Original Persian Text

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

Der-gülistān pīş-i çeşmem ger ne-bāşed rūy-ı yār
Gerded ez-eşkem heme eṭrāf-ı gül-şen lāle-zār
Tā-be-sevdā-yı ġam-ı ‘ışḳet dilem ülfet girift
Sā‘at-i dīger be-dest-i ḫod ne-dīdem iḫtiyār
Şerbet-i tīġ-i to-rā dil-teşne şod cān-ı ża‘īf
Zūd fermā ḫaste-rā bisyār telḫest intiẓār
Cān be-yek dīden hemī ḫᵛāhem ki teslīmet konem
Ber-deret be’nşeste müştāḳ-ı tovem ümmīd-vār
Dīde sultān-ı ḫayāleş-rā ki şod menzil Münīr
Merdüm-i çeşm-i men ū-rā şod zi-her sū perde-dār

In English

1. If the beloved's face is not before my eyes in the rose garden, from my tears the whole circuit of the garden turns into a field of tulips. (Bloody tears dye the garden red. Ersoy understands "lāle-zār" as a field of poppies.)

2. Ever since my heart made friends with the passion of grief for your love, I have not seen my will in my own hands for a single hour.

3. My feeble soul has grown thirsty for the sherbet of your sword; command it quickly, for waiting is very bitter to the sick. (Ersoy explains the sword's sherbet as the beloved's glance.)

4. For a single sight of you I wish to surrender my soul to you; I have sat down hopefully at your door, longing for you.

5. O Münîr, when my eye became the lodging of his sultan-like image, the pupil of my eye became its chamberlain on every side. ("Perde-dār", in its dictionary sense, is the curtain keeper, the palace official who oversees entry into the ruler's presence. "Merdüm-i çeşm" means the pupil of the eye; "merdüm" on its own also means a human being.)

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 seventy-fifth of the Persian ghazals (fg 75). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme is the sound "-ār": yār, lāle-zār, iḫtiyār, intiẓār, ümmīd-vār, perde-dār. 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 79b) and Vienna (VY 63a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal builds a world of images reaching from the garden to the palace. In the opening couplet, when the beloved's face is absent from the garden, the lover's bloody tears turn the whole garden into a field of tulips. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among rose garden, flower bed and tulip field; that the tears are so many as to dye a garden red is an exaggeration (mübalağa). Finding in tears a cause for the redness of the tulip also comes close to fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). When the beloved's face is thought of as a rose, the garden's being dyed with blood in the rose's absence creates a correspondence between rose and tulip.

The second couplet describes how love takes away the will: ever since the heart made friends with the passion of love's grief, the lover has not been master of his own will for a single hour. The sharpest contrast of the ghazal is in the third couplet. The soul has grown thirsty for the sherbet of the beloved's sword; sherbet is sweet, while waiting is bitter. The contrasts between sherbet and bitterness, between sword and sherbet, say that what is deadly is sweet to the lover. Ersoy explains the sword's sherbet as the beloved's glance; with this explanation the sword becomes a metaphor for the deadly glance. The words sick, sherbet and thirst also create a congruence of images with the language of medicine. In the fourth couplet the lover is willing to give his soul for a single sight of the beloved and waits hopefully at his door.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes with a comparison taken from the language of the palace. The beloved's image is a sultan, and the lover's eye has become its lodging. The pupil of the eye takes on the office of chamberlain who oversees entry into the sultan's presence. That the word "merdüm" in the phrase "merdüm-i çeşm" (pupil of the eye) also means a human being creates a double entendre (tevriye): the little person within the eye, like an official at the sultan's door, keeps watch over the curtain before the image. There is a congruence of images among sultan, lodging and chamberlain. The face that is absent from the garden at the beginning of the ghazal returns at its end as an image kept within the palace of the eye.

Bibliography

Online sources