Original Persian Text

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

Dil ki ḫūn giryed derūn-ı sīne her şeb tā-seḥer
Çü men-i dīvāne sevdā-yı kesī dāred meger
Çihre-i zerd-i men-i bī-çāre ger bīnī me-ḫand
Şod revāc-ı kār-ı ‘ışḳ-ı yār hemçün kār-ı zer
Kār-bān-ı ‘ışḳ-ı yārem be’gẕered her rūz u şeb
Çün dil ü dīde ne-dīdem der-cihān men yek memer
Her dem ey dil mī-revī çün eşk-i ḫūn-ālūd-ı mā
Tā-be-key bāşed ne-mī-dānem to-rā ‘azm-i sefer
Seng be’gdāzed zi-āh-ı āteşīn-i mā Münīr
Hīc der-sengīn-dil-i ān meh ne-bāşed kār-ger

In English

1. The heart that weeps blood within the breast every night until dawn, it seems, like mad me, bears a passion for someone.

2. If you see the yellowed face of helpless me, do not laugh; the trade of love for the beloved, too, has found demand like the trade in gold. ("Me-ḫand", in its dictionary sense, means "do not laugh"; "revāc" currency, demand; "zer" gold. The meaning Ersoy gives for this couplet constructs the first line differently; the second line he explains as the demand for the beloved's love being as great as the demand for gold.)

3. The caravan of my beloved's love passes by every day and every night; I have seen no place of passage in the world like the heart and the eye. ("Memer", in its dictionary sense, means a passage, a place of transit.)

4. O heart, every moment you go off like our blood-stained tears; how long this resolve to travel of yours will last, I do not know.

5. O Münîr, from our fiery sighs stone melts; but on the stony heart of that moon-faced one they have no effect at all. ("Kār-ger", in its dictionary sense, means effective, taking effect.)

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-ninth of the Persian ghazals (fg 79). 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 "-er": seḥer, meger, zer, memer, sefer, kār-ger. The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 80b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal tells of the states of the heart and of the tears. In the opening couplet the heart that weeps blood in the breast every night until dawn seems at last to have revealed a secret: it too, like the poet, has fallen into passion for someone. The sense of surprise carried by the word "meger" (it seems, so it turns out) lets the heart be thought of as a person separate from the lover. There is a contrast between night and dawn and a congruence of images (tenasüp) between blood and weeping.

The second couplet is built on colour and value. The lover's face has turned yellow, and the yellow colour recalls gold. The poet asks that no one laugh at this yellowness, for the trade of love, like the trade in gold, is in demand, that is, valuable. Between "zer" (gold) in the rhyme and "zerd" (yellow) in the first line there is a difference of only one letter; this use, resting on closeness of sound and meaning, counts as a pun (cinas). A simile is also drawn between the yellowness of gold and the lover's pale face.

In the third couplet love is likened to a caravan that passes by day and night. The places this caravan stops at are the heart and the eye; the poet says he has seen no passage in the world like them. There is a congruence of images among caravan, passage, day and night. In the fourth couplet it is the heart that is now a traveller, going off without ceasing like the bloody tears. The comparison between tears and heart rests on both of them flowing away and leaving the lover; the poet says he does not know when this journey will end.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes with a contrast built on stone. The lover's fiery sigh melts stone, but has no effect at all on the beloved's heart, hard as stone. The repetition between "seng" (stone) and "sengīn-dil" (stony-hearted) brings to the fore that where real stone melts, the figurative stone does not. Fire, sigh and melting create a congruence of images. This last couplet completes the ghazal by setting the heart weeping blood in the first couplet against the beloved's heart of stone.

Bibliography

Online sources