Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Sözüñ kim vird-i ervāḥ-ı melekdür
Dil-i mecrūḥuma cānā nemekdür
Ġam-ı ‘ışḳuñla sūz u miḥnet ü derd
Göñül mülkine çoḳdan müşterekdür
Gözümüñ merdümi ṣu içre her dem
Yüzer her yaña gūyā kim semekdür
Bugün ser-geştelik banaysa ey dil
Sañadur irte bu çarḥ-ı felekdür
Raḳībüñ her kişi ḳalbini bildi
Mes̱eldür bes Münīrī il miḥekdür

In English

1. Beloved, your word, which is the litany (the prayer recited without cease) of the spirits of the angels, is salt to my wounded heart. ("Nemek" means both salt and the savour, the charm of speech: the word stings like salt rubbed into a wound and is sweet at the same time.)

2. Together with the grief of your love, burning, affliction and pain have long been partners in the realm of the heart.

3. The pupil of my eye (the little person of the eye) swims at every moment in water, in every direction, as though it were a fish. (The eye is full of tears.)

4. O heart, if giddiness (bewilderment, ruin) has fallen to me today, tomorrow it will fall to you; this is the turning wheel of the sky.

5. Everyone has come to know the heart of your rival (kalb: both his heart and "counterfeit coin", that is, his falseness); so this saying is a proverb, Münîrî: the people are the touchstone (the true worth of everything shows in the eyes of the people).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and seventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 107). The metre is "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün". Ersoy's list of refrains places it among the ghazals with the refrain (redif) "-dür"; the rhyme is the "-ek" sound before it: melek, nemek, müşterek, semek, felek and miḥek. The ghazal is found only in the VT manuscript (122b); it is missing from VY and Ü, and the apparatus records no variant readings. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The rhyme words of the ghazal are taken from fields far removed from one another: angel, salt, partnership, fish, the sky and the touchstone. The poet makes each of these words carry a comparison. In the opening couplet (matla) the beloved's word is on the one hand as holy as the litany of the angels, and on the other as burning as salt rubbed into a wounded heart. Because "nemek" means both salt and the savour and attraction of beauty, the couplet faces two ways: the word stings, yet it also gives the heart a relish.

The second couplet imagines the heart as a realm and the pains as partners in it. In the third couplet the pupil of the eye is conceived, as often in divan poetry, as a little person inside the eye; since the eye is full of tears, this person swims without cease like a fish. The two meanings of "merdüm", pupil and person, support the image.

The fourth couplet carries the same thought as the Turkish saying "bugün bana ise yarın sana" (if it is me today, it will be you tomorrow); the dictionary of the Turkish Language Association records this saying in the sense that a misfortune that befalls one person today may later befall another. The poet ties it to the turning wheel of the sky; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) around the idea of turning between "ser-geştelik" (giddiness) and "çarḫ-ı felek" (the wheel of the sky). The link between the couplet and the popular saying is our own observation.

The pen-name couplet rests on the terms of the money-changer's trade. "Ḳalb" means both heart and a debased, counterfeit coin; "miḥek" is the touchstone on which the fineness of gold and silver is tested by rubbing. That everyone knows the rival's heart is likened to the way a false coin is exposed on the touchstone. The poet presents this as a proverb with the word "mes̱eldür": "il miḥekdür", the people are the touchstone. We could not establish whether this saying occurs in a written collection of proverbs. The TDV article notes that Münîrî was successful in setting proverbs and idioms into poetry; in this ghazal the fourth and fifth couplets are examples of that trait.

Bibliography

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