Original Persian Text

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

Sāḳīyā devr-i gülest ez-muḥtesib dīger çi bāk
Ger merā ber-bāde-i ṣāfī keşed īn ṭab‘-ı pāk
Ġonca ez- şevḳ-ı leb-i to ger girībān mī-derīd
Gül zi-‘ışḳ-ı lāle-ruḫsār-ı to gerded cāme-çāk
Berg-i gül ḫod-rā ki bād-ı ṣubḥ-dem-rā mī-dehed
Fikr-i ān dāred ki gerded der-rehet mānend-i ḫāk
Ey raḳīb ez-āh-ı āteş-nāk-i men ġāfil me-bāş
Mī-dehed çarḫ-ı berīn-rā lerze āh-ı derd-nāk
Minnet Īzed-rā ki bā-eşk-i firāvān-ı Münīr
Zāle ‘an levḥi’l-fu’ādi ṣūret ü naḳşu sivāk

In English

1. O cupbearer, it is the season of the rose; if this pure nature draws me to clear wine, what fear is there now of the market inspector. (The muhtesip was the official who supervised the market and public morals, and who also enforced the ban on wine.)

2. If the rosebud tears its collar from longing for your lip, the rose too rips its garment to pieces from love of your tulip cheek. (Ersoy understands "lāle-ruḫsār" as "a cheek the colour of the poppy".)

3. The rose petal that gives itself up to the dawn breeze has but one thought: to become like dust on your road.

4. O rival, do not be heedless of my fiery sigh; a sigh full of pain makes even the lofty heavens tremble.

5. Thanks be to God that with Münîr's abundant tears both the form and the pattern of all but you have been erased from the tablet of the heart. (The second line is in Arabic.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; its last line is in Arabic. In the edition it is the ninety-fourth of the Persian ghazals (fg 94). 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 "-āk": bāk, pāk, çāk, ḫāk, nāk, sivāk. Ersoy counts this ghazal among his examples of kafiye-i müreddefe (rhyme with a long vowel before the rhyme letter). The poem is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 84a). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with the libertine (rind) voice of a spring gathering. The season of the rose has come; the poet ties his turn towards clear wine to his own "pāk" (pure) nature and says he does not fear the market inspector who enforces the ban on wine. A harmony is set up between pure nature and clear wine; the words "pāk" and "ṣāfī" stand side by side around purity and clearness. This way of speaking, which makes light of the inspector, is the known stance of the poet whom Ersoy describes as a rind.

The second couplet is an example of the figure of fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The opening of the rosebud is thought of as the tearing of its collar; the scattering of the rose's petals as the ripping of its garment. The poet ties the cause of these natural events to the beloved: the bud tears itself from longing for his lip, the rose from love of his cheek. Tearing the collar and ripping the garment are gestures that in divan poetry express the lover's helplessness; here they are given to the flowers. The bud corresponds to the lip, the rose and tulip to the cheek.

The third couplet carries on the same picture. The dawn breeze scatters the rose petals; the poet describes this as the petal giving itself to the wind knowingly, for its one desire is to become dust on the beloved's road. In the fourth couplet the lover's sigh is fiery and strong enough to make the sky tremble; this warning to the rival sets up an exaggeration (mübalağa) between the fire of the sigh and the trembling of the heavens. The words "āteş-nāk" and "derd-nāk" are formed with the same suffix and echo each other in the same couplet.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) likens the heart to an inscribed tablet. Münîr's abundant tears, like writing that has passed under water, have erased from this tablet the form and pattern of everything but the beloved. Thinking of tears as a water that erases sets up a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the words tablet, form and pattern. The second line being written in Arabic, and the word "sivāk" (other than you) entering the rhyme, close the ghazal with an ending bound to the one beloved. In the edition the last line of the preceding ghazal (fg 93) also carries an Arabic phrase, and there too the heart is named as a tablet.

Bibliography

Online sources