Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Günde ‘ışḳuñdan yetişse baña biñ dürlü elem
Hīc bir vech ile yüz döndürmezem meger ölem
Pādşāh-ı vaḳtem ey dil devlet-i ‘ışḳ ile kim
Ḳanda gidersem çekilür dūd-ı āhumdan ‘alem
Bir yaña yārüñ cefāsı bir yaña ilüñ sözi
Ölmezem kim bārī ey dil bu belādan ḳurtulam
Pāre-i cüll-i seg-i kūyuñdan umduġum bu kim
Dem-be-dem bārī gözüm yaşını anuñla silem
Devlet-i ‘uḳbā dilerseñ kendüñi ḫāk it Münīr
N’ola olduñsa cihānda ṣāḥibü’s-seyf ve’l-ḳalem

In English

1. Even if a thousand kinds of pain should reach me every day from your love, I would by no means turn my face away, unless I die.

2. O heart, through the fortune of love I am the sovereign of the age; for wherever I go, a banner is raised from the smoke of my sighs.

3. On one side the beloved's cruelty, on the other the talk of people; O heart, I do not die, so that at least I might be saved from this affliction.

4. What I hope for is a scrap of the horse-cloth (the coarse blanket thrown over animals) of the dog of your street, so that every moment I might at least wipe my eye's tears with it.

5. Münîr, if you desire the fortune of the hereafter, make yourself dust (be humble); what of it if in this world you have become master of both sword and pen.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the hundred and ninety-fifth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 195). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". In the list of redifs in his introduction, Ersoy gives the redif (refrain) of this ghazal as the suffix "-Em". The rhyme words are elem, ölem, ‘alem, ḳurtulam, silem and ḳalem. The Arabic nouns "elem" (pain), "‘alem" (banner) and "ḳalem" (pen) and the Turkish verbs "ölem" (that I die), "ḳurtulam" (that I be saved) and "silem" (that I wipe) end in the same sound; the rhyme thus fits words from two languages into a single mould (our observation). The ghazal is in the VT (143b) and VY (120a) manuscripts, but not in Ü. The edition's only variant reading is in the fourth couplet: the word "cüll-i" is written "çüll-i" in VT.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first four couplets of the ghazal depict a lover who bears the hardship of love patiently, while the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) counsels humility before worldly rank. In the opening couplet the lover says he will not turn his face from the beloved unless he dies. The second couplet turns this devotion into a picture of sovereignty. Besides the sense of a sign, the Kubbealtı Lugatı gives "alem" the meaning of standard, banner. Just as the sultan's standard is carried wherever he goes, the smoke of the lover's sighs rises wherever he goes; for this reason the lover counts himself the sovereign of the realm of love. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "pādşāh" (sovereign), "devlet" (fortune, state) and "‘alem" (banner).

In the third couplet the lover is pressed from two sides: the beloved's cruelty and the gossip of people. Even death is not granted him as a release. The fourth couplet rests on an image of self-abasement common in divan poetry: even the dog in the beloved's street is worth more than the lover. The Kubbealtı Lugatı derives "çul" from Arabic "cull" and explains it as a cloth of hair, hemp or wool laid over animals. The lover's whole hope is to find a scrap of the coarse cloth on that dog's back and wipe his tears with it.

In the couplet bearing the pen name the voice changes and the poet admonishes himself. "To make oneself dust" means to be humble. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "seyf" in the phrase "ṣāḥibü's-seyf ve'l-ḳalem" as sword; the sword stands for soldiering and the pen for learning and the scribal offices. A contrast (tezat) is set up between worldly fortune and "devlet-i ‘uḳbā" (the fortune of the hereafter); the fortune of love in the second couplet can be read together with this third kind of fortune.

Historical Context

The couplet bearing the pen name of this ghazal is cited in the sources on Münîrî's life. In the introduction to the edition Ersen Ersoy says that this couplet of the divan shows the poet to have belonged both to the learned establishment (ilmiye) and to the military (askeriye). In the same place Ersoy records, on the authority of Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, that Münîrî was chancellor (nişancı) in the household of Prince Ahmed between 910 and 915 (1504-1510), and that the poet states in a couplet of his Mihr ü Müşterî translation that he was a sipahi (cavalryman). The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi likewise writes that his statements in Mihr ü Müşterî show that he served for a long time as a sipahi in the Ottoman army before his post as chancellor.

The couplet gives this information not as a boast but within a conditional clause: "n'ola olduñsa", that is, "what of it if you have become". Mastery of sword and pen is here a worldly rank that is made small before the hereafter (our observation).

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