Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Ümmīdüm ol ki göstere yüzüñi luṭf-ı Ḥaḳ
Ḳaldıysa ḫaste-cān n’ola ey dost bir ramaḳ
Şāyed ki meyl ide zere sen sīm-ten diyü
Altun getürdi ḫıdmete ḫaddüm iki ṭabaḳ
Murġ-ı seḥerden işideli vaṣf-ı ḫaddüñi
Gül defterin ṣabā yile virdi varaḳ varaḳ
Ḫaddüñle zülfüñi göreli oldı virdümüz
Ṣubḥun iẕā teneffese leylün iẕā ġaseḳ
Bir kerre ṭoġru baḳduġı-çün lāle-ḫaddüñe
Şöyle utandı kim ḳızarup gül döker ‘araḳ
Ṣubḥ-ı viṣāli ḥasretine her gice Münīr
Ḳan aġlasam ‘aceb mi drur nitekim şafaḳ

In English

1. My hope is that God's grace will show me your face; O friend, is it any wonder if the sick soul has only a ramak (one last breath of life) left?

2. Thinking that, being silver-bodied, you might perhaps incline towards gold, my cheek (my face turned golden with pallor) has brought two trays of gold to your service.

3. Since hearing the praise of your cheek from the bird of dawn (the nightingale), the rose has given its book leaf by leaf to the morning breeze. ("Varaḳ" means both the leaf of a book and the petal of a flower.)

4. Since we saw your cheek and your lock, the prayer that never leaves our lips has been: "the morning when it breathes, the night when it darkens." (An Arabic phrase recalling the Qur'anic oaths by the dawn and the night.)

5. Because it once looked straight at your tulip-red cheek, the rose was so ashamed that it blushes and sheds sweat. ("‘Araḳ" means sweat; the dewdrops on the rose are meant. This couplet is missing in the Ü manuscript.)

6. Münîr, if every night, longing for the morning of union, I weep blood like the twilight, is it any wonder?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and fifty-second of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 152). The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the "-aḳ / -eḳ" sound: Ḥaḳ, ramaḳ, ṭabaḳ, varaḳ, ġaseḳ, ‘araḳ and şafaḳ. According to Ersoy's count of rhyme letters, it is the last of the six Turkish ghazals that rhyme in the letter kaf. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts: VT 133b, VY 110b, Ü 41a; in Ü the fifth couplet is missing. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built between morning and night. In the opening couplet (matla) the soul is at its last breath; the dictionary of the Turkish Language Association records the word "ramak" today only in the idiom "ramak kalmak", meaning that something is about to happen. In the couplet the word carries its old sense, the last breath remaining to a dying patient. The pen-name couplet (mahlas), for its part, mentions the night and the twilight; the ghazal thus begins at the threshold of death and ends with nights of weeping blood.

The second couplet is built on a contrast of colours. The beloved is "sīm-ten", silver-bodied; the lover's face has turned pale and resembles gold. The lover's two cheeks are two trays of gold offered to the beloved. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between silver and gold, body and cheek; the lover's yellow pallor too is turned into a gift.

The third couplet is an example of poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil). As the reason why the rose's petals are scattered by the wind, the poet gives the rose's hearing the praise of the beloved's cheek from the nightingale and scattering its own register of beauty. The words "defter" (register, book) and "varaḳ" (leaf) liken the rose's layered petals to a book; the nightingale is the reader of this book and the singer of the praise.

The fourth couplet contains an Arabic line: "Ṣubḥun iẕā teneffese leylün iẕā ġaseḳ." In two successive verses of the Qur'anic Sura al-Takwir, oaths are sworn by the night as it darkens and by the dawn as it brightens (81:17-18); the second verse ends with the words "ve's-ṣubḥi iẕā teneffes", by the dawn when it breathes. The first phrase in Münîrî's line is the same as this verse. The word "ġasaḳ", describing the darkening of the night, occurs with words of the same root in verse 78 of Sura al-Isra and verse 3 of Sura al-Falaq. The poet links these Qur'anic expressions to the cheek (morning, light) and the lock (night, darkness) and makes them a "vird", a prayer recited constantly. That the line is a phrase compiled from verses is our own observation.

There is a second poetic aetiology in the fifth couplet: the redness of the rose and the dewdrops on it are ascribed to its being ashamed because it looked at the beloved's cheek. "‘Araḳ" means sweat; like a person who blushes and sweats with shame, the rose too turns red and sheds "sweat". In the pen-name couplet the red of the evening sky (şafak) is the colour of the tears of the lover who weeps blood all night.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Other sources

  • The Qur'an, al-Takwir 81:17-18, al-Isra 17:78 and al-Falaq 113:3 (Arabic text and Turkish translation). https://quran.com/81/17-18

Online sources