Original Persian Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Her dil-i şīftegān bī-ser ü sāmān bāşed
Cāyeş ender-ḫam-ı īn zülf-i perīşān bāşed
Ey dil ez-behr-i müdāvā be-ṭabībān me-nāl
Derd-i ‘ışḳeş ne çonānest ki dermān bāşed
Yād bād ān ki dil-i mā be-naẓar-bāzī-i ḫod
Der-cemāl-i gül-i to murġ-ı ḫoş-elḥān bāşed
Yā Rab ān ber-men-i dil-ḫaste resed āḫir-i kār
Āb-ı Ḥıżrī der-ān çāh-ı zeneḫdān bāşed
Ḥālet-i men be-şeb-i hicr dilem dīd ü goft
Ġālibā rūz-ı ḳıyāmet şeb-i hicrān bāşed
Der-dem-i furṣat-ı gül key şeved ey dil be-Münīr
Ṭal‘at-ı yār u mey ü murġ-ı seḥer-ḫᵛān bāşed

In English

1. Every heart of the infatuated lovers is headless and in disarray; its place is the curl of these dishevelled tresses. ("Bī-ser ü sāmān", in its dictionary sense, means headless, disordered, destitute; Ersoy understands it as "the hearts of lovers are poor".)

2. O heart, do not lament to physicians to find a cure for your pain; the pain of his love is not of the kind for which a remedy can be found.

3. May those days be remembered when our heart, with its passion for gazing, was a sweet-voiced bird before your rose beauty. ("Naẓar-bāzī", in its dictionary sense, means taking delight in gazing at beauty. The "sweet-voiced bird" is the nightingale.)

4. O Lord, will the water of Khidr in the well of that chin dimple reach me, sick at heart, in the end. (The chin dimple is likened to a well; the water of Khidr (Hızır) is the water of immortality.)

5. My heart saw my state on the night of separation and said, "perhaps the Day of Judgement is the night of parting".

6. O heart, in the moments of opportunity of the rose season, when will the beloved's face, wine and the bird that sings at dawn fall to Münîr's lot. (The couplet can be read in two ways. "Key", in its dictionary sense, means "when", and in this reading the couplet is a wish. Ersoy understands the couplet as a statement: for Münîr, the time when there are the beloved's radiance, wine and the nightingale is the rose season and the time of opportunity.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the sixty-eighth of the Persian ghazals (fg 68). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the verb "bāşed" (is, may be); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ān": sāmān, perīşān, dermān, ḫoş-elḥān, zeneḫdān, hicrān, seḥer-ḫᵛān. 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 77b) and Vienna (VY 61a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal moves back and forth between the helplessness of love and longing for past days. In the opening couplet the hearts of lovers are "headless and in disarray", that is, distraught; the place of these hearts is the curl of the dishevelled tresses. A correspondence is drawn between the disarray of the heart and the disarray of the tresses: scattered hearts find their likeness in scattered hair. The meaning of the word "perīşān" as both scattered and distressed strengthens this link. The second couplet states a familiar thought of divan poetry: the pain of love is not a pain to be shown to a physician, for it has no cure. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among pain, remedy and physician.

The third couplet opens a memory with the words "yād bād" (may it be remembered). The heart was once a sweet-voiced bird before the beloved's rose face. The familiar relation between the rose and the nightingale is here carried over to the beloved's face and the lover's heart; although it is not named openly, the "sweet-voiced bird" means the nightingale, so this is a metaphor. In the fourth couplet the chin dimple is a well, and the water in the well is Khidr's water of immortality. Well, water and Khidr form a congruence of images; the lover asks God whether this water will reach him in the end.

The fifth couplet carries the most striking judgement of the ghazal. Seeing his state on the night of separation, the heart says that the Day of Judgement is nothing other than the night of parting. The terror and length of the Last Day are identified with the pain and endlessness of the night of separation. There is also a contrast between day and night. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the rose season is named as an opportunity, and the elements of the libertine gathering are listed: the beloved's face, wine and the bird that sings at dawn. A contrast is drawn between the disarray and longing of the opening couplet and the wish for an assembled gathering in the pen-name couplet. Whether the couplet is a wish or a statement depends on the reading; in Ersoy's reading the couplet says that the rose season is the true time of opportunity for the lover.

Bibliography

Online sources