Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘ilün fe‘ūlün

Yidiyse ḫadeng-i ġamzeñi berk
Sen Türke dil itdi cānını terk
Zülfüñ ne ḳadar çekindiyise
Ṭutdı etegin göñül daḫı berk
‘Uşşāḳa niçün ṭalaşdı yā Rab
Zāhid n’idügini itmeden derk
Geçdi ser-i ḫalḳ-ı ‘ālem üzre
Oldıysa küleh de ṣāḥib-i terk
Ġamzeñ yiyüp öldise Münīrī
İşiden anı dir āh ez-ān merg

In English

1. If the heart has taken the arrow of your glance hard (berk), O Turk (fair, cruel beloved), it has given up its soul to you.

2. However much your tresses drew back (shrank and curled away), the heart held on to their hem just as firmly (berk).

3. O Lord, why did the ascetic set upon the lovers without understanding (derk) what they are?

4. If the cap too has come to possess "terk" (being both a cap with segments, as dervishes wear, and one that has renounced the world), it has risen above the heads of all the people of the world.

5. If Münîrî has been struck by your glance and died, whoever hears of it says "āh ez-ān merg" (Persian: alas for that death).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the hundred and seventy-fourth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 174). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘ilün fe‘ūlün"; its lines are noticeably shorter than those of most ghazals in this section. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word). The rhyme is on "-erk": berk, terk, berk, derk and terk; the word "merg" in the couplet bearing the pen name ends in "-erg" and joins the rhyme by close sound. The ghazal is found in the three divan manuscripts: VT 138b, VY 116a and Ü 45a. The word "ṭalaşdı" in the third couplet appears as "ṭolaşdı" in the Istanbul University manuscript. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real strength of the ghazal lies in the puns on its rhyme words. The Kubbealtı Lugatı records three separate words "berk": Old Turkish "firm, strong, hard", Arabic "lightning" and Persian "leaf". In the opening couplet and in the second couplet "berk" has its Turkish meaning, "firmly"; yet in the first couplet, where it appears with the arrow, the speed and flash of lightning can also be sensed. The repetition of the same word as a rhyme in two couplets may therefore be counted a pun (cinas); this is our own reading. In the second couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the tresses "drawing back" and the heart "holding" the hem: the more the tresses pull away, the more tightly the heart clings to them.

The pun on "terk" is clearer still. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the Arabic "terk" as leaving, renouncing, and the Persian "terk" as a helmet and as each of the segments of the headgear worn by members of a Sufi order. In the opening couplet the heart abandons (terk) its soul to the beloved; in the fourth couplet the cap becomes "possessed of terk". The phrase describes both a segmented dervish cap and one who has renounced the world. Such a cap rises above the heads of all the people of the world; that is, withdrawing from the world raises a person above everyone.

The third couplet takes up the familiar opposition between the ascetic and the lover in divan poetry. The ascetic attacks the lovers without understanding their state; the Turkish Language Association dictionary gives "derk" as understanding. The reading "ṭolaşdı" (got entangled with, pestered) in manuscript Ü gives a similar sense. The couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) places a Persian phrase at the end of a Turkish ghazal: "āh ez-ān merg", that is, alas for that death. The edition does not give the meaning of this phrase; the rendering is ours. The comparison of the glance with an arrow is taken up here again after the opening couplet, and the ghazal closes with the lover's death.

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