Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gāh dil kūyuñda iñler şöyle geh sīnemde bes
‘Andelībüñ yiri geh gül-zār olur gāhī ḳafes
Yanmaġa geldüm çerāġ-ı ḥüsnüñe pervāneyem
Şem‘ gibi döndürürsem yüzümi başumı kes
Bunca yıldur k’iñlerem bir kez daḫı n’olduñ dimez
Kār-ı ‘ışḳı bes ya āsān mı ṣanur her bū’l-heves
Ḥalḳa-i zülfüñi ṣalma seg raḳībüñ boynına
Bir uyundı it durur ḥācet degül aña meres
Her ne deñlü ḫāk olan ‘uşşāḳa meyli var ise
Ey dil ol zülf-i dü-tā umma kim ola dest-res
Çün ki yār-ı dil-rübā yolında cān vir dir Münīr
Ey dil iflāḥ olmaḳ isterseñ ḳabūl eyle nefes

In English

1. The heart moans like this, sometimes in your street and sometimes only in my breast; the nightingale's place too is sometimes the rose garden and sometimes the cage.

2. I have come to burn at the lamp of your beauty; I am a moth. If I turn my face away like a candle, cut off my head. (As the wick of a candle is trimmed.)

3. For so many years I have been moaning, and not once does she say "what has become of you"; does every dabbler (bū'l-heves, one who takes love for a game) think the business of love is easy? (In the PB manuscript the line reads as if it said "the business of love for the beloved" instead of "the business of love".)

4. Do not throw the ring of your lock around the neck of the dog-like rival; he is a dog that tags along behind you by himself, and needs no rope (meres). (The rival never leaves your heels anyway; there is no need to put a leash on him.)

5. O heart, however much that twice-folded lock may incline towards lovers who have turned to dust, do not hope that it will come within your reach. (This couplet is missing in the PB manuscript.)

6. Since Münîr says "give your life on the path of the heart-stealing beloved", O heart, if you want salvation, accept this breath (this counsel).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and thirty-seventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 137). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains; the rhyme is the "-es" sound: bes, ḳafes, kes, heves, meres, dest-res and nefes. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is one of the two Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter sin; the other is tg 136 just before it, and the two ghazals share most of their rhyme words (this is our own observation). The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts: VT 130a, VY 108a, Ü 39a; it also appears in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 265b) and in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 167b). Its inclusion in an anthology of response poems (nazire) shows that it was known to other poets of its time. The fifth couplet is missing in PB, and there is a small difference of reading in the third couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) is built on a comparison. The heart sometimes wanders and moans in the beloved's quarter and sometimes shuts itself up inside the breast; the nightingale too sometimes sings in the rose garden and sometimes is put into a cage. The quarter corresponds to the rose garden and the breast to the cage; this matched arrangement is an example of the figure of leff ü neşr (parallel listing). The repetition of "gāh" (sometimes) echoes in sound the heart's going back and forth between the two places.

In the second couplet the moth and the candle are set against each other. The lover counts himself a moth and binds his loyalty to a condition: if he turns his face away like the candle, let his head be cut off. The candle flame turns with the wind, and its lengthening wick is cut with scissors; by combining these two features, the poet derives the punishment for turning away from the care of the candle itself. This last explanation is our own inference.

In the third couplet the type of the "bū'l-heves" (the dabbler driven by passing desire) is censured. The lover who has moaned for years sets his own patience against those who think love a passing whim. The fourth couplet is the liveliest scene in the ghazal. The beloved's lock is made of rings; throwing such a ring around the rival's neck would be like putting a collar on him. The poet says there is no need, since the rival is already a dog that never leaves her heels. Steingass's Persian dictionary explains "mars" as a rope, especially one tied round the neck of a dog; the "meres" of the couplet fits this meaning. For the word "uyundı", the entry "uyuntu" in the Kubbealtı dictionary is helpful: in old texts the word meant a parasite, an uninvited hanger-on (tufeylî). We read the phrase "uyundı it" in this sense, as a dog that tags along behind; this is an inference.

In the fifth couplet the lock being "dü-tā", twice-folded, conveys both the curl of the hair and the difficulty of reaching it. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the word "nefes" is a double entendre (tevriye): it means both breath and the counsel spoken by a saint or an elder. The poet offers his own words to his heart as counsel; the phrase "iflāḥ olmak" (to attain salvation) adds weight to that counsel.

Bibliography

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