Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Şol ġazālüñ ki gözidür āhū
Cāna şīrāne ḳaṣd ider āh o
Añdıġumca raḳībi dil baña dir
İti añ da yanuña çomaġı ḳo
Ol sehī serv-ḳadde irmek içün
Yüzi üzre yürür sürinüp ṣu
Būy-ı zülfüñle dil delürmek ile
Öldürür gibi ‘āḳıbet bini bu
İnce bili ḫayāliyile Münīr
Gözüm içinde ṣanki bitdi mū

In English

1. That gazelle (the beloved) whose eye is the eye of a gazelle, ah, it falls upon the soul like a lion.

2. Whenever I mention the rival, my heart says to me: "Speak of the dog and keep the stick at your side (when you name the dog, have your stick ready)."

3. To reach that cypress-like beloved, straight as a sapling, the water walks crawling on its face.

4. When the heart goes mad with the scent of your locks, in the end this state seems likely to kill me.

5. Münîr, with the image of your slender waist it is as if a hair had sprouted within my eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and thirty-eighth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 238). The metre is "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün"; this short metre gives the ghazal a quick delivery close to speech. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on "-ū / -o": āhū, āh o, ḳo, ṣu, bu and mū. Most of the rhyme words are words of a single syllable. The ghazal is found in the Vatican and Vienna manuscripts (VT 154a, VY 130a). The only variant reading is in the fourth couplet: VY has the order "bini ‘āḳıbet" instead of "‘āḳıbet bini". It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is its play with rhyme. In the opening couplet "āhū" (gazelle) and "āh o" (ah, that one) stand side by side; the second rhyme repeats the first by splitting it into two words. This is a pun (cinas) built from two separate words. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "âhû" as gazelle and records the figurative senses of large and beautiful, of the eye, and of beauty, beloved; it writes that "gazal" too was used in literature for the beloved and the beloved's eye. That the gazelle-eyed beloved should fall upon the soul "şīrāne", like a lion, is a contrast (tezat). The couplet of Yavuz Sultan Selim quoted in the Kubbealtı's entry "âhû" sets up the same contrast: the poet before whose claw lions tremble has been brought low by a gazelle-eyed beauty.

The second couplet rests on a proverb. In its entry "it" (dog) the Kubbealtı records the saying "İti an, çomağı (değneği) hazırla" (speak of the dog and have your stick ready) and writes that it is said in jest when the person being talked about turns up. Münîrî applies the proverb to the rival: the rival is put in the place of the dog, and the heart advises the lover to keep his stick ready. This is an example of irsal-i mesel (use of a proverb). According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Münîrî is counted successful in the tradition, begun by Necâtî Bey and continued by Zâtî, of setting proverbs and idioms into poetry; this couplet is a clear example of it.

The third couplet is an example of hüsn-i talil (fanciful aetiology). The Kubbealtı explains "sehî" as, of stature, straight, upright, like a sapling. The beloved's stature is a cypress, and the cypress grows at the water's edge. The water's flowing along the ground is interpreted as its crawling on its face to reach the cypress. The words "yüzi üzre" call to mind at once the surface of the water and crawling face down (our observation).

In the fourth couplet the scent of the locks drives the lover mad; "bini" is the old Turkish form of "beni" (me). In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the beloved's waist is as slender as a hair. A hair growing in the eye is a trouble that pricks the eye and makes it water; the poet equates the image of the waist with this hair. The same image occurs in the second couplet of Ghazal 240 in the edition, where we read "göz içinde biticek mū" (when a hair sprouts in the eye) (our observation).

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