Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Mihr ü māha pertev-i ḥüsnüñ virür dirsem şu‘ā‘
Gün gibi rūşendür aña kim durur iden nizā‘
Āh-ı āteş-nākümüzdür fāş iden sūz-ı dili
Şöyledür bes küllü sırrın cāveze’l-is̱neyn şā‘
Ġamzeñüñ de gerçi yoḳ siḥr içre noḳṣānı velī
Cādūluḳda çeşmüñüñdür dürlü dürlü iḫtirā‘
Ẕikr-i ḳadd-i müntehā-yı yār ile vecd olmadı
Serv-i bālāya nedendür böyle bu raḳṣ u semā‘
Elvedā‘ idüp didi nice bu ḥālet ey Münīr
N’olduġı ẓāhir degül mi diyicek cān elvedā‘

In English

1. If I say that the light of your beauty gives radiance to the sun and the moon, it is as clear as day to whoever would dispute it.

2. It is our fiery sigh that reveals the burning of the heart; so the matter is thus: "every secret that passes beyond two people spreads." (The end of the second line is Arabic.)

3. Your glance, it is true, has no shortcoming in sorcery; but in witchcraft it is your eye that makes inventions of every kind.

4. Did it not fall into ecstasy when the beloved's utmost stature was mentioned? Then why this dance and sema (swaying and turning) of the tall cypress?

5. Bidding farewell she said: "Münîr, what is this state?" When the soul says "farewell", is it not plain what has happened? (The soul is leaving the body; the lover is dying.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and forty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 143). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the "-ā‘" sound: şu‘ā‘, nizā‘, şā‘, iḫtirā‘, semā‘ and elvedā‘. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is one of the three Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter ayn. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 131b, VY 109b, Ü 40a); it also appears in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 298a) and in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 184b). Its presence in five sources shows that the ghazal was also read in the anthologies of the period. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) begins with hyperbole (mübalağa): the sun and the moon take their light from the beloved's beauty. The idiom "gün gibi rūşen" (as clear as day) used against anyone who would deny this calls up the sun a second time in the same couplet; the proof of the beauty that lends light to the sun becomes the sun itself. This subtle play is our own observation.

The second couplet describes the relation between secret and sigh. The burning within the lover is a secret, but the fiery sigh brings it out. The Arabic phrase at the end of the line means "every secret that passes beyond two people spreads". Since Ersoy gives no meaning for this couplet, the rendering is ours; we have not been able to verify the source of the phrase. It may be thought that the "two" in the couplet are the heart and the sigh, and that the sigh, as the third party, announces the secret to the world; this is an inference.

In the third couplet there is a contest of sorcery between the glance and the eye. In divan poetry the beloved's eye is a sorcerer (cādū); the glance too casts spells. The poet praises both but gives the mastery to the eye: the eye "invents" new spells. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among "siḥir" (magic), "cādūluḳ" (witchcraft) and "iḫtirā‘" (invention).

The fourth couplet is an example of poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The movement of the cypress swaying in the wind is likened to the dance and sema that dervishes perform in ecstasy; the reason given is the mention of the beloved's stature. The cypress, hearing of the beloved's stature, has lost itself. In the phrase "ḳadd-i müntehā" (the utmost, loftiest stature), the word "müntehā" may be thought to recall the Sidrat al-muntaha, the lote tree at the highest point of heaven; this is our own inference. The words "vecd" (ecstasy), "raḳṣ" (dance) and "semā‘" call up a Sufi gathering.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) contains the figure of redd-ül-acüz ale's-sadr (repetition of the opening word at the end): the word "elvedā‘" (farewell) begins the couplet as its first word and is repeated at its end as the rhyme word. As the beloved leaves she bids farewell, and the lover's soul too says "farewell" and leaves the body. The scene of parting thus turns into a scene of death, and the answer to the beloved's question "what is this state" closes the ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources