Original Persian Text

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

Bārhā goftem ü mī-gūyemeş īn bār-ı diger
Cüz ġam-ı ‘ışḳ-ı to hergiz ne-konem kār-ı diger
Rīş-i dil-rā ki nemek-rīz buved ez-ser-i luṭf
Cüz leb-i ḳand-i to gū la‘l-i şeker-bār-ı diger
Der-hevā-yı gül-i ruḫsār-ı to mānend-i dilem
Hīc der-gül-şen-i ‘ālem ne-buved zār-ı diger
Īn çonīn ġuṣṣa-i ‘ışḳ-ı to ki dil-rā be-girift
Hīc der-dil ne-reved fikr-i ġam-ı yār-ı diger
Her dem ümmīd-i men ānest ki ez-perde-i ġayb
Be-Münīr-i to resed devlet-i dīdār-ı diger

In English

1. I have said it many times, and I say it once more: I will never busy myself with anything but the grief of your love.

2. Tell me, apart from your sugar lip, which out of kindness sprinkles salt on the heart's wound, is there another ruby lip that rains sugar. (The ruby stands for the lip because of its redness. Ersoy understands the first line as the beloved, out of kindness, adding salt to the wound.)

3. In the rose garden of this world there has never been another who moans like my heart in longing for the rose of your cheek.

4. The grief of your love has so seized the heart that the thought of grief for another beloved can never enter it.

5. My hope at every moment is this: that from behind the veil of the unseen the happiness of seeing your face once more may reach your Münîr. (The unseen, gayb, is the realm hidden from the eye; "devlet" here means happiness and good fortune.)

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 eighty-first of the Persian ghazals (fg 81). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the word "diger" (another, once more); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with the refrain "-ı dīger". The rhyme is the sound "-ār": bār, kār, şeker-bār, zār, yār, dīdār. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 81a) and Vienna (VY 64b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole weight of the ghazal rests on the refrain. In every couplet the word "diger" is used to deny the existence of another: there is no work but the grief of love, no sugar lip but the beloved's, no one else who moans like the poet's heart, and the grief for another beloved cannot enter the heart. The refrain thus becomes a repetition that expresses the singleness of love. Only in the last couplet does "diger" take on a positive sense: the one "other" thing the poet desires is to see the beloved's face once more.

In the opening couplet there is repetition (tekrir) between "bārhā" (many times) and "bār-ı diger" (once more); while saying that he says the same thing again, the poet also says the word again. The "bār" in "şeker-bār" in the second couplet means, in its dictionary sense, "raining, showering"; since it sounds the same as the "bār" (time) of the opening couplet, a play on sound is set up between the two couplets. That these words stand side by side in the rhyme fits Münîrî's fondness for paronomasia (cinas).

The second couplet is built on the contrast between salt and sugar. The beloved sprinkles salt on the heart's wound, an act that sharpens the pain, yet the poet calls it "kindness". The lip of the same beloved, meanwhile, rains sugar. In divan poetry the beloved's lip is likened both to sugar for its sweetness and to salt for its beauty and piquancy; the paradox in the couplet rests on these two shared images. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "ḳand", "şeker" and "la‘l".

In the third couplet the lover's heart is a creature moaning in the rose garden of the world. The nightingale is not named, but when the rose garden, the rose cheek and the moaning come together, the heart is likened to the nightingale. The fourth couplet states the same singleness through grief; the grief of love has filled the heart entirely and left no room for another beloved. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) returns to the "once more" of the opening couplet. The poet hopes to see the beloved's face again from behind the veil of the unseen, that is, from a place beyond his own control. The phrase "Münīr-i to" (your Münîr) is the poet naming himself as a servant who belongs to the beloved.

Bibliography

Online sources