Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Dil-i saḫtuñ ki mermerden beterdür
Yumışar ‘āḳıbet diyen ḥacerdür
Gözüm yaşına olma māni‘ ey dost
Yolından ḳalmasun ehl-i seferdür
Yetişdi göz yaşı sen serve dirler
İñen inanmazam zīrā ḫaberdür
Kelām-ı ‘ışḳı ṣarf itmek dilerseñ
Maḥallin gözle ey dil söz güherdür
Raḳībi hergiz añmayam dir idüm
Yañuldum bes Münīr ādem beşerdür

In English

1. The one who says of your hard heart, which is worse than marble, "it will soften in the end" is himself a stone (as unknowing as a stone). The couplet can be read in two ways: it may also report the words of someone who says, "Your heart, harder than marble, will soften in the end; for it too is a stone".

2. O friend, do not stand in the way of my eyes' tears; let them not be kept from their road, for they are travellers.

3. They say "the tears have reached you", you who are a cypress; I do not quite believe it, for it is (only) news. The couplet can be read in two ways: it may also be understood as "they say the tears have reached you, the cypress (have risen to the height of the cypress)".

4. O heart, if you wish to spend (to speak) the word of love, mind its proper place; speech is a jewel.

5. I used to say I would never mention the rival; I was wrong, so it seems, Münîr: man is human (man errs).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and seventeenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 117). 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 "-er" sound before it: beter, ḥacer, sefer, ḫaber, güher and beşer. The ghazal is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 125a, VY 106a, Ü 37a); the apparatus records no variant readings. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built of short lines with the flavour of aphorisms. The second line of nearly every couplet ends with a judgement: they are travellers, it is only news, speech is a jewel, man is human. This manner of speaking gives the ghazal the plainness of the spoken language.

In the opening couplet (matla) the beloved's heart is harder than marble. The one who says that this hard heart will one day soften is, in the poet's view, as unknowing as a stone. The couplet is obscure and can be read in two ways; it is not certain to which subject the word "ḥacer" (stone) is attached. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "mermer" (marble) and "ḥacer".

The second and third couplets conceive of the tears as a traveller. The tear is an "ehl-i sefer", one who has set out on a journey; it should not be hindered. In the third couplet news comes that the tears have reached the beloved, but the poet does not believe it, because news is not certain knowledge. That the rhyme words "sefer" (journey) and "ḫaber" (news) follow one another makes a natural link between travel and news. A similar saying about "news" occurs in the pen-name couplet of tg 113; this comparison is our own observation.

The fourth couplet expresses the value Münîrî set on speech. In the introduction to the edition, Ersoy says that the poet held speech to be as precious as a jewel and gives this couplet as the example. "Ṣarf itmek" means both to spend and to use words; together with "güher" (jewel) it forms a congruence of images of trade and treasure. A precious stone is not spent everywhere; the word of love too is spoken only in its proper place.

The pen-name couplet is a confession. The poet had said he would never mention the rival, but since he mentions him in this ghazal he admits that he was wrong. "Ādem beşerdür" (man is human) is an expression for the fallibility of man; we could not find this saying in a dictionary. The rival's name does not occur in any other couplet of the ghazal; we take the couplet to be referring to itself, which is an inference.

Bibliography

Online sources