Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Bī-çāre bülbül iñledügi derd ü dāġı var
Her laḥẓa cān virür gülüñ andan ferāġı var
Baḥrīlik ögrenür gibi gözüm bebekleri
Her bir yanında baġlu ikişer ḳabaġı var
Yār işigine göz yaşı yetişdi didiler
Ey dil yolı izi açuḳ olsun ayaġı var
Devr-i ġamuñda mülk-i dile hīc vech ile
Gelmez ḫayāl-i ġayr ‘acāyib yasaġı var
Göze ḫayālüñ az görinür lā-büd ey perī
Ḫalvet-serā-yı dil gibi ḫālī ṭuraġı var
Yildügi der-peyine düşüp zülfüñüñ Münīr
Gördi ki bir şāhīndür ayaġında baġı var

In English

1. The poor nightingale has a pain and a wound (a brand) for which it moans; every moment it gives up its soul, but the rose is heedless of it and pays it no mind.

2. The pupils of my eye are as if learning seamanship (to swim); each has two gourds tied on either side. (The pupils learning to swim in the sea of tears seem to have tied on gourds to stay afloat. What the gourds stand for is not clear in the couplet; they may be teardrops or the eyelids.)

3. They said, "the tears have reached the beloved's threshold"; O heart, may its road and track be open: it has legs (it travels fast).

4. In the reign of your grief, no image of another comes in any way to the realm of the heart; it has a strange prohibition.

5. O fairy (peri), your image surely appears seldom to the eye; for (the eye) has an empty halting place like the private chamber of the heart. The couplet can be read in two ways: the one with the empty halting place may also be the image itself.

6. Münîr ran in pursuit of your lock; he saw that it is a falcon with a tether on its foot.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and twenty-fourth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 124). The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places it among the ghazals with the refrain (redif) "-I var" (has); the rhyme is the "-āġ" and "-aġ" sound before it: dāġ, ferāġ, ḳabaġ, ayaġ, yasaġ, ṭuraġ and baġ. The ghazal is missing from the VT manuscript; it is found only in VY (97a) and Ü (30a). Since the order of the edition generally follows VT, the presence at this point of a ghazal not found in VT is notable; we could not establish on what ground the edition placed it here. All the ghazals in this section rhyme on words ending in the letter "r", and those ending in "z" begin from tg 126; the ghazal may have been placed here according to the traditional alphabetical order of divans, which is an inference. The apparatus records no variant readings. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The rhymes of the ghazal are mostly Turkish words taken from daily life: gourd, foot, prohibition, halting place and tether. These words combine the traditional motifs, such as the rose and the nightingale or the eye and the tear, with everyday objects. The TDV article notes that a lively and colourful style, far from monotony, prevails in Münîrî's works; the images of this ghazal fit that observation.

The opening couplet (matla) gives the motif of the rose and the nightingale: the nightingale moans from its pain and gives up its soul, while the rose pays it no mind. "Dāġ" means both a wound and a brand; "ferāġ" is the state of having given something up, of indifference. The second couplet is the most original in the ghazal. The pupils are likened to children learning to swim in the sea of tears; like those learning to swim, they have tied two gourds to each side. It appears that the dried gourd is thought of as a float that helps one stay on the surface; this is an inference. Between "baḥrīlik" (seamanship) and the word "bebek" (pupil; baby) there is a play that thinks of the pupil as a small child.

In the third couplet the tear is a traveller; the phrase "ayaġı var" (it has legs) says both that it has feet and that it travels fast. The conception of the tear as a traveller is also found in tg 117; this comparison is our own observation. In the fourth couplet the heart is a realm; the beloved's grief rules in this realm and has forbidden the image of anyone else to enter. The words "devr" (reign), "mülk" (realm) and "yasaḳ" (prohibition) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) of state and sovereignty.

In the fifth couplet the beloved is called "perī" (fairy). Fairies are beings seldom seen by human eyes; the beloved's image too appears seldom to the eye. A closeness is drawn between "ḫalvet-serā" (the chamber of privacy) and "ḫālī ṭuraḳ" (an empty halting place); the idea that fairies love deserted places may be sensed in the couplet, which is an inference.

In the pen-name couplet the lock is a falcon. The falcon is a bird trained in hunting with a tether (jess) on its foot; the lover runs after the lock but sees that it is tethered. The curling end of the lock may have been likened to the tether on the falcon's foot; this is our own inference.

Bibliography

Online sources