Original Persian Text

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

Ger sefīd ü sürḫ der-yek şāḫ ne’dhed bār gül
Der-gülistān-ı cemālet her dü şod tekrār gül
Ez-fürūġ-ı gül-şen-i cennet ne-bāşed yek ḳabes
Āteş-i Mūsā ki her cā mī-koned iẓhār gül
Behr-i ḥasb-i ḥāl-i bülbül ġonca’ī her ṣubḥ-dem
Ber-ḥarīr-i āl-i pīçīde dehed tūmār gül
Çetr-i la‘l-i lāle ber-ṣaḥrā ki zed ferrāş-ı ṣubḥ
Leşker-i mülk-i bahār āmed sipeh-sālār gül
Ber-fiġān-ı ‘andelīb-i nā-tüvān üftāde-rā
Raḥm ez-ān hergiz ne-āyed zāde hest ez-ḫār gül
Mest-i cām-ı bāde-i ‘ışḳest lāle der-çemen
Ez-gül-i mey çün benefşe dāred īn miḳdār gül
Z’i‘tidāl-i devr-i eyyām-ı bahār eknūn Münīr
Bār ḫᵛāhed dād ḫār-ı ḫuşk der-dīvār gül

In English

1. Though the rose does not bloom white and red on a single branch, in the rose garden of your beauty both have bloomed again as roses. (The white is the skin, the red the cheek.)

2. The fire of Moses that the rose displays everywhere is not an ember from the radiance of the garden of paradise. (Ersoy understands the couplet thus, as a negative statement; the line can also be read as a question, "is it not an ember". "Ḳabes", in its dictionary sense, means a brand, a live coal.)

3. Every morning the rosebud gives the rose a scroll wrapped in red silk, so as to tell its state to the nightingale. ("Ḥasb-i ḥāl" means telling one's state, sharing one's troubles; a tomar is a rolled writing, a petition scroll.)

4. When the attendant of morning pitched the red tent of the tulip on the plain, the rose came as commander-in-chief of the army of the realm of spring. (The ferraş is the servant who pitches tents and spreads carpets.)

5. The rose never feels pity for the outcry of the fallen, feeble nightingale; for the rose was born of the thorn.

6. The tulip in the meadow is drunk with the cup of the wine of love; from the rose of wine, like the violet, it has this much rose. (The meaning of the second line is uncertain; here the words have been rendered in order. In the edition the meaning of this couplet breaks off with the words "The poppy in the meadow is drunk with the wine of love's cup, and the rose like the violet".)

7. O Münîr, because of the mildness of the season of spring days, now even the dry thorn on the wall will bear roses.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet ghazal (gazel) written in Persian; in the edition it is the ninety-eighth of the Persian ghazals (fg 98). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the word "gül" (rose); in Ersoy's list of refrains the ghazal is given with this refrain. The rhyme is the sound "-ār": bār, tekrār, iẓhār, ṭūmār, sālār, ḫār, miḳdār, dīvār. 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 85a). In Ersoy's apparatus the meaning of couplet 6 is printed incomplete. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Like the ghazal on the refrain "gül" that stands three ghazals earlier in the edition (fg 95), this ghazal is a picture of spring, but here the beloved is named only in the opening couplet; the remaining couplets describe the garden and the rose directly. In the opening couplet the white and red rose, which in nature are not seen together on one branch, have bloomed together on the beloved's face. Likening white skin and a red cheek to the rose is a well-known comparison; the poet turns it into a claim that challenges nature.

The second couplet carries an allusion (telmih) resting on the Qur'an. The fire that Moses saw on Sinai is told in the sura Ta-Ha by Moses saying to his family, "Perhaps I may bring you a brand (ḳabes) from it". Münîrî uses the same word "ḳabes" and likens the red rose to the fire of Moses seen everywhere. On Ersoy's reading this fire is not a piece of the radiance of the garden of paradise; if the line is read as a question, the reverse is said, that the rose's fire is an ember come from paradise.

The third and fourth couplets set the rose within the order of a palace and an army. The bud is likened to a scroll wrapped in red silk; it is like a petition presented to the rose on the nightingale's behalf. In the fourth couplet the morning is an attendant, the tulip a red tent, spring a realm and the rose the commander-in-chief of that realm's army. There is a plain congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "çetr" (tent, royal parasol), "ferrāş", "leşker" (army) and "sipeh-sālār" (commander). Showing the garden as a royal procession is the most detailed picture of the ghazal.

The fifth couplet rests on fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The reason the rose feels no pity for the nightingale is that it was born of the thorn; the thorn's hardness has passed into the rose's nature. In the sixth couplet the tulip is shown drunk with the wine of love; through its red colour and its cup-like shape a link is set up between the tulip and wine. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) describes the power of spring through exaggeration (mübalağa): the mildness of the air is such that even the dry thorn on the wall will bear roses. The thorn from which the rose was born in the fifth couplet here turns into a thorn that itself bears roses.

Bibliography

Online sources