Original Persian Text

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

Menem ki ḫāk-i rehet-rā nihāde rūy-ı niyāz
Be-her ṣadā-yı ḳadem dīde-rā küşāyem bāz
Zi-sırr-ı ‘ışḳ-ı to dil-rā egerçi mī-goftem
Sefīh-rā be-cihān kes ne-mī-koned hem-rāz
Be-lāf-ı da‘vī-i ‘ışḳet ne-mī-şeved ṣādıḳ
Kesī ki der-reh-i to nīst ‘āşıḳ-ı ser-bāz
Meger zi-ḥasret-i yek gül-‘iẕār-ı ġonca-lebest
Fiġān-ı zemzeme-i bülbül-i bülend-āvāz
To der-tena‘‘um-ı ‘ayş-ı müdām şev ki Münīr
Çü şem‘-i bezm-i to ḫoş-vaḳt şod be-sūz u güdāz

In English

1. It is I who have laid the face of supplication on the dust of your road, and at every sound of a footstep open my eyes again (thinking you are coming).

2. I was telling the secret of your love to the heart, but no one in the world takes a witless one as a confidant. ("Sefīh", in its dictionary sense, means witless, foolish. Ersoy understands the couplet as "If I speak to the heart of the secrets of your love, no one in the world will ever again take that wretched one as a confidant"; on this reading it is the heart that cannot keep the secret.)

3. Whoever is not a lover ready to stake his head on your road will not be counted truthful in the words he puts forward in the claim of love.

4. The moaning song of the nightingale whose voice rises high comes, it turns out, from longing for a beauty with a rose cheek and a rosebud lip.

5. Remain in constant pleasure and plenty, for Münîr, like the candle of your gathering, has found contentment in burning and melting. (The couplet can be read in two ways. Ersoy understands it as "Go on drinking wine, so that the time of the gathering may pass pleasantly, like a candle, in burning and being burnt"; the words "ḫoş-vaḳt şod" in the text can, however, also say that Münîr himself has become content.)

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-fourth of the Persian ghazals (fg 84). The metre is "mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme is the sound "-āz": niyāz, bāz, hem-rāz, ser-bāz, āvāz, güdāz. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 81b) and Vienna (VY 65a) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Ersoy counts this ghazal among the seventeen Persian ghazals that are response poems (nazire) to Hâfız of Shiraz, and gives its counterpart as page 131 of the Istanbul 1290 (1873-74) edition of Hâfız's Divan; the TDV article also records that seventeen Persian ghazals are response poems to Hâfız. Ersoy does not quote the opening couplet of the Hâfız ghazal he means. The ghazal of Hâfız written in the same metre and rhyme opens with the couplet "Menem ki dīde be-dīdār-ı dost kerdem bāz / Çi şükr gūyemet ey kār-sāz-ı bende-nevāz" (It is I who have opened my eyes again to see the Friend's face; O you who care for your servant and set all affairs right, how shall I thank you). Münîrî's opening couplet also begins with "Menem ki", speaks of opening the eyes again and ends with the word "bāz"; the rhyme "niyāz" occurs in both ghazals.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is the picture of the waiting lover. The poet has laid his face on the dust of the beloved's road and waits in supplication; at every footstep he opens his eyes again, wondering whether it is the beloved coming. In Hâfız's couplet the eye has opened to see the Friend's face; in Münîrî there is as yet no seeing, only waiting. This fine difference from the original shows Münîrî conversing with his model rather than repeating it.

The second couplet speaks of the secret of love that cannot be carried. Having opened the secret to the heart, the poet then says that no one takes a witless one as a confidant. On Ersoy's reading this witless one is the heart; the heart that has learned the secret of love is too far beside itself to keep a secret. In the third couplet the "ser-bāz", the lover who stakes his head and plays with his life, is the only one who can be counted truthful in the claim of love. The "bāz" (playing) of this word carries the same sound as the "bāz" (again, open) of the opening couplet; the paronomasia (cinas) that Münîrî loves has settled here into the rhyme. A congruence of images (tenasüp) around claim and truthfulness is also set up among the words "da‘vī", "ṣādıḳ" and "lāf".

The fourth couplet returns to the motif of the rose and the nightingale. The cause of the nightingale's loud moaning is longing for a beauty with a rose cheek and a rosebud lip; the word "meger" (it turns out) implies that this cause has been understood only afterwards. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the poet likens himself to the candle in the gathering. "Sūz u güdāz" (burning and melting) describes the candle's actual state as well as the lover's inner pain; when the two are thought of together, the comparison builds itself. The couplet ends by wishing the beloved constant pleasure; the candle's burning lights and enlivens the gathering.

Bibliography

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