Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Müşkilāt-ı ġamuñı derc idüben itmege ḫal
Sürḫ ile çekdi müjem levḥ-i zer üzre cedvel
Görününce işigüñ gitdi başum aġrusı hep
Hīc bu ḫāṣıyeti virebilür mi cendel
Göñlümi yār ele alup yine el çekdügi tīz
Beñzer ol ṭıfla kim oda yapışup tīz çeker el
Düşicek mes’ele-i ‘ışḳ raḳībüñe ne söz
Hīc daḫl itmesün ol cāhile yoḳdur medḫal
Gelmedüñ ḫastalıġın ṣora Münīrīnüñ çün
Luṭf it ey dost namāzına anuñ bārī gel

In English

1. To set down the hard problems of your grief in writing and to solve them, my eyelash ruled a table (cedvel) in red ink (in bloody tears) on a tablet of gold (my yellowed face).

2. As soon as your threshold came into sight, my headache was gone entirely; could any stone (cendel) ever give this property?

3. The beloved's taking my heart in hand and then quickly letting it go is like a child who grasps a fire and quickly pulls his hand away.

4. When the question of love comes up, your rival has no say; let that ignorant man not meddle at all, for he has no way in (medhal) to this affair.

5. You did not come to ask after Münîrî's illness; O friend, be gracious and at least come to his (funeral) prayer.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the hundred and eighty-seventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 187). The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is on "-el" and "-al": ḫal, cedvel, cendel, el, medḫal and gel. The ghazal is found in the three divan manuscripts (VT 141b, VY 118b, Ü 46a) and in two anthologies of response poems, the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası (PB 381b) and Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 239a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

The only variant reading recorded in the edition is in the rhyme word of the second couplet. For "cendel" the Vienna manuscript writes "cedvel"; in that reading the rhyme of the opening couplet is repeated. The first letter of the reading in MN could not be printed in the edition and appears as "□andal"; that it may be read "ṣandal" (sandalwood) is our conjecture. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "sandal" as a tree with hard and highly prized wood, whose essence is used in perfumery.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built with words taken from the arts of writing and the book: derc (to set down in writing), ḥal (to solve), sürḫ, levḥ and cedvel. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "sürh" as red and as red ink, and for this sense cites a couplet by Sâbit in which the lover grinds red ink in the inkwell of his eye in order to rule lines on the beloved's cheek. The same dictionary explains the expression "cetvel çekmek" as drawing lines around the pages and text of a manuscript book. In Münîrî's couplet the eyelash is the pen, the bloody tear the red ink and the golden tablet the yellowed face; reading the face and the tears in this way is our interpretation. Only with such a ruled table can the hard problems of grief be set in order and solved.

In the second couplet the beloved's threshold is like a healing stone. The word "cendel" does not appear in the Kubbealtı Lugatı; Wiktionary gives it as a large rock in Arabic and as stone, rock in Ottoman Turkish. The sense of the couplet is then as follows: the threshold too is a stone, but no stone has the property of banishing a headache in an instant. This reading is ours. The third couplet draws a scene through a simile. According to the Kubbealtı Lugatı, "tıfıl" means a small child. The beloved takes up the heart and quickly lets it go, just like a child who reaches for a fire and pulls his hand back as soon as it is burned. The rhyme word "el" (hand) echoes three times in the couplet through the expressions "ele almak" (to take in hand) and "el çekmek" (to withdraw one's hand).

In the fourth couplet two words from the same root are used side by side. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "dahl" as meddling in an affair, and "medhal" as an entrance and as having a hand in an affair. The rival cannot meddle in the question of love, because he has no door by which to enter it. In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the poet asks the beloved, who did not come during his illness, at least to come to his funeral prayer; his thinking of even death as a way of seeing the beloved gives the couplet an air of bitter jest.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Books

  • Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "sürh", "cetvel", "sandal", "tıfıl", "dahl" and "methal". https://lugatim.com/s/sürh

Other sources

Online sources