Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḥalḳa-i zülfüñ ki vardur bu gül-i sīr-ābda
Gūyiyā siḥr ile baġlanmış girihdür ābda
Āftāb-ı ṭal‘atuñdan ẓāhir olur dōstum
Günde bu şevḳ-ı ḥarāret mihr-i ‘ālem-tābda
Rū-be-rū şol devlete k’irdüm viṣālüñle bugün
Hīc kimse bir gice görmiş degüldür ḫᵛābda
Levḥ-i çihremde dem-ā-dem her biri müjgānumuñ
Sürḫ ile yazar ki sırr-ı ‘ışḳdur bu bābda
Ṭāḳ-ı ebrūsında görüp göñlümi didüm Münīr
Gūyiyā bir şem‘dür ṭurmış yanar miḥrābda

In English

1. The ring of your curl that lies upon this fresh, well-watered rose (the cheek) is as though a knot had been tied on water by magic.

2. My friend, the ardour and heat seen every day in the world-illuminating sun come from the sun of your face (the sun too burns with love for you).

3. Today, face to face, I have attained such fortune through union with you as no one has ever seen even in a dream at night.

4. On the tablet of my face each of my eyelashes writes ceaselessