Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ṭolsa āvāz-ı ṣurāḥīlerle n’ola künc-i bāġ
Yaḳdı lāle şem‘ ü uyardı gül-i sūrī çerāġ
Ḳanın āḫir la‘l-i yāre irdügiçün içerem
Baġlamasun diñ ṣurāḥīye iñen daḫı dimāġ
Ġonca-i lāle ṭurur aġzına ḫabb-i misk alup
Tā ki irişe çemen şāhına diyü būy-ı dāġ
Gördi iḫlāṣ ile arḳuncaḳ du‘ā itdügümi
Ḫışm ile didi ne dirsin ben didüm kim sini saġ
Hem-dem olduḳça raḳīb ile żarūrī sen Münīr
Öñüme fī’l-ḥāl düşer ḳıṣṣa-i Ṭūṭī vü Zāġ

In English

1. Is it any wonder if the corner of the garden fills with the sound of flasks (the gurgle of wine being poured)? The tulip has lit its candle, and the red rose has woken (kindled) its lamp.

2. Since the blood of the wine (the wine itself) has at last reached the beloved's ruby lip, I drink it; tell them that reason (dimāġ) should no longer be so attached to the flask. The couplet can be read in two ways: I drink the wine because it has touched the lip, and not for the flask's sake; or the flask should not grow too proud of this ("dimāġ" means brain, reason, and can also be read in the sense of pride).

3. The tulip bud stands holding a pill of musk in its mouth, so that the scent of its brand (the dark spot of the tulip) may reach the king of the meadow (the beloved). (VT and VY read "nā-geh", suddenly, for "tā ki", so that.)

4. She saw that I was praying sincerely behind her back; angrily she said "what are you saying?"; I said "I am saying: may you be well."

5. Münîr, as long as you keep company with the rival, the story of the Parrot and the Crow at once comes to my mind.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and forty-fifth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 145). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the "-āġ" sound: bāġ, çerāġ, dimāġ, dāġ, saġ and Zāġ. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, this is the only Turkish ghazal in the divan that rhymes in the letter gayn. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 131b, VY 109b, Ü 40b); it also appears in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 304a) and in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 189a). According to the apparatus, VT reads "şem‘" for "şem‘ ü" in the first couplet; MN gives another word for "ṣurāḥīlerle", but the letters of this word are printed incompletely in the edition. VT and VY read "nā-geh" for "tā ki" in the third couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a spring gathering. The garden resembles an assembly room: the tulip has become a candle and the red rose a lamp, lighting up the garden; the gurgle of the flasks is like the music of the gathering. The red colours of the tulip and the rose are the basis of this comparison. The verbs "yaḳdı" (lit) and "uyardı" (woke) bring the light to life; in old Turkish "uyarmak" was also used in the sense of waking a fire, kindling it. This last explanation is our own inference.

In the second couplet wine is called "ḳan" (blood); likening red wine to blood is common in divan poetry. The poet says that he drinks the wine because it has touched the beloved's lip. The second half of the line is obscure, and its two readings are given above.

The third couplet is an example of poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The dark spot at the centre of the tulip is called "dāġ", a burn or brand, in divan poetry. The poet says that the bud carries this dark spot like a pill of musk held in its mouth, wishing its scent to reach the king of the meadow. Since musk is dark in colour and fragrant, it suits both the colour of the spot and the scent.

The fourth couplet is the liveliest scene of the ghazal and very close to spoken language. The lover prays behind the beloved's back; she hears it and angrily asks what he is saying; the lover replies "may you be well". The contrast between the beloved's anger and the lover's good wish lends the couplet a light humour. We read the word "arḳuncaḳ" as "arkasınca, arkasından" (behind her back); we have not been able to verify the word in dictionaries.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) alludes to a story in Sa'di's Gulistan. In the chapter of the Gulistan "On Love and Youth" a parrot is shut up in the same cage with a crow; the parrot complains of the crow's ugly face, and the crow of the parrot's conceit. Sa'di says that he brings this parable to show that however much the learned despise the ignorant, the ignorant scorn the learned a hundredfold more; the story dwells on the distress of two mismatched birds being shut in the same cage. Münîrî puts the beloved in the place of the tûtî (parrot) and the rival in the place of the zâğ (crow): seeing the beautiful and the ugly together reminds him of this story. This pairing of parrot and crow is our own interpretation, but the link between the story and the couplet is clear.

Bibliography

Online sources