Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Ṣubḥ-dem murġ-ı seḥer derd ile feryād idicek
Sāḳīyā bāde-i fül-fāmı ne var yād idicek
Lerzeler düşürür endāmına her nārvenüñ
Nāz ile gül-şene seyr ol ḳad-i şimşād idicek
Ḳāmetüñ-çün götürür ḥācet elin serv belī
Lāzım-ı bende budur şeh ḳulın āzād idicek
Ṭutmışam berk etegin pīr-i muġān ḥażretinüñ
Dil beni cām-ı mey-i ‘ışḳuña irşād idicek
Virdi Ḥaḳ ḫāṣıyet-i āteşi de āhumuza
Ḳatı göñlüñi senüñ āteş ü pūlād idicek
Ġam bucaġında mı yapdı ‘acabā ḫānemüzi
Ey dil üstād-ı ezel ‘āleme bünyād idicek
Bir ḳadem-rence ḳılup külbe-i aḥzānumuza
N’ola bir kerre Münīrī ḳuluñı şād idicek

In English

1. At dawn, when the bird of daybreak (the nightingale) begins to cry out in its pain, O cupbearer, what harm is there in remembering the "fül-fām" wine? ("-fām" means "coloured"; we have not been able to establish the meaning of the first part of the word.)

2. When that beauty with a stature like the boxwood goes out with coquetry to stroll in the rose garden, she sets every elm trembling (the trees shake with envy of her stature).

3. The cypress bends double for your stature and raises the hand of supplication; indeed, when a king is about to set his slave free, this is what befits the slave.

4. Ever since the heart led me to the cup of the wine of your love, I have held fast to the skirt of the elder of the Magians (the tavern master), that is, I have bound myself to him.

5. When God made your hard heart of fire and steel (like a flint and striker), He also gave our sighs the property of fire.

6. O heart, when the Master of eternity (God) founded the world, did He perhaps build our house in the corner of grief?

7. Take the trouble to set foot once in our hut of sorrows; what would it matter if you made your slave Münîrî happy just once?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a Turkish ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets; in the edition it is the hundred and fifty-sixth of the Turkish ghazals (tg 156). Since most of Münîrî's ghazals have five couplets, this one is somewhat longer than usual. The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "idicek", and the poem appears under its number in Ersoy's list of redifs in the introduction (p. 9); the rhyme is the sound "-ād": feryād, yād, şimşād, āzād, irşād, pūlād, bünyād and şād. The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts: VT 134b, VY 113a and Ü 42a. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a dawn scene. The nightingale's morning cry becomes a pretext for asking the cupbearer for wine; the phrase "ne var" in the opening couplet is a rind's (libertine's) question arguing that there is no fault in mentioning wine. The second and third couplets continue the garden imagery. The Kubbealtı dictionary explains "şimşâd" as the boxwood tree and records that in divan poetry it qualifies the beloved's stature; "nârven", according to the same dictionary, is the elm. When the beloved's boxwood stature appears in the garden the elms tremble, and the cypress bends double before her stature and raises its hands. The branches of the cypress are likened to hands raised in prayer; this is an example of simile and of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology).

In the third couplet the cypress is a slave and the beloved's stature a king; the rhyme word "āzād" refers to the freeing of a slave. The Kubbealtı dictionary gives "âzâde" as free, released from every bond. The cypress raising its hand of supplication is linked to the pleading of a slave awaiting manumission. In the fourth couplet the ghazal turns to the language of the tavern: guided by the heart, the lover has turned to the wine of love and clutched the skirt of the pîr-i mugân, the elder of the tavern. Using the word "irşād" (guidance to the right path) for turning towards the tavern is an instance of the familiar play between the language of Sufism and that of the rind.

The fifth couplet rests on the image of a fire-striker. The beloved's hard heart is like fire and steel; the lover's sigh has been given the property of fire. Sigh and hard heart are thus imagined as the meeting of flint and steel. This reading is our own observation; the word "stone" does not occur in the couplet, but the pair "āteş ü pūlād" evokes this image. In the sixth couplet the poet calls God "üstād-ı ezel" (the Master of eternity) and asks whether, when the world was founded, his own house was built in the corner of grief. In the last couplet this house is named "külbe-i aḥzān". The Kubbealtı dictionary connects this phrase with the hut in which the prophet Jacob wept in longing for Joseph, and explains it as the hut in which grief is suffered for the beloved. The link between "ġam bucaġı" (the corner of grief) in the sixth couplet and "külbe-i aḥzān" in the seventh ties the last two couplets of the ghazal together. In the pen-name couplet (mahlas) the poet calls himself "ḳul" (slave); the image of slave and manumission from the third couplet thus reappears at the end of the ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources