Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bu ‘aḳl-ı serāsīme olupdur yine ser-keş
Ṣun cāmı pey-ā-pey berü ey sāḳī-i meh-veş
Der-nerd-i ġam-ı ‘ışḳ-ı to her dāv ki dil goft
Āverd zi-üstādī-i ḫod naḳş be-dü-şeş
Dil zülfi düninde ne çeker dinse uzar söz
El-ḳıṣṣa ḳara günlü dilüñ ḥāli müşevveş
Der-devlet-i ‘ışḳ-ı to merā ḫil‘at-i şāhīst
Her cāme ki şod der-tenem ez-eşk münaḳḳaş
Bezm içre lebinden söz açılduḳda ḥabībüñ
Sāḳī özin unutdı rebāb oldı hemān ġaş
Ol nāvek-i dil-dūz iricek saña Münīrī
Oḫ didügi ya‘nī neyiki cān-ı belā-keş

In English

1. This bewildered reason has once again rebelled (has grown unruly); O moon-faced cupbearer, pass the cup this way, one after another.

2. (Persian) In the backgammon of the grief of your love, whatever throw the heart called, by its own mastery it brought up the dice as double six. (Ersoy renders this couplet as the heart throwing double six at every move; our rendering rests on the same interpretation.)

3. If one were asked what the heart suffers in the night of that lock, the tale would grow long; in short, the state of the black-fated heart is in disarray.

4. (Persian) In the good fortune of your love, every garment that I have put on my body, embroidered with my tears, is a royal robe of honour (hil'at) to me. (Ersoy likens the garment embroidered with bloody tears to a kaftan granted by kings.)

5. When talk turned in the assembly to the beloved's lip, the cupbearer forgot himself and the rebab (a bowed lute) fainted at once.

6. Münîrî, when that heart-piercing arrow reaches you, the "oh" that the soul enduring calamities utters means "how good". (There is a play of sound between the interjection "oḫ" and the word "oḳ", arrow.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and thirty-eighth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 138). It is a ghazal in which Turkish and Persian are mixed: the second and fourth couplets are in Persian, and Ersoy gives their meaning in the apparatus; the other four couplets are in Turkish. The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the "-eş / -aş" sound: ser-keş, meh-veş, şeş, müşevveş, münaḳḳaş, ġaş and belā-keş. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is one of the two Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter şın. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 130b, VY 108b, Ü 39b); it also appears in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 275a) and in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 175a). The Persian second couplet is missing in Ü. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal takes place at a drinking gathering. In the opening couplet (matla) reason is shown as "serāsīme" (bewildered, dazed) and "ser-keş" (rebellious); the way to calm it is to ask the cupbearer for cup after cup. Silencing reason with wine is a familiar idea in the poetry of the rind.

The second couplet uses the language of backgammon. The Kubbealtı dictionary explains "nerd" as backgammon and "dāv" as a turn or move in games such as chess and backgammon; "dü-şeş" is a throw in which both dice come up six. The heart is such a skilled player in the backgammon of love's grief that it brings up the best throw every time. Thinking of grief as a game, and of the heart as winning at it, turns pain into a field of mastery. The couplet is written in Persian; our rendering rests on the same interpretation as Ersoy's meaning in the apparatus.

In the third couplet the lock and the night become one. The phrase "ḳara günlü" (black-fated) forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the blackness of the lock, and the word "müşevveş" (in disarray) with the dishevelment of the hair: the state of the heart is as tangled as the lock. The phrase "söz uzar" (the tale grows long) also recalls the length of the lock; this is our own observation.

In the fourth, Persian couplet the garment stained with bloody tears is likened to a robe of honour (hil'at) bestowed by the ruler. Love is a "devlet", meaning both good fortune and sovereignty; in this sovereignty the lover's garment embroidered with tears becomes his robe of honour. In Ersoy's rendering the word "tımar" (a military land grant) is also given in parentheses beside the kaftan; Ersoy may have meant to show that the gift could also be understood as a grant of livelihood.

In the fifth couplet the people and objects of the gathering lose themselves when the beloved's lip is mentioned: the cupbearer forgets himself and the rebab faints. The fainting of the instrument may have been imagined as its falling silent, or as its lament taking on a swooning tone; this is our own inference. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the closeness in sound between the interjection "oḫ" and "oḳ" (arrow) forms a pun (cinas): the "oh" that escapes the lover's mouth when the beloved's arrow arrives is the sound of contentment. We read the word "neyiki" as "ne iyi ki" (how good that); this is an inference.

Bibliography

Online sources