Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bellü bildüm k’āfet-i cān ḥālet-i hicrān imiş
Rūzgār-ı vuṣlat ey dil rūḥ-ı maḫż-ı cān imiş
Kirpigümden dāne dāne dökülen ḳanlu yaşı
Ḳaṭreler ṣanurdum ammā her biri ‘ummān imiş
Vaṣl ile bilinmez imiş ‘ālemüñ māhiyyeti
Yoḫsa hicr ü fürḳat ile şübhesiz zindān imiş
Der-be-der mülk-i cihānı istedügüm dem-be-dem
Buldum anı ‘āḳıbet sīnemde ḫod pinhān imiş
Ḫāne-i dilde ki sulṭān-ı ḫayālüñdür muḳīm
Rūşen oldı merdüm-i çeşmüm k’aña der-bān imiş
Derd-i ‘ışḳuñdan dil incindi didilerdi baña
Dün buluşdum bu söz ol bī-çāreye bühtān imiş
Ġāyet-i hicr ile ma‘lūm oldı baña ey Münīr
Vuṣlatuñ her bir demi bir ‘ömr-i bī-pāyān imiş

In English

1. I have learned for certain that the state of separation is a calamity for the soul; O heart, the time of union turns out to be the very soul of the soul, pure spirit.

2. I used to think the bloody tears falling grain by grain from my lashes were drops; it turns out each of them was an ocean.

3. While in union, it seems, one cannot know what the world is; whereas seen through separation and longing, the world is without doubt a dungeon.

4. The realm of the world that I sought door to door, moment by moment, I found at last; it turns out it was hidden in my own breast.

5. Since the sultan of your image dwells in the house of the heart, it has become clear that the pupil of my eye (the "little man" in my eye) is its doorkeeper.

6. They had told me that the heart was hurt by the pain of your love; yesterday I met it, and that word turned out to be a slander against the poor thing.

7. O Münîr, on reaching the utmost limit of separation I understood that every single moment of union is an endless life.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and thirty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 139). Since the great majority of Münîrî's ghazals have five couplets, this one is longer than average. The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is "imiş" (so it turns out; listed thus by Ersoy as well); the rhyme is the "-ān" sound: hicrān, cān, ‘ummān, zindān, pinhān, der-bān, bühtān and bī-pāyān. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is one of the two Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter şın; the other is tg 138 just before it. The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 130b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain "imiş" binds all the couplets of the ghazal together. In Turkish this suffix expresses a state that one realizes or learns about after the fact; each couplet is therefore the voicing of a discovery. The poet speaks of what separation is, how abundant his tears are and where the thing he was seeking lay hidden, with the sense of "so it turns out". This meaning of the refrain determines the structure of thought in the ghazal; this is our own observation.

The opening couplet (matla) sets separation against union: one is the bane of the soul, the other the soul of the soul. The second couplet contains hyperbole (mübalağa): the drops falling grain by grain turn out to be oceans. Between "dāne dāne" (grain by grain), "ḳaṭre" (drop) and "‘ummān" (ocean) a contrast of small and large is built. The third couplet defines the world through separation; within the happiness of union one cannot grasp what the world is, but through the pain of separation it is seen to be a dungeon.

The fourth couplet is the place where the Sufi colouring of the ghazal is most evident. The similarity in sound between "der-be-der" (door to door) and "dem-be-dem" (moment by moment) conveys the continuity of the search. That the thing sought in the world is finally found in one's own breast is close to a well-known Sufi idea; Ersoy notes that Münîrî was not a Sufi poet but used Sufi symbols under the influence of Hâfız.

In the fifth couplet the heart is a palace and the beloved's image a sultan dwelling in it. In divan poetry the pupil of the eye is called "merdüm", that is, a human being; the poet makes this little man the doorkeeper of the palace. The eye is the gate through which the image enters the heart, so the pupil's being the doorkeeper is an apt comparison. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "ḫāne" (house), "sulṭān", "muḳīm" (dwelling) and "der-bān" (doorkeeper).

A light joke can be sensed in the sixth couplet: against those who say the heart has been hurt, the poet says that he met the heart, that it was not hurt, and that the word was a slander. The heart does not complain of love's pain; on the contrary, it is content with it. The closing couplet (makta) returns to the opening one: the lover who has reached the furthest point of separation has understood that every moment of union is worth an endless life. Building the first and last couplets on the same contrast gives the ghazal a closed frame.

Bibliography

Online sources