Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dīde her dem kim ḫayāl-i la‘lüñ ile yaşarur
Bes bu ẓāhirdür ki bir yirde ṣu olsa gürderür
Yaşlarum seyli selāmın baḥre iltdükçe ṣabā
Bilmezem kim niçün incinüp yüzini burtarur
Ġamze-i ḫūn-rīziñüñ fikri düşelden ḳalbine
Nāfe-i Çīnüñ tüyi vehm ile her dem ürperür
Çoḳ zamāndur kim çekersin çeng-i hicrān miḥnetin
Çāre ne ey dil ṣuçuñ yoġ ise Allāh ḳurtarur
Ḥīn-i nez‘ içre raḳībüñ eşkine baḳmaz Münīr
Bilür ol dem k’ādeme şeyṭān gelüp ṣu gösterür

In English

1. The eye fills with tears at every moment with the image of your lip; so this much is clear: wherever there is water, it makes (the place) lush and green. (In the Ü manuscript the second line reads "No grief: wherever there is water, it does not stay still". We have taken "gürdermek" in the sense of "to make lush"; this is an inference.)

2. Whenever the morning breeze carries the greeting of the flood of my tears to the sea, I do not know why the sea takes offence and sours its face. (The flood of tears is greater than the sea, and the sea is therefore offended. We have taken "burtarmak" in the sense of "to wrinkle, sour the face"; this is an inference.)

3. Ever since the thought of your bloodshedding glance fell into its heart, the hair on the musk pod of the musk deer of China bristles with fear at every moment. (The glance is the hunter's arrow, and the musk deer fears this arrow.)

4. O heart, for a long time you have been suffering the affliction of the claw (or the harp) of separation; what remedy is there? If you have no fault, God will save you. ("Çeng" means both claw and a kind of harp. The VT manuscript reads "zaḥmetin", its trouble, for "miḥnetin".)

5. At the hour of the death agony Münîr does not look at the rival's tears; he knows that at that moment Satan comes to a man and shows him water. (The couplet alludes to the belief that Satan shows water to a dying person in order to take away his faith; the rival's tears are that water.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and eleventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 111). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places it among the ghazals with the refrain (redif) "-ur"; the rhyme is the "-r" sound before it together with the preceding vowel: yaşarur, gürderür, burtarur, ürperür, ḳurtarur and gösterür. The ghazal is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 123b, VY 104a, Ü 27a). According to the apparatus, Ü gives the second line of the first couplet as "Ġam degül bir yirde kim ṣu olsa ṭurmaz", and VT reads "zaḥmetin" for "miḥnetin" in the fourth couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The rhyme words of the ghazal are mostly Turkish verbs taken from everyday speech: yaşarmak (to fill with tears), gürdermek, burtarmak, ürpermek (to bristle), kurtarmak (to save) and göstermek (to show). Two of these, "gürdermek" and "burtarmak", we could not confirm in the dictionary; we have inferred their meanings from the context. The TDV article notes that many archaic words occur in Münîrî's poems; the rhymes of this ghazal fit that observation.

The opening couplet (matla) ties the watering of the eye to water making a place green: as the eye fills with tears, the image of the beloved comes to life and grows there. This reading is our own inference. In the second couplet there is an exaggeration. The flood of tears is so great that when the morning breeze carries its greeting to the sea, the sea grows jealous and sours its face.

In the third couplet the musk deer of China is mentioned. Musk is taken from the pod at the deer's navel and is used in divan poetry to describe the scent of the lock. Here the musk deer is a hunted animal whose hair stands on end with fear at the thought of the beloved's bloodshedding glance; the verb "ürpermek" describes the bristling of hair. The conception of the glance as the hunter and the deer as the quarry is our own inference.

In the fourth couplet the word "çeng" means both a claw and the harp called çenk; separation holds the heart like the claw of a beast of prey. The phrase in the second line, "if you have no fault, God will save you", resembles a popular saying; we could not find this saying in a dictionary.

The pen-name couplet is the most interesting in the ghazal. According to a belief told among the people, Satan appears with a glass of water in his hand to a dying person who suffers from thirst, and says he will give him water if he renounces his faith. The poet likens the rival's tears to this water: those tears too are a deception, and one should not look at them. It is clear that the couplet rests on this belief, but the linking of the two is our own interpretation.

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