Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Elif ol ad ile meşhūr-ı cihān Türk-i süvār
Hicr ile niçe ḳılur baña bu giñ dünyeyi ṭar
Bī belādur başuma ḳadd-i bülendüñ bilürem
İsterem Ḥaḳdan o devlet ḳıla başumda ḳarār
Tī temāşāsı cemāline ki sen Türküñ irem
Terk-i cān itmez olursam depele zār u nizār
S̱ī s̱evāb ister iseñ dünyede ey s̱ānī Ḥıżır
Teşne-dil ḳulları küşt eyle ya ‘arż eyle dīdār
Cīm cem‘ olsa cihān cümle cemālüñ ṣıfatın
Ṣayıp irgürmeyeler āḫire tā-rūz-ı şumār
Ḥī ḥelāl itdi ḥarāmīlıġ ile ḳanumuzı
Dün gice ġamze-i bed-kīşine bir çeşm-i ḫumār
Ḫī ḫam-ı zülfüñe ṭolaşalı dil ḫurrem olur
Delüdür nestene bilmez ki nedür n’oldı ya kār
Dāl demdür ki diyem derd-i derūndan dile de
Ki bile derd-i derūnda nedür ya ḫo ne var
Ẕāl zevḳ-i ẕeḳan-ı yāri göñül ẕikr idicek
Ḳalmışam anda daḫı ünlemişem ben baña yār
Rī revā mı k’añulmasa reviş-i ḳāmetüñüñ
Kend’özini getüre ara yire serv ü çenār
Zī zer-i ḫāliṣ iken çihre-i zerdüm ne ‘aceb
Bir naẓar ḳılmaduġı kūşe-i çeşm ile nigār
Sīn sünbül ṣaçuñuñ silsilesin terk idenüñ
Rūz-ı rūşen gözine olsa ‘aceb mi şeb-i tār
Şīn şükrüm buña sen şöhre-i āfāḳı görüp
Ḳalmadı āyīne-i dilde daḫı hīc ġubār
Ṣād ṣubḥ-ı ruḫuña ḳarşu ṣabūḥ itmek içün
Sāḳī-i ġonca-dehen ṣunsa n’ola cām-ı ‘uḳār
Żād ża‘f ile vücūdum çöpe dönse ne ‘aceb
Çekicek bār-ı nigārı yine göñlüm her bār
Ṭī ṭolaşma didügümce ṭolaşur zülfüñe dil
Müşkil oldı işi ġāyetde olup key düşvār
Ẓī ẕuhūra geleli ẕıll-i ẕalīli ḳadüñüñ
Ḫoş geçer bende vü āzād u şeh ü mīr ü kibār
‘Ayn ‘izzet baña ‘ālemde itüm didügidür
Ḥāşe lillāh kim ide ḥürmet olıcaḳ kişi ‘ār
Ġayn ġurbetde beni göz yaşı ġarḳ eylemeden
Yetişem mi ‘acabā vuṣlatuña āḫir-i kār
Fī fer umarsa yüzüñden ne ‘aceb mihr-i felek
Ḳıldı Ḥaḳ nūrını gün gibi cemālüñ iẓhār
Ḳāf ḳurb-ı ser-i kūyuñda ḳarār itdise dil
İrgürür devlet ü iḳbāle anı ḳurb-ı civār
Kāf kül ḳılsa beni gül yüzüñüñ şevḳı n’ola
Odlara niçeleri yaḳdı yaḳar daḫı bu yār
Lām la‘l-i lebüñe ölmeden irem mi ‘aceb
Gerçi bir ẕerrece irmege aña yoḳ miḳdār
Mīm merdümlük idüp merdüm-i çeşmüm dün ü gün
Dür ü la‘l ü güher ider yoluña şöyle nis̱ār
Nūn ney nāle-i dil-sūz ile her dem bunı dir
Ṭurmañ içüñ kim irişdi yine hengām-ı bahār
Vāv vāh kim iremez vuṣlatuña daḫı Münīr
Gerçi çoḳ va‘de-i ḫām eyledüñ itdüñ iḳrār
Hī hevā-yı gül-i ruḫsāruñı çün ḳıldı heves
Murġ-ı dil her dem iderse yiridür nāle-hezār
Lām elif lāle gibi lāl olursam ne ‘aceb
Şöyle yandum ki çıḳar her yañadan daḫı şerār
Yī yürek yaraları şerḥini yazmaġa gözüm
Ḳıl ḳalemle yüzüm üzre dürişür leyl ü nehār

In English

1. Elif: That mounted Turk (the beloved), famed in the world by that name, how he makes this wide world narrow for me with separation. The couplet can be read in two ways: "by that name" may mean that the beloved is known for a stature as straight as the letter elif, or it may say that the beloved's name or nickname is Elif.

