Original Persian Text

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

Ger reved ṣabr u ḳarār īn nālehā-yı zār bes
V’er buved baḫtem ġunūde dīde-i bīdār bes
Zīr-i şāḫ-ı serv ne’bved ger maḳāmem bāk nīst
Ber-ser-i kūy-ı segānet sāye-i dīvār bes
Kār-ı mā ‘ışḳest ü derd ü miḥnet ü āvāregī
Ger to-rā īn kār ne’bved zāhidā īn kār bes
Behr-i cāy-ı erba‘īn ey zāhid-i ḫalvet-nişīn
‘Ārifān-rā hem-çü bāde ḫāne-i ḫammār bes
Der-cihān Maḥmūd-rā mānend-i to lā-büd Münīr
Pertev-i nūr-ı Muḥammed Aḥmed-i Muḫtār bes

In English

1. If my patience and peace are to go, these moans are enough for me; if my fortune has fallen asleep, my wakeful eye is enough.

2. If my place is not beneath the shade of the cypress bough I do not grieve; at the head of the quarter where your dogs are, the shade of a wall is enough for me. (In divan poetry the cypress also stands for the beloved's stature. Ersoy understands the line as "for the dogs of your threshold even the shade of a wall is enough".)

3. Our work is love, pain, hardship and vagrancy; O ascetic, if this is not your work, this work is enough for you. (The couplet can be read in two ways: his own work is enough for the ascetic, or this work of ours is enough for him too. Ersoy understands it as "Even if you do not occupy yourself with these things, this is enough for you".)

4. O ascetic sitting in seclusion, instead of the place of the forty-day retreat, the tavern-keeper's house, just like wine, is enough for the knowers of God. (Erbain is the forty-day ordeal spent withdrawn in seclusion and worship.)

5. O Münîr, for a Mahmûd like you in this world, the radiance of the light of Muhammad, of Ahmad the Chosen, is surely enough. ("Maḥmūd", in its dictionary sense, means praised; Ersoy reads the word as a proper name, "Mahmut".)

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-fifth of the Persian ghazals (fg 85). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the word "bes" (enough); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ār": zār, bīdār, dīvār, kār, ḫammār, Muḫtār. 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 82a) and Vienna (VY 65b) manuscripts. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain "bes" gives the ghazal a language of contentment. In every couplet the lover makes do with the little left to him: if his patience is gone, his moaning is enough; if his fortune sleeps, his wakeful eye; if there is no cypress shade, the shade of a wall. In the opening couplet there is a plain contrast between sleeping fortune and the wakeful eye. Fortune has fallen asleep, that is, luck has turned away; the eye is awake, that is, the lover cannot sleep at night. The same notion of sleep expresses misfortune and sleeplessness together.

In the second couplet a contrast is drawn between the cypress bough and the wall. In divan poetry the shade of the cypress also points to the shade of the beloved's stature, that is, to nearness to the beloved; the lover does not ask for this lofty place but is content with the foot of a wall beside the dogs in the beloved's quarter. Sharing a place with the dogs at the beloved's door is a well-known expression in divan poetry of the devotion the lover shows by abasing himself.

The third and fourth couplets set the lover against the ascetic. The lover's work is love, pain, hardship and vagrancy; the ascetic's is seclusion and the forty-day retreat. The poet recommends the tavern to the knowers of God instead of the retreat. This libertine (rind) way of speaking, which sets the ascetic's dry worship against the tavern, fits Ersoy's description of Münîrî as a "rind and lover" poet. The words "zāhid", "ḫalvet-nişīn", "erba‘īn" and "bāde", "ḫammār" form two separate groups of congruent images (tenasüp), and the couplet is built on the clash of these two groups.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) is the most striking place in the ghazal. The names "Maḥmūd", "Muḥammed" and "Aḥmed" come in Arabic from the same root (ḥ-m-d, meaning to praise); gathering all three in one couplet is an example of the figure of derivation (iştikak). The words "Münīr" (illuminating), "pertev" (radiance) and "nūr" (light) also set up a congruence of images around light. Ersoy reads "Maḥmūd" as a proper name but does not say who is meant; in its dictionary sense the word can also describe a "praised" person. The phrase "Aḥmed-i Muḫtār" (Ahmad the Chosen) is also used for the prince in the kasides Münîrî wrote to Prince Ahmed (K 21 and K 25); here, however, since it stands beside the name "Muḥammed", it refers to the Prophet. The ghazal thus closes by tying the theme of contentment to the thought of being content with the Prophet's light.

Bibliography

Online sources