Original Persian Text

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

Gül-sitān-ı bāġ-ı ḥüsnet k’ez berā-yı yek güleş
Nāle mī-gerded be-her sū ṣad hezārān bülbüleş
Mıṣr-ı ḥüsnet-rā berā-yı ḳand ü şehd āmed meger
Hindū-yı zülf-i to bā-īn dānehā-yı fülfüleş
Zülf ü ḫāl-i hindūyeş-rā dīdem ü goftem belī
Behr-i sulṭān-ı Ḥabeş şod sāye-bān[ī] kāküleş
Lāle-zār-ı gül-sitān-ı ḥüsn-i to ḫoş-manẓarest
K’ez hevā-dārī buved der-hem be-reyḥān sünbüleş
‘Andelīb-i gül-sitān-ı kūy-ı yār āmed Münīr
Z’ān dehed ‘uşşāḳ-rā ḥayret nevā-yı ġulġuleş

In English

1. The rose garden of your orchard of beauty is such that for a single rose of it a hundred thousand of its nightingales moan on every side. ("Hezār", in its dictionary sense, means both "thousand" and "nightingale"; in the phrase "ṣad hezārān bülbül" both senses are felt together.)

2. The black Hindu of your curls, with these peppercorns, has, it turns out, come to the Egypt of your beauty to buy sugar and honey. (The Hindu stands for the curls because of his blackness, and the peppercorns, as Ersoy explains, for the moles.)

3. I saw his curls, black as a Hindu, and his mole, and said: Yes, his forelock has become a sunshade for the sultan of Abyssinia. (The sultan of Abyssinia stands for the black mole. Ersoy understands the forelock as a servant holding a sunshade over this sultan. The square brackets in "sāye-bān[ī]" mark Ersoy's emendation.)

4. How pleasant is the sight of the tulip bed in the rose garden of your beauty; its hyacinth, out of passion, is entangled with the sweet basil. (In divan poetry the hyacinth stands for the curls and sweet basil for the down on the cheek. Ersoy understands the line as "From love of the hyacinth, the basil in this garden has grown giddy".)

5. Münîr has become the nightingale of the beloved's quarter, which is like a rose garden; this is why the sound of his warbling amazes the lovers.

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-sixth of the Persian ghazals (fg 86). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the Persian suffix "-eş" (his, its); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ül": gül, bülbül, fülfül, kâkül, sünbül, ġulġul. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 82a) and Vienna (VY 65b) manuscripts. The final letter of the word "sāye-bān[ī]" in the third couplet is Ersoy's emendation made according to metre and sense. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a garden picture from beginning to end. The beloved's beauty is likened to a rose garden and the lovers to nightingales; for a single rose a hundred thousand nightingales moan. The word "hezārān" in the opening couplet means thousands, but "hezār" is also the Persian name of the nightingale; its standing in the same line as the word "bülbül" (nightingale) brings this second sense to mind as well. All the rhyme words are tied to the garden or to sound: gül (rose), bülbül (nightingale), sünbül (hyacinth), kâkül (forelock) and, at the end, "ġulġul", the nightingale's warbling.

The second and third couplets bring distant lands into the garden picture. The curls are likened for their blackness to a Hindu, and the moles to the pepper of India; this Hindu has come to the Egypt of the beloved's beauty to buy sugar and honey. Since in divan poetry Egypt is named for its sugar and the beloved's lip for its sweetness, the couplet builds the image of a trading journey: the black curls bring the moles and wish to take the sweetness of the lip. In the third couplet the black mole is the sultan of Abyssinia; the forelock holds a sunshade over him. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the names India, Egypt and Abyssinia, and all three are tied to some part of beauty through blackness or sweetness.

The fourth couplet returns to the garden. The tulip bed expresses the redness of the cheek; the hyacinth and sweet basil are the well-known counterparts of the curls and the down on the cheek. The hyacinth becoming entangled with the basil out of passion depicts the curls mingling with the down on the face. The "hevā" in the word "hevā-dārī" means, in its dictionary sense, both air and desire; a double entendre (tevriye) is felt between the flowers in the garden mingling through the air and mingling through passion.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the poet counts himself the nightingale of the beloved's quarter. This brings forward the voice of one among the hundred thousand nightingales of the beginning of the ghazal. The nightingale's warbling amazes the lovers; here the poet describes the effect of his own poetry by likening it to the nightingale's voice. Ersoy's introduction also cites other couplets in which Münîrî praises his own poetry.

Bibliography

Online sources