2. Be: Your lofty stature is a calamity on my head, I know; I pray to God that that fortune (that felicity) may settle and remain on my head. (The letter name "bī" also means "without" in Persian; "bī belā" can thus also be heard as "without calamity". This reading is an inference.)

3. Te: Let me reach the sight of the beauty of you, that Turk; if I do not give up my life, trample me underfoot, weak and moaning.

4. Se: O second Khidr, if you seek a good deed in this world, either kill your servants whose hearts are thirsty or show them your face. (Khidr is the one who found the water of life; giving water to the thirsty is a good deed.)

5. Cim: If the whole world gathered and counted the attributes of your beauty, they could not bring the count to an end until the Day of Reckoning.

6. Ha: Last night a languid eye, playing the highwayman, made our blood lawful to your ill-natured glance.

7. Hı: Since it became entangled in your curling lock, the heart is joyful; it is mad, and does not know what is what, what has happened, or what the matter is. (We have taken "nestene" in the sense of "ne nesne", what thing; this is an inference.)

8. Dal: Now is the time to tell the pain within me to the tongue as well; let it know what the inner pain is and what is there. ("Dil" means both tongue and heart.)

9. Zel: When the heart recalled the delight of the beloved's chin, I too was left standing there and cried out, "be a friend to me". The couplet can be read in two ways: the second line may also be understood as "I called to myself, 'beloved'".

10. Re: Is it right that the gait of your stature should not be mentioned? (Then) the cypress and the plane tree push themselves into the midst.

11. Ze: Though my yellow face is pure gold, how strange that the beloved has not once looked at it from the corner of the eye. (The lover's face has turned yellow from pain.)

12. Sin: Is it any wonder if, in the eyes of one who leaves the chain (the ringlets) of your hyacinth hair, the bright day becomes dark night?

13. Şın: My thanks for this is that, after seeing you, the fame of the horizons, no dust at all is left in the mirror of the heart.

14. Sad: What if the bud-mouthed cupbearer offered a cup of wine to drink the morning draught facing the dawn of your cheek (it would be most fitting).

15. Dad: Is it any wonder if my body turned to a straw from weakness? Each time my heart again bears the burden of the beloved. ("Bār" means both burden and time, occasion.)

16. Tı: Whenever I say "do not get entangled", the heart gets entangled in your lock; its affair has become extremely hard, very difficult.

17. Zı: Since the shade-giving shadow of your stature appeared, slave and free, king, emir and the great all pass their time pleasantly. (The beloved's stature casts shade like a cypress; "ẓıll" means shadow and "ẓalīl" shady.)

18. Ayn: Honour for me in the world is that (the beloved) calls me "my dog"; God forbid that a man, when shown respect, should count it a shame.

19. Gayn: Before the tears drown me in exile, shall I, I wonder, reach union with you in the end?

20. Fe: Is it any wonder if the sun of the sky hopes for radiance from your face? God has displayed His own light in your beauty like the sun.

21. Kaf: If the heart has settled near the head of your street, the nearness of neighbourhood will bring it to fortune and felicity.

22. Kef: What if the longing for your rose face turned me to ash? This beloved has burned many in fires and will burn more. ("Kül" (ash) and "gül" (rose) are close in sound.)

23. Lam: Shall I, I wonder, reach your ruby lip before I die? Though I am not worth reaching it by so much as an atom.

24. Mim: The pupil of my eye (merdüm), doing a kindness (merdümlük), scatters pearls, rubies and jewels on your path day and night. (The pearls are clear tears, the rubies bloody tears.)

25. Nun: The reed flute (ney), with its heart-burning moan, says this at every moment: "Do not wait, drink; the season of spring has come again."

26. Vav: Alas, Münîr still cannot reach union with you; though you made many raw (empty) promises and gave your word.

27. He: Since the bird of the heart has longed for the air (the passion) of the rose of your cheek, it is right if it cries a thousand laments (moans like a nightingale) at every moment. ("Hezār" means both a thousand and nightingale.)

28. Lamelif: Is it any wonder if I become mute like the tulip? I have burned so that sparks still fly from every side of me. ("Lāl" means mute and "lāle" tulip.)

