "den" a large jar; Ersoy says "the dregs of the great cup".)

7. O Münîr, our eye, in the shell within the sea of our tears, is nurturing as it were a pearl of Aden for our beloved. (Aden is a port city known for its precious pearls; the tears are likened to pearls.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the fifty-third of the Persian ghazals (fg 53). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "mī-pervered" (nurtures); in Ersoy's list of refrains this ghazal stands alone with the refrain "pervered". The rhyme is the sound "-en": ten, ẕeḳan, şiken, Ḫuten, ḫᵛīşten, den, ‘Aden. According to Ersoy's apparatus the poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 74a). Since it survives in a single manuscript, there are no variants in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain of the ghazal is the verb "to nurture", and in most of the couplets something is nurtured and raised inside a closed place. Pain is nurtured inside the soul, Joseph inside the well, musk in the gazelle's navel, wine inside the jar, the pearl inside the shell. This shared idea gathers the seemingly disparate images of the ghazal into a single line. In the opening couplet the heart nurtures its own affliction; to raise the pain of love inside the soul is the lover's growing his own calamity with his own hand. The words calamity, affliction, soul and body form a congruence of images (tenasüp).

The second couplet makes an allusion (telmih) to the story of Joseph. Joseph was thrown into a well and later rose in Egypt; the beloved likewise nurtures the Joseph of the heart in the well of the dimple of her chin, in the hope of bringing it to the Egypt of her beauty. The words well, Joseph and Egypt form a congruence of images; Egypt's association with sugar also links it with the "sugar-scattering" lip of the first line. In the third couplet the down is likened to a parrot because of its green colour; the parrot's being fed on sugar becomes a poetic explanation of the down's growing just above the sweet lip. In the fourth couplet the musk that the gazelle of Khotan nurtures in its navel finds no worth beside the dust of the beloved's feet; the words musk, China and Khotan form a congruence of images.

The fifth and sixth couplets move into the language of the tavern. Wine is "the daughter of the vine", and the jar nurtures her in its embrace and seals her mouth; the sealing of the jar is joined with the image of guarding a daughter. In the sixth couplet the poet says that he is the servant of the gnostic whom the elder of the Magi nurtures with the dregs of the jar in a corner of the tavern. Dregs are the least valuable part of wine; the gnostic's being nourished on them expresses, in divan poetry, the humility of the libertine (rind) who has turned his back on the world. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes with the image of a pearl of Aden being nurtured in a shell within the sea of tears. The words eye, sea, shell and pearl form a congruence of images; the lover's tears turn into a pearl to be offered to the beloved.

Bibliography

Online sources