Original Persian Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḫī vü ḍād u rī ki bāşed der-naẓar
Key be-mīrem teşne-leb ey bī-ḫaber
Ān menem k’ez zaḫm-ı tīr-i nāvekeş
Ūftāde ber-reheş ḫūnīn-ciger
Gāh der-dil gāh der-dīde buved
Mī-koned Ḥıżrest seyr-i baḥr ü ber
Ḫūnem ez-semm-i ḫadenget ḫuşk şod
Ger zenī ṣad tīġ ne-āyed ḫūn-ı diger
Ū revān be’gẕeşt ü men goftem Münīr
Mī-şeved ‘ömrest lā-büd der-güẕer

In English

1. While the letters Kha, Dad and Ra are before my eyes, O heedless one, shall I ever die with thirsty lips. (In the Arabic alphabet these three letters, set side by side, read as the name "Ḫıżır" (Khidr); Ersoy too writes "Hızır" in parentheses beside the letters. Khidr is known as the one who found the water of immortality.)

2. It is I who, from the wound opened by his arrow, have fallen on his road with my liver steeped in blood. ("Nāvek", in its dictionary sense, means a small arrow; Ersoy understands it as "the arrowhead of his arrow".)

3. He is now in the heart, now in the eye; he is like Khidr, who roams sea and land.

4. From the poison of your arrow my blood has dried up; if you struck a hundred swords, no more blood would come. ("Tīġ", in its dictionary sense, means a sword; Ersoy understands it as "even if you struck hundreds of lances".)

5. He passed swiftly and was gone, and I said: Münîr, this is life; of course it passes away.

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 eightieth of the Persian ghazals (fg 80). The metre is "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": naẓar, ḫaber, ciger, ber, diger, güẕer. 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 opens with a play on letters. In the opening couplet the name of Khidr is not spoken outright; the Arabic letters that make up the name, Kha, Dad and Ra, are counted one by one. The poet says that while these letters are before his eyes he will not die of thirst. Since Khidr is known as the one who found and drank the water of immortality, even the letters of his name are a guarantee against thirst. Naming a word by splitting it into its letters resembles the letter games that Münîrî also uses in his muammas (name riddles). Since in divan poetry the beloved's lip is likened to the water of immortality, and the down on his face, for its greenness, to Khidr, it may also be thought that these "letters" before the eye are the "ḫaṭ" on the beloved's face, at once facial down and writing; the couplet, however, does not say this openly.

The second and fourth couplets are built in the language of arrows and wounds. The lover has fallen on the beloved's road with his liver steeped in blood from the wound of the beloved's arrow. In the fourth couplet the arrow's poison has dried up his blood; now, even if a hundred swords struck, no blood would flow. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among arrow, wound, poison, blood and sword; that the blood has dried up entirely is an exaggeration (mübalağa) expressing the lover's exhaustion.

The third couplet returns to the image of Khidr from the opening couplet. The beloved is now in the heart, now in the eye; he is therefore like Khidr, who roams sea and land. The belief that Khidr travels on land and sea is the basis of the couplet's simile. The eye, being full of tears, may be thought to correspond to the sea and the heart to the land; thus the contrast between sea and land is also drawn between eye and heart.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the beloved has passed swiftly and gone; the poet tells himself that this is life and that life of course passes away. This comparison between the beloved and life rests on both of them flowing away beyond stopping. There is a congruence of images between the words "revān" (swiftly, flowing) and "güẕer" (passing). Khidr, who recalls the water of immortality at the beginning of the ghazal, is set at its end against life passing away.

Bibliography

Online sources