29. Ye: To write the commentary on the wounds of my heart, my eye labours day and night upon my face with a pen of hair. (The traces of tears running down the face are likened to lines drawn with a fine hair pen.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a Turkish ghazal (gazel) of twenty-nine couplets and is the hundred and twenty-fifth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 125). The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains; the rhyme is the "-ār" and "-ar" sound: süvār, ṭar, ḳarār, nizār, dīdār, şumār, ḫumār, kār, var, yār, çenār, nigār, and the same sound in the other couplets. Of the divan manuscripts it is found only in VT (126b); the apparatus records no variant readings.

In the introduction to the edition Ersoy gives two pieces of information about this poem: it has twenty-nine couplets and can be called a "mutavvel gazel" (long ghazal); and it is an elifname. Most of Münîrî's ghazals in this section have five to seven couplets; a ghazal of twenty-nine couplets goes far beyond that measure. Elifname is the name given to poems written by arranging the letters of the Arabic alphabet in a certain order from elif to yâ or the reverse. In this ghazal each couplet begins with the name of a letter, and the letters proceed in alphabetical order: elif, be, te, se, cim, ha, hı, dal, zel, re, ze, sin, şın, sad, dad, tı, zı, ayn, gayn, fe, kaf, kef, lam, mim, nun, vav, he, lamelif and ye. This is why the poem has twenty-nine couplets. The poet does not use the letters pe, çe, je and gef peculiar to Persian, but adds lamelif to the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet; this count is our own observation. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real difficulty of the elifname is that in each couplet the word that immediately follows the name of the letter also begins with that letter: "Bī belādur", "Tī temāşāsı", "S̱ī s̱evāb", "Cīm cem‘", "Ḥī ḥelāl", "Rī revā", "Zī zer", "Sīn sünbül", "Şīn şükrüm", "Ṣād ṣubḥ", "Kāf kül", "Lām la‘l", "Mīm merdümlük", "Nūn ney", "Vāv vāh", "Hī hevā", "Lām elif lāle", "Yī yürek". The poet thus sets a repetition of the same sound (alliteration) in each couplet and in many couplets keeps it up along the line: in the Cim couplet "cem‘", "cihān", "cümle" and "cemāl" follow one another, and in the Dal couplet "dem", "diyem", "derd", "derūn" and "dile". It is also notable that the letter names are written with the ī sound, as "bī, tī, s̱ī, ḥī, rī, zī, fī, hī, yī". These observations are our own.

Münîrî's elifname is a ghazal of love. Nearly all the familiar motifs of the ghazal are found in the poem: a stature straight as elif, bloody and clear tears, the heart entangled in the lock, the rose and the nightingale, the lover burning like a candle, the morning wine offered by the cupbearer, and the reed flute. The order of the letters produces a sequence of motifs rather than a narrative linking the subject from couplet to couplet.

Puns (cinas) are also built in the couplets with the words the order of letters imposes. In the Kef couplet "kül" (ash) and "gül" (rose), in the Mim couplet "merdüm" (pupil) and "merdümlük" (humanity, kindness), in the He couplet "hezār" (both a thousand and nightingale), in the Lamelif couplet "lāl" (mute) and "lāle" (tulip), and in the Dad couplet the senses of "bār" as burden and as time stand side by side. In the Ṣād couplet "ṣubḥ" (dawn) and "ṣabūḥ" (morning draught) come from the same root. The TDV article writes that Münîrî applied every kind of pun with success; this elifname shows that the tendency persists even under the constraint of the letters.

Some couplets lean on religious and cultural knowledge. In the Se couplet the beloved is called "a second Khidr"; Khidr is known for the water of life, and the thirsty servants expect water from him. In the Ha couplet there is a contrast between "ḥelāl" (lawful) and "ḥarāmīlıḳ"; ḥarāmīlıḳ means highway robbery, but the sound of "ḥarām" (unlawful) is also heard in the word. In the Ayn couplet the greatest honour for the lover is that the beloved calls him "my dog"; in divan poetry the lover's counting himself the dog at the beloved's door is a well-known expression of humility.

Another feature of the ghazal is that the pen name (mahlas) stands not in the last couplet but in the Vav couplet, twenty-sixth in order ("Vāv vāh kim iremez vuslatuña daḫı Münīr"). The order of letters in the elifname seems to have fixed the place of the pen name, and the sound of the exclamation "vāh" (alas) seems to have drawn the poet's name into this couplet. This interpretation is our own inference. The last image, in the Ye couplet, concerns writing: the eye writes the commentary on the heart's wounds on the page of the face with a pen of hair. That a poem which begins with the alphabet ends with an image of writing is our own observation.

Bibliography

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