Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dişleri ṣındıysa erzānīdür ey dil şānenüñ
Hergiz aġzından ḳomazdı zülfini cānānenüñ
Yeltedi göñlüm beni sevdā-yı ‘ışḳa bilmedüm
Uymaḳ olmazmış sözine ser-ḫoş u dīvānenüñ
Her ne dirse zāhid-i efsürde-dil disün ne ġam
Çāker-i pīr-i muġānam ḫādimi mey-ḫānenüñ
Dāne-i ḫālüñ gibi toḫm-ı maḥabbet düşmedi
Gerçi vardur ḥāṣılı ‘ālemde her bir dānenüñ
Āteş-i ‘ışḳ ile ḥālümden benüm ṣorma Münīr
Gördüñ ise ḥāletini şem‘ ile pervānenüñ

In English

1. O heart, if the comb's teeth have broken, it deserved it; it never let the beloved's lock out of its mouth.

2. My heart egged me on to the passion of love, and I did not realize; it turns out one should not follow the words of a tipsy madman.

3. Whatever the frozen-hearted (hard-hearted) ascetic may say, what grief is it to me; I am the slave of the Magian elder, the servant of the tavern.

4. No seed of love has fallen like the grain of your mole; though in the world every grain has its yield.

5. Münîr, do not ask me about my state with the fire of love; if you have seen the state of the moth with the candle (you know mine as well). (PB reads "ḥālümi" for "ḥālümden".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and fifty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 153). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the genitive suffix "-nüñ / -nuñ" (listed by Ersoy as "-enüñ"); the rhyme is the "-āne / -ane" sound: şāne, cānāne, dīvāne, mey-ḫāne, dāne and pervāne. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 133b, VY 113a, Ü 41b); it also appears in the Pervâne Bey anthology (PB 333b) and in Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 203b). To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) is an example of poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The reason the comb's teeth broke is that it never let the beloved's lock out of its mouth; the comb has paid the penalty for this intimacy. The Kubbealtı dictionary explains the word "erzānī" as worthy, deserving, fitting. The comb's constant contact with the lock is an envied privilege in divan poetry; the lover therefore regards the comb's breaking as a deserved punishment. Mentioning the teeth together with the "mouth" personifies the comb as a living being.

In the second couplet the lover blames his own heart: it is the heart that dragged him into the passion of love. According to the Kubbealtı dictionary, "sevdā" comes from the feminine form of the Arabic word for "black"; it carries both the sense of strong love and that of black passion, melancholia. It is therefore linked in meaning with "dīvāne" (mad) in the second line. Calling the heart "ser-ḫoş u dīvāne" (tipsy and mad) is the lover's seeing his own heart as a drunkard and a madman.

The third couplet works the contrast between the rind and the ascetic. The coldness in the phrase "zāhid-i efsürde-dil" (the frozen-hearted ascetic) forms a contrast with the fire of love. The second line of this couplet is almost the same as the line "Çāker-i pīr-i muġān u ḫādim-i mey-ḫāneyüz" in the opening couplet of Münîrî's tg 131; only in one the singular "I" speaks and in the other the plural "we". The poet's use of the same line in two ghazals is our own observation. Ersoy describes Münîrî as a rind and a lover and notes that he used Sufi symbols under the influence of Hâfız; the Magian elder is one of these symbols.

In the fourth couplet the word "dāne" (grain) is repeated, and a congruence of images (tenasüp) is built among seed, yield and grain. The beloved's mole is imagined as a grain, a seed; but love grows from this seed and no harvest is taken from it. Every grain in the world has its yield; only this grain has none. The comparison of the mole to a grain is a familiar motif in divan poetry; that the mole is also imagined as a grain of bait that lures lovers into a trap adds a second depth to the couplet. This last interpretation is our own inference.

The pen-name couplet (mahlas) closes with the motif of the candle and the moth: the lover's state is the state of the moth burning in the candle's fire. This comparison leaves the pain that the poet avoids describing to an image the reader already knows.

Bibliography

Online sources