Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bilmiş ol didüm hele ben saña ey reşk-i melek
Bir gün āhumdan yanar bu çāder-i küḥlī-felek
Görüp ol güftār-ı şūr-engīzi la‘lüñde didüm
Hīc kimse görmemişdür k’ola ḥelvāda nemek
Gerçi göñlinden geçürdi ādem olmadı raḳīb
Şöyle ḳalb-i kem-‘ayāra n’eylesün seng-i miḥek
Mülk-i dilde gözlerüñ ẓulmin görüp didi göñül
İki Türk-i ẓālim olmış bir ḫarāba müşterek
‘Arż-ı ḥāl itmek dilerseñ yāre derdümden Münīr
Hīc ṭınma söyler iseñ söz ürer artar emek

In English

1. I said to you, O beauty envied by the angels: know this well, one day this kohl-coloured tent of the sky will burn from the fire of my sighs.

2. Seeing that tumult-raising (and also salty, "şūr") speech on the ruby of your lip, I said: no one has ever seen salt in halva (can bitter, salty words come from a sweet lip?).

3. The rival did think of it in his heart, yet he never became a man; what can the touchstone do with a debased, counterfeit "ḳalb" (both a heart and a false coin)?

4. Seeing the tyranny your eyes inflict in the realm of the heart, the heart said: two cruel Turks have become partners in a single ruin.

5. Münîr, if you wish to lay my pain before the beloved, do not make a sound at all; if you speak, the words will swell (grow longer) and the toil will increase.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the hundred and seventy-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 173). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is on "-ek": melek, felek, nemek, miḥek, müşterek and emek. The ghazal is found in the three divan manuscripts (VT 138b, VY 116a, Ü 44b) and in two anthologies of response poems, the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası (PB 346a) and Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 202a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

The variant readings are mostly small differences of phrasing. The word "küḥlī" in the opening couplet appears as "küll…" in PB and MN, and "Görüp ol" at the start of the second couplet reads "Görüben" in these two anthologies; PB also reads "la‘lüñden" for "la‘lüñde" and "kimesne" for "kimse". The word "ürer" in the couplet bearing the pen name is "uzar" (grows longer) in PB; this variant supports the sense of words swelling and growing longer in the line.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the exaggeration, common in divan poetry, of the fire of the lover's sighs. The lover's sigh is strong enough to burn the sky; here the sky is a kohl-coloured tent ("çāder-i küḥlī"). Addressing the beloved as "reşk-i melek" (envy of the angels) sets his beauty in rivalry with the heavens; melek (angel) and felek (sky) stand side by side in the rhyme. The second couplet is built on a double entendre (tevriye) and a contrast (tezat). The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the Persian word "şūr" as both salty, bitter and turmoil, tumult; "nemek" means salt and savour. The beloved's lip is sweet and resembles halva, yet the words that come from it are şūr, both tumult-raising and salty. Salt has never been seen in halva; the poet voices this astonishment as if it were a general rule.

The third couplet is taken from the world of goldsmiths and money-changers. The Kubbealtı Lugatı records that "kalp" acquired in Turkish the sense of false, counterfeit money, and that "mihek" (mihenk) is the stone used to test the fineness of gold. The rival's "ḳalb" is both his heart and a debased ("kem-‘ayār") counterfeit coin; even the touchstone can draw no value from it. The couplet thus expresses the rival's worthlessness through a double entendre.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's two eyes are likened to two cruel Turks. In the couplet the word "Türk", together with the adjective "ẓālim" (cruel), describes two warriors raiding the realm of the heart; the ruined heart becomes a wasteland that these two soldiers plunder in partnership. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "mülk-i dil" (the realm of the heart) and "ẓulm" (tyranny), "ḫarāb" (ruin) and "müşterek" (shared). In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the poet advises himself to keep silent. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the verb "tınmak" as to make a sound, to say something. The more a pain is told, the longer it grows and the more toil it brings; this thought has the air of irsal-i mesel (the use of a proverbial saying).

Bibliography

Online sources