Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Göñül ẕevḳ ider irdükçe ġam-ı yār
S̱aḳīl olmaz imiş her yirde tekrār
Belī didüñ ise ger zülf-i yāre
Rücū‘ itme göñül īmāndur iḳrār
Dehānuñ fikri cān almaġdıġını
Tekellüm birle la‘lüñ ḳıldı iẓhār
N’ola gördiyse dīde gün yüzüñi
İrer dīdāra lā-büd çeşm-i bī-dār
Göñülden bizi ma‘mūr itmedügi
Münīr olmaz yaluñuz ṭāş dīvār

In English

1. The heart takes delight whenever the grief of the beloved arrives; so repetition, it seems, is not wearisome everywhere.

2. O heart, if you said "Belî" (yes) to the beloved's lock, do not go back on it; affirmation (ikrar) is faith (the word spoken with the tongue is belief itself).

3. Your ruby lip, by speaking, made it plain that the thought of your mouth takes lives. (In divan poetry the mouth is so small as to be all but non-existent; merely thinking of it kills the lover. The PB manuscript reads "tekrār" for "iẓhār": the lip repeated this by speaking.)

4. If the eye has seen your sun-like face, is that any wonder? An eye that stays awake (an eye that spends the night sleepless) is bound to reach the sight of the face.

5. Münîr, the reason he does not make us flourishing from the heart (does not gladden us wholeheartedly) is this: a stone wall alone does not make a place flourish. The couplet cannot be understood with certainty; this reading is our own inference. It may be saying that unless the heart is built, a stone wall on its own does not bring a dwelling to life. The PB manuscript reads "ṭaş u dīvār" (stone and wall) for "yaluñuz ṭāş dīvār".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and sixth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 106). The metre is "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains; the rhyme is the "-ār" sound: yār, tekrār, iḳrār, iẓhār, bī-dār and dīvār. Of the divan manuscripts it is found only in VT (122a); it is also recorded in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 215a). According to the apparatus, PB reads "tekrār" for "iẓhār" in the third couplet and "ṭaş u" for "ṭāş" in the fifth. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) presents the repeated arrival of grief as a gain. "S̱aḳīl" means heavy, tiresome; it is a common view that repetition wearies people, but the poet says that this rule does not hold for the grief of the beloved. The second line is built as a general judgement, which lends the couplet the air of an aphorism. Since in PB the rhyme of the third couplet is also "tekrār", the same rhyme word is used twice in that manuscript; this is our own observation.

The second couplet is built on religious terms. "Belī" is the "yes" which, according to verse 172 of the Qur'anic sura al-A'raf, the children of Adam gave to the question "Am I not your Lord?". The poet transfers this covenant to the beloved's lock: once the heart has said "yes" to the lock, it cannot go back. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "rücū‘" (going back), "īmān" (faith) and "iḳrār" (affirmation). In divan poetry the lock is often associated with unbelief because of its darkness; making the covenant of faith with the lock may therefore carry a contrast. This last interpretation is our own inference.

The third couplet sets the mouth against the lip. The smallness of the mouth turns it into a secret, a kind of non-existence; even thinking of it takes the lover's life. What reveals this secret is the speaking lip. In the fourth couplet the words "dīde" (eye), "dīdār" (face, sight) and "bī-dār" (awake) are close in sound; the eye reaches the face because it stays awake. This play on sound fits Münîrî's fondness for the pun (cinas).

The pen-name couplet is the most obscure place in the ghazal. "Ma‘mūr" means built up, flourishing, and is used of buildings; "ṭāş dīvār" (stone wall) is also part of a building. It is clear that the couplet compares making the heart flourish with a stone wall, but the subject and the link of the sentence are uncertain. We take the couplet to carry a thought that recalls the Turkish expression "gönül yapmak" (literally "to build a heart", to console someone); this is an inference.

Bibliography

Online sources