Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Derd ile ölürsem de lebüñ ḥālümi ṣormaz
Merhem diyü ġamzeñ cigere bir siḥir urmaz
Sīnemde ḳarār itmez oḳuñ demreni lā-büd
Ṣad pāre sifāl içre bu ẓāhir ki ṣu ṭurmaz
Zāhid ki yüzüñ ayına inkār ider ey dost
Mest oldı ġurūr ile meger kim gözi görmez
Düşümde de göstermesün Allāh raḳībi
Ẓāhirdür anuñ düşlügi de ḫayr işe yormaz
Göz yaşını dil yolda ḳalur dirse Münīrī
Gül-gūn ise eşkümüñ adı dil anı yormaz

In English

1. Even if I die in pain, your lip does not ask after me; nor does your glance cast a spell (a healing incantation) on my liver to serve as a salve.

2. The tip of your arrow surely does not stay in my breast; it is plain that water does not stay in a potsherd broken into a hundred pieces.

3. O friend, the ascetic who denies the moon of your face has become drunk with pride; or is it that his eye cannot see?

4. May God not show me the rival even in my dream; it is plain that seeing him in a dream would not be interpreted as a good sign either.

5. Münîrî, if the heart (or the tongue) says of the tear "it will be left on the road", then if my tear's name is "gül-gūn" (rose-coloured), the heart does not tire it out. The couplet can be read in two ways: the bloody tear is pictured as a mount that is not left exhausted on the road; or the heart does not interpret the rose-coloured tear as something "left on the road". ("Yormak" means both to tire someone out and to interpret a dream or a sign.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and thirty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 133). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The refrain (redif) is the negative aorist suffix "-maz / -mez" (listed by Ersoy as "-mAz"); the rhyme rests on the "-r" sound in the verb stems "ṣor-, ur-, ṭur-, gör-, yor-". The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 129b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) divides the beloved's indifference between two features: the lip does not ask after the lover, and the glance does not heal him. The phrase "siḥir urmak" means here to cast a spell, to recite and breathe over someone; the sorcery of the glance is a familiar motif in divan poetry, and the poet asks that this sorcery be used for once to heal. The second couplet uses a proverbial comparison (irsal-i mesel): water does not stay in a potsherd full of holes, and the arrowhead does not stay in a breast pierced by arrows. The breast being "ṣad pāre", in a hundred pieces, conveys how many wounds love has dealt.

In the third couplet the ascetic (zahid) and the lover face each other. The ascetic denies the beloved's beauty; the poet ascribes this to one of two causes: either the ascetic is drunk with the pride of his own piety, or his eye is blind. Showing the ascetic as drunk is a contrast, since he is the one who condemns wine.

The fourth couplet is built on a play of sound and sense. "Düş" means dream; even seeing the rival in a dream is ill-omened. "Ḫayr işe yormak" is the old form of the Turkish idiom "hayra yormak", to take something as a good sign, and belongs to the language of dream interpretation. The Kubbealtı dictionary shows that the verb "yormak" goes back to two separate roots: one means to tire, the other to take something as a sign and to interpret a dream. The rhyme word of the fourth and fifth couplets appears to be the same ("yormaz"); in that case there may be a perfect pun (cinas) between the two couplets. This is our own observation.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) is the most obscure place in the ghazal. A tear being left on the road recalls a traveller or a mount that is exhausted and cannot go on; "gül-gūn" is the colour of the bloody tear. In the story of Hüsrev and Şirin, Hüsrev's horse is called Şebdîz; one of the works on this subject by Âhî, a poet of the reign of Bayezid II, bears the title "Gülgûn u Şebdîz". It is possible that "gül-gūn" here also recalls the name of a horse and that the couplet rests on the idea of a mount that is never left exhausted on the road; but this is an inference, and the couplet cannot be understood with certainty.

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