Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: müfte‘ilün fā‘ilün müfte‘ilün fā‘ilün

Burḳa‘ını götürüp göstericek yüz Ḥasen
Ey dil-i ġam-dīde bes eẕhebe ‘annā’l-ḥazen
Geldi ḫayālüñ göze mülk-i dili terk idüp
Key ṣaḳın idindi ol baḥr kenārın vaṭan
Ḳanlu yaşın kūh-ken ḳanda ki dökdiyise
Daḫı biter ġālibā lāle-i ḫūnīn-kefen
Pīrehen-i yāra dil nicesi reşk itmesün
Rişte-i cān oldı hep aña irüp pīrehen
Şöyle kim itdi zebūn hicr ile fürḳat beni
Şimdi geñez bilimez bendeñi cānā gören
Şol çemenüñ gül-şeni bülbülidür kim Münīr
Andan alur reng ü bū küll-i gül ü yāsemen

In English

1. When Hasen lifted his veil and showed his face, O grief-stricken heart, it is enough: "(God) has taken grief away from us."

2. Your image left the kingdom of the heart and came to the eye; with great care it has made the shore of that sea (of tears) its homeland. (The couplet can also be read: "beware, it has made that shore its homeland".)

3. Wherever the mountain-digger (Ferhad) shed his bloody tears, there, it seems, the tulip in its bloody shroud still grows.

4. How should the heart not envy the beloved's shirt; having reached him, the shirt has become wholly a thread of the soul.

5. Separation and longing have so worn me down that now, beloved, whoever sees your servant can hardly recognise him.

6. Münîr is the nightingale of the rose garden of that meadow from which all roses and jasmines take their colour and scent.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and thirty-first of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 231). The metre is "müfte‘ilün fā‘ilün müfte‘ilün fā‘ilün". There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on "-en": Ḥasen, ḥazen, vaṭan, kefen, pīrehen, gören and yāsemen. The ghazal is found only in the VT manuscript (152b); the edition records no variant readings. Ersoy prints the word "Ḥasen" in the opening couplet with a capital letter, as a proper name. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The second line of the opening couplet is a quotation from the Qur'an (iktibas). In verse 34 of the sura Fatir the words of those who enter paradise appear, according to the Diyanet translation, as "Praise be to God, who has taken grief away from us"; Münîrî's phrase "eẕhebe ‘anna'l-ḥazen" is identical with the words "ezhebe annel hazen" in this verse. When the beloved lifts the veil and shows the face, the grief of the sorrowful heart departs; the words of thanks spoken in the verse by the people of paradise are spoken here by the lover who sees the beloved's face. Since Ersoy prints "Ḥasen" as a proper name, the beloved is named in the couplet as Hasen (Hasan). There is a pun (cinas) based on the likeness of sound between "Ḥasen" and "ḥazen" (grief). Since the word also means "beautiful", the line can also be understood as "when a beautiful face is shown" (our observation). In the second couplet the image migrates from the kingdom of the heart to the eye and settles on the shore of the sea of tears. The word "key" in the couplet is recorded in the Kubbealtı Lugatı only with the Persian sense "when"; since this sense does not fit the couplet, we have understood the word as "very, thoroughly" (our observation). The word "ṣaḳın" can likewise be read as "carefully" or as "beware".

The third couplet refers to Ferhad. The Kubbealtı Lugatı records that the epithet "kûh-ken" (mountain-digger) was used of Ferhad. That the tulip still grows wherever Ferhad's bloody tears were shed is a hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology) that traces the tulip's redness to a cause. The tulip called "ḫūnīn-kefen" (in a bloody shroud) also appears in the couplet bearing the pen name of Münîrî's tg 224. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "hûnin" as bloody. In the fourth couplet the shirt is an object envied because it touches the beloved's body. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "rişte" as thread and gives as an example Leskofçalı Gālib's couplet "Nûrdur sîmin teni kim rişte-i pîrâheni / Fark olunmaz târ u pûd şu‘le-i mehtâbdan" (her silver body is light, so that the threads of her shirt, warp and weft, cannot be told from the gleam of moonlight); there too the threads of the shirt are named together with the beloved's radiant body. The word "pīrehen" (shirt) occurs at both the beginning and the end of the couplet. In the fifth couplet separation has made the lover so thin that he can no longer be recognised. We did not find the word "geñez" in the line in the Kubbealtı Lugatı; the sense "hardly" is given from the context (our observation). In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the poet counts himself the nightingale of a rose garden that gives colour and scent to all roses and jasmines. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among nightingale, rose, jasmine and meadow.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Books

  • Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "key", "kûh" (kûh-ken), "hûnin", "rişte" and "pîrâhen – pîrehen". https://lugatim.com/s/rişte

Online sources