Original Persian Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Seg-i kūyet ki mī-gerded ‘alālā
Merā āyed bih ez-zevḳ-ı telālā
Güher ber-la‘l-i dür-pūş-ı to bende
Şeved lūlū be-dendān-ı to lālā
Berā-yı ḳadd-i to eşkem revānest
Belī bārān hemī āyed zi-bālā
Be-la‘l-i eşk-i mā z’ān nīst raġbet
Kesād üftād zi-bisyārī-i kālā
Münīr ān āftāb-ı meh-liḳā-rā
Dehānet hest goftem goft lā lā

In English

1. The sound of the dog that roams and barks in your quarter is sweeter to me than the delight of "telālā" melodies. (The rendering rests on Ersoy's interpretation; Ersoy takes "‘alālā" as the dog's barking and "telālā" as a kind of melody. The dictionary meaning of these two words could not be verified separately here.)

2. The jewel is a servant to your pearl-veiled ruby lip; the pearl, in turn, becomes a lala, that is, a servant, to your teeth. ("Dür-pūş", pearl-veiled, refers to the teeth seen between the lips. "Lālā", in its dictionary sense, means servant, lala (tutor-guardian); Ersoy renders it as "slave".)

3. My tears keep flowing for your stature; yes, rain always comes from above. ("Bālā", in its dictionary sense, means both "above" and "tall stature". Rain falling from above is thought of together with tears flowing for the tall beloved.)

4. That is why there is no demand for the rubies of our tears: the market has gone slack from the abundance of goods. (Bloody tears are likened to the red ruby. Ersoy explains the couplet as "just as a commodity loses its value when it is plentiful".)

5. I said to that moon-faced sun, "Do you have a mouth?"; "No, no," it said, O Münîr. (In the couplet "goftem", I said, is in the first person; Ersoy takes "Münīr" as an address. "Lā" in Arabic means "no, not".)

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 seventh of the Persian ghazals (fg 7). The metre is "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif). The rhyme is the sound "-ālā", and the rhyme words are very close to one another: ‘alālā, telālā, lālā, bālā, kālā and "lā lā" in the pen-name couplet. The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 63a). According to Ersoy, the Vatican manuscript is the fullest and best-ordered copy of the divan, and the order of the edited text follows it; some Persian ghazals, like this one, are known only thanks to this manuscript. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is its rhyme. Because the same cluster of sounds carries a different word and a different meaning in each couplet, the whole poem becomes a play of sound. In the second couplet "lūlū", pearl, and "lālā", servant, come close to each other in sound. In the third couplet the word "bālā" is used as a double entendre (tevriye) in the senses of both "from above" and "tall stature": rain falls from above, and tears flow for the tall beloved. In the pen-name couplet the rhyme takes the form "lā lā" and turns into an answer. Ersoy counts a fondness for cinas (punning) among the stylistic features shared by Münîrî's works; this ghazal is a short and dense example of that fondness.

The images of the ghazal come from the familiar motifs of divan poetry. The first couplet tells how the lover values even the dog in the beloved's quarter; its barking sounds sweeter to him than the most pleasing melody. In the second couplet the beloved's lip is likened to ruby and the teeth to pearls, and the precious stones become servants to them. The fourth couplet combines the likening of bloody tears to rubies with the image of a market: the lover's tears are so plentiful that their abundance has lowered their value. This couplet rests on a general maxim, such as abundance lowering the value of goods, and comes close to irsal-i mesel (the use of a proverb or maxim).

The pen-name couplet turns the motif of the beloved's mouth being so small as to be all but non-existent into a scene of conversation. The lover asks the beloved whether it has a mouth, and the beloved answers "lā lā", "no, no". Though the answer itself shows that the mouth exists, its words deny the mouth's existence; therein lies the wit of the motif. The words "āftāb", sun, and "meh-liḳā", moon-faced, also create in the same couplet a congruence of images (tenasüp) that brings the sun and the moon together.

Bibliography

Online sources