Original Persian Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Zi-gül-rūyet ki der-gül-şen gül ü lāle ciger sūzed
Zi-āteş-dān-ı ḫod dil-rā be-her nev‘ī diger sūzed
‘Aceb ne’bved zi-tāb-ı dil ki mī-sūzem be-çeşm-i nem
Ez-evvel gofteend ārī be-nezd-i ḫuşk ter sūzed
Çonān k’ez āteş-i ‘ışḳet heme reghā-yı men pür şod
Eger faṣdī konend ez-men hemāndem nīşter sūzed
Dilet ez-āh-ı dil-sūzem belī der-āteş-i ḫışmest
Ez-ān dil mī-şeved ḳāni‘ ki mā-rā īn ḳadr sūzed
‘İlāc-ı āteş-i īn dil Münīrī key buved āḫir
Be-her ki ḥāl-i men goftem zi-men ū bīşter sūzed

In English

1. Your rose cheek, which burns the liver of the rose and the tulip in the garden, burns the heart in quite another way with its own brazier. ("Āteş-dān", in its dictionary sense, means a brazier, a hearth; Ersoy understands "lāle" as the poppy. In divan poetry the dark spot inside the tulip and the poppy is likened to a burnt liver.)

2. It is no wonder that I burn with the fire of my heart though my eyes are wet; yes, of old they said, "beside the dry, the wet burns too".

3. The fire of your love has so filled all my veins that if they bled me, the lancet would burn at that very moment. ("Faṣd", in its dictionary sense, means letting blood from a vein; in old medicine it was a means of treatment.)

4. From my heart-burning sigh your heart, yes, is in the fire of wrath; the heart is content to burn us this much. (The couplet is obscure. Ersoy understands the second line as "the heart, content with this, settles for burning us this much".)

5. Münîrî, how will a cure for the fire of this heart be found in the end; whomever I told my state to burned more than I.

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 sixty-second of the Persian ghazals (fg 62). The metre is "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "sūzed" (burns); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-er / -r": ciger, diger, ter, nīşter, ḳadr, bīşter. The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 76a). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal turn around the image of fire and burning. The verb "sūzed" in the refrain is used sometimes in the sense of burning something, sometimes of burning oneself, and each couplet shows another side of the fire. In the opening couplet the beloved's rose cheek burns the rose and the tulip in the garden with jealousy. The redness of the rose and the dark spot in the middle of the tulip are taken as signs of a liver burnt before the beloved's beauty; this is finding a poetic cause for a natural fact and comes close to the figure of fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The same cheek, however, burns the heart in another way with its own brazier. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among rose, tulip, garden and fire.

The most striking figure of speech in the ghazal is in the second couplet. The lover's eye is full of tears, while his heart is in flames; the burning of a wet eye seems a contradiction. The poet explains it with a saying current among the people: beside the dry, the wet burns too. Placing a proverb in a couplet as proof is the figure called irsal-i mesel; the TDV article records that Münîrî was successful in the tradition of setting proverbs and idioms into poetry, and this couplet shows the same tendency in a Persian ghazal as well. There is a contrast between dry and wet.

The third couplet is built in the language of old medicine. The physician would strike a lancet into the patient's vein and let blood; the lover's veins, however, are so filled with the fire of love that the lancet burns as soon as it touches them. There is a congruence of images among bloodletting, vein and lancet, and the measure of the exaggeration gives the couplet a witty tone. The fourth couplet is more obscure; it says that the lover's sigh has roused the beloved's heart to wrath, and that the heart is content with this burning. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes in helplessness: everyone who hears the lover's state burns more than he does, so no place remains to seek a cure for the fire of the heart. The fire passing to the listener joins the burning of the rose and tulip at the beginning of the ghazal; the blaze born of the beloved's beauty spreads from the lover to those around him.

Bibliography

Online sources