Original Persian Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Ḫam-ı zülfet ki cāy-ı her dilī būd
Zi-sevdāyeş be-her dil müşkilī būd
Be-zülfet intihā-yı seyr ne’bved
Be-her mūyeş dilem-rā menzilī būd
Zi-morden bāk key bāşed ki mā-rā
Çün ū ‘Īsī-dem ey dil ḳātilī būd
Zi-vaṣleş der-dem-i āḫir murādem
Besest ey dil merā ger ḥāṣılī būd
Çi ḫoş būd ān ki dūşīne Münīrī
Cemāl-i ū çerāġ-ı maḥfilī būd

In English

1. Because of the curl of your tresses, which was the home of every heart, there was a difficulty in every heart from passion for them. ("Sevdā", in its dictionary sense, means both the passion of love and blackness; the passion for the black tresses carries both senses together. Ersoy understands the couplet as saying that many difficulties arose from passion for the curl of the tresses.)

2. In your tresses the journey had no end; in every strand of them my heart had a halting place. ("Seyr", in its dictionary sense, means journey, "menzil" a halting place, a stage of the road.)

3. O heart, when that beloved with the breath of Jesus becomes our killer, what fear of death can we have. (The breath of Jesus raises the dead; when death comes from a life-giving breath, it is nothing to be feared.)

4. O heart, at my last breath my wish is union with him; if anything is to come into my hands, that is enough for me. (Ersoy understands the couplet as saying that if any affair of mine is to be fulfilled, my last wish is to be united with the beloved, even for a single moment.)

5. How fine it was, Münîrî, last night the beauty of his face had become the candle of the gathering.

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-sixth of the Persian ghazals (fg 56). The metre is "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". Ersoy's list of refrains gives the ghazal as having the refrain (redif) "būd"; seen more broadly, the sound repeated at the end of every line is "-ī būd", while the rhyme is the "-il / -ıl" sound of the words dilī, müşkilī, menzilī, ḳātilī, ḥāṣılī, maḥfilī. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 74b) and Vienna (VY 58b) 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 as page 71 of 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 "Müselmānān merā vaḳtī dilī būd / Ki bā vey goftemī ger müşkilī būd" (O Muslims, once I had a heart; if I had a difficulty, I would confide it to that heart). Münîrî takes over the two rhyme words of the opening couplet, dilī and müşkilī, unchanged; the rhymes menzilī and maḥfilī, which occur in Hâfız's ghazal, also find a place in his.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Hâfız's ghazal is a lament for a lost heart: the poet recalls the days when he had a heart to which he could open his troubles and says that this heart was lost in the beloved's quarter. Münîrî gathers the same rhymes around the beloved's tresses. Here the heart is not lost; it settles in the curl of the tresses. In the opening couplet the curl of the tresses is the home of every heart, yet passion for the same tresses opens a difficulty in every heart. That the word "sevdā" means both the passion of love and blackness creates a double entendre (tevriye) between the black tresses and passion.

The second couplet is built in the language of travel. The length of the tresses is likened to an endless road, and every strand becomes a halting place where the heart stops. The words "seyr" and "menzil" are also terms in Sufism for the spiritual journey; the couplet thus leaves an association between love and the mystic path (sülûk). In the third couplet contrast comes to the fore: the breath of Jesus revives the dead, and the beloved's breath is like that of Jesus; that such a one should be a killer makes death cease to be something to fear. The one who kills and the one who revives are united in the same breath.

The fourth couplet voices a simple wish through the image of the last breath: the only gain the lover will obtain in his whole life is union with the beloved at the final moment. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas), by contrast, a past moment is recalled. Last night the beloved's face had become the candle of the gathering. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among candle, gathering and light. In Hâfız's ghazal too, in the couplet before the pen-name couplet, the poet's speech is called "the subtle point of every gathering"; in Münîrî's pen-name couplet the rhyme "maḥfil" is this time tied to the beloved's face. In both ghazals the sense of the past carried by the refrain "būd" is preserved, but the tone of loss and complaint in Hâfız turns in Münîrî into a wish for union and a fine night remembered.

Bibliography

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