Original Persian Text

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

Her dem ez-çeşm-i to ber-dil mī-resed tīr-i ḫadeng
Men der-ān fikrem ki çün künced der-īn ḳandīl-i teng
Rişte-i cānem güsist ez-hicr mī-nālem henūz
Gerçi mī-māned zi-nāle ger reved tārī zi-çeng
Her ḫayālī k’ez dilī çün seng-i to āyed birūn
Māned ān āb-ı revān[ī]-rā ki mī-āyed zi-seng
Her dem ez-behr-i şehīdān-ı ġamet der-mātemest
Z’ān hemī puşed kebūd īn āsmān-ı nīl-reng
Perde-i dil şod berā-yı pākī-i tīġeş Münīr
Tā ki ez-ḫūn-ı derūn-ı mā ne-gīred hīc jeng

In English

1. At every moment arrows reach the heart from your eye; and I keep wondering how so many arrows will fit into this narrow lamp. ("Ḫadeng", in its dictionary sense, is a hard wood from which arrows are made, and an arrow made of this wood. The narrow lamp stands for the heart.)

2. The thread of my soul has snapped from separation, yet I am moaning still; whereas if a string snaps from the harp, that instrument ceases to moan.

3. Every image that comes out of your stone-like heart resembles the running water that gushes from a stone. (The square brackets in "revān[ī]" mark Ersoy's emendation.)

4. This indigo sky wears blue because at every moment it mourns for those who have died of grief for you.

5. O Münîr, the veil of the heart came into being for the cleanness of his sword, so that that sword may never rust with the blood of our inward parts.

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 ninety-second of the Persian ghazals (fg 92). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün 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 "-eng": ḫadeng, teng, çeng, seng, nīl-reng, jeng. This rhyme is also used in the immediately preceding ghazal in the edition (fg 91); the two ghazals, whose metres differ, share the rhymes "teng", "çeng" and "jeng". The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 83b) and Vienna (VY 67a) manuscripts. The final letter of the word "revān[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

In the opening couplet the beloved's glances are likened to arrows and the lover's heart to a narrow lamp. Since arrows rain from the eye at every moment, the lover wonders how so many arrows will fit into that narrow place. This is an astonishment based on exaggeration (mübalağa); it speaks not of pain but of lack of room. The second couplet carries on the harp image of the preceding ghazal. A harp whose string has snapped falls silent; the thread of the lover's soul has snapped from separation, yet he is still moaning. Holding the lover above the instrument is built by comparing the claim of the first line with the common knowledge of the second.

The third couplet is built on the contrast between stone and water. The beloved's heart is hard as stone, yet every image that comes from this stone is sweet and lively like running water gushing from a rock. The word "seng" (stone) occurs in both lines of the couplet: first it stands for the beloved's heart, then for the rock from which the water springs. Thinking of hardness and flowing together says that, despite the beloved's hardness, his image gives life to the lover.

The fourth couplet is a fine example of the figure of fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The blue colour of the sky is tied to a ceaseless mourning kept for those who die of grief for the beloved. In the couplet wearing blue is used as the sign of mourning; this is why the sky has put on its indigo colour. There is a congruence of colour (tenasüp) between "nīl-reng" (indigo) and "kebūd" (blue, dark blue).

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) also sets aside a real cause and gives a poetic one. The reason the veil of the heart exists is so that the beloved's sword may not rust with the lovers' blood; the veil of the heart may have been imagined as a cloth that wipes the blood from this sword. The link between blood and rust rests on the knowledge that blood rusts a sword. In the preceding ghazal rust gathered on the mirror; here it stands ready to gather on the sword. The rhyme "jeng" is tied to two different images in the two ghazals.

Bibliography

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