Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

İrdi hep dil mülkine te’s̱īri ġamzeñ siḥrinüñ
Āḫir andandur yıḳılması vücūdum şehrinüñ
Sīne-i pür-sūzda eglenmez aṣlā ġamzesi
Bellü bildüm kim başında od yanarmış uġrunuñ
Bunca yıldur derd-i ‘ışḳuñ ṭoġrusıdur dūd-ı āh
İrdise eflāke n’ola yolı gökde ṭoġrunuñ
Yüz çevirüp zülfi ḥüsninden siyeh-rū olduġı
Ḳandayısa rāstına gelmez işi egrinüñ
Baḳmaz iken yüzüme öldürdi ḫışm ıla baḳup
Vāy bizeyidi Münīr olmasa luṭfı ḳahrınuñ

In English

1. The effect of the sorcery of your glance has reached every part of the realm of the heart; in the end, the ruin of the city of my body comes from it.

2. Her glance never lingers in a breast full of fire; I have plainly learned that a fire burns on the thief's head. (The glance is a thief; the burning breast is the fire on its head, so it does not stay there.)

3. For so many years the truth ("doğru") of the pain of love has been the smoke of my sigh; since the path of what is straight lies in the sky, is it any wonder if this smoke has reached the heavens? ("Doğru" means both truth and straight upward.)

4. Her curl turned its face away from her beauty (her cheek) and so became black-faced; the affairs of what is crooked never go right, wherever it may be.

5. While she would not look at me, she looked at me in anger and killed me; Münîr, woe to us had her wrath not had a kindness in it too.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a Turkish ghazal of five couplets; in the edition it is the hundred and sixtieth of the Turkish ghazals (tg 160). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". In Ersoy's list in the introduction (p. 9) the redif (refrain) of this ghazal is given as "-İnüñ"; according to the word, the suffix takes the form "-inüñ", "-unuñ" or "-ınuñ". The rhyme is the "-r" sound preceding this suffix: siḥr, şehr, uġru, ṭoġru, egri and ḳahr. The ghazal is found in three divan manuscripts: VT 135b, VY 112b and Ü 42b. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal describes how the beloved's glance destroys the lover's being. The opening couplet sets up a metaphor of realm and city: the heart is a realm, the body a city. The sorcery of the glance has spread through every part of this realm and in the end has ruined the city. In the second couplet the glance is likened to a thief. The Kubbealtı dictionary counts the word "uğru" as old Turkish and popular speech and explains it as thief. We have not been able to verify whether the expression of a fire burning on the thief's head rests on an idiom. In the couplet this fire is matched with the lover's burning breast: the glance does not stay in the fiery breast, because there its head would burn.

The most striking figure of the ghazal is the pun (cinas). The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that Münîrî was a master of the pun and applied all its varieties successfully. In the third couplet the word "ṭoġru" is used twice: in the first line the "doğru", that is, the truth, of the pain of love; in the second, the path "of what is straight". Since the smoke of the sigh rises straight up to the sky, the path of the straight is said to be in the heavens; the word is read both as truth and as a vertical direction. There is also a closeness of sound between "uġru" (thief) in the second couplet and "ṭoġru" in the third. That these two rhyme words are set side by side in consecutive couplets is our own observation.

In the fourth couplet the opposite of "ṭoġru", "egri" (crooked), appears. The beloved's curl is curved, that is, crooked; and because it has turned its face away from the cheek it has become "siyeh-rū" (black-faced). This word carries both the black colour of the curl and the sense of disgrace, shame. There is an antithesis between the crooked one's affairs not coming out "rāst", that is, not going well, and the meaning of "rāst" as straight, right. The pen-name couplet (mahlas) also closes with an antithesis: the beloved, who would not look, looked in anger and killed, yet the poet sees a kindness even within this wrath. The meeting of the words "luṭf" (kindness) and "ḳahr" (wrath) in the same line expresses the lover's acceptance of everything that comes from the beloved.

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