Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İçerse lebüñ ḳanumı hīc aña sözüm yoḳ
Her dem görürem luṭfın anuñ şöyle iñen çoḳ
Gül-şende lebüñ ġaybetine her nefes ey dost
Lāf ider ise ġonca n’ola dilde süñük yoḳ
Reşk itdigüme dilde görüp tīr-i ḫadengin
İncindi göñül didi ki al var gözüñe ṣoḳ
Añmazsa n’ola ḫᵛān-ı viṣāl ile beni yār
İti gibi beklerem işigin aç eger toḳ
Atduḳça Münīrīye ḫadeng olma peşīmān
Bilürsin anı kim daḫı dönmez atılan oḳ

In English

1. If your lip drinks my blood I have no objection at all; at every moment I see its favour in such abundance.

2. O friend, is it any wonder if in the rose garden the rosebud keeps talking behind your lip's back (gossips about it)? The tongue has no bone. ("The tongue has no bone": a person can say anything, true or false.)

3. Seeing that I was jealous of her arrow lodged in the heart, the heart was offended and said: "Take it, go and stick it in your eye." (If that is what you want, take it, it is yours.)

4. Is it any wonder if the beloved does not remember me with the table of union? Hungry or full, I wait at her threshold like her dog. (In VT the word order differs slightly; in Ü this couplet stands third.)

5. Do not regret your arrow each time you shoot one at Münîrî; you know that an arrow once shot never comes back.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and forty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 149). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains; the rhyme is the "-oḳ" sound: yoḳ, çoḳ, yoḳ, ṣoḳ, toḳ and oḳ. The word "yoḳ" serves twice as a rhyme word, in the opening couplet and in the second couplet. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is one of the six Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter kaf. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts: VT 132b, VY 110b, Ü 41a. According to the apparatus, VT reads "işigin eger aç" for "işigin aç" in the fourth couplet; in Ü this couplet stands third. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is woven of proverbs and idioms; Münîrî's closeness to popular sayings is plainly visible here. The dictionary of the Turkish Language Association records all three sayings: "dilin kemiği yok" (the tongue has no bone: a person can say anything, true or false), "gözüne sokmak" (to stick something in someone's eye, to show it to him sharply) and "atılan ok geri dönmez" (an arrow once shot does not return: one regrets a thoughtless act, but it is too late).

In the second couplet the rosebud is personified. Since the rosebud is likened to the lip, its talking behind the lip's back, that is, its "ġaybet" (backbiting), is imagined as jealousy. The word "dil" is a double entendre (tevriye): it means both the heart and the speaking tongue. A link may also have been made between the boneless, soft petals of the bud and the saying "the tongue has no bone"; this is our own inference.

The third couplet sets up a scene with two parties. The lover is jealous of the beloved's arrow lodged in his heart; the heart is angered by this and says "al var gözüñe ṣoḳ" (take it, go and stick it in your eye). The idiom works on two levels here: it is an angry answer in the sense of "if that is what you want, take it", and an arrow is also something that can truly be stuck into an eye. In the fourth couplet the lover likens himself to a dog waiting at the beloved's threshold; the phrase "aç eger toḳ" (hungry or full) is tied to the image of the table. Even if he is given no share from the table of union, the lover keeps up his waiting.

In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the proverb is offered to the beloved as consolation: the arrow has been shot and will not return, so regret is pointless. The lover here forgives the beloved's cruelty and all but encourages her to keep shooting new arrows.

This ghazal shows a striking closeness to the two ghazals that follow it in the edition (tg 150 and 151). All three use rhyme words such as "yoḳ", "çoḳ", "oḳ" and "ṣoḳ"; the idiom "al var gözüñe ṣoḳ" recurs in the third couplet of tg 151, and the word "toḳ" (full), mentioned together with "ḫᵛān-ı viṣāl" (the table of union), recurs in the second couplet of tg 151. This closeness is our own observation; that the three ghazals may have been written at the same time or with an eye on one another is an inference.

Bibliography

Online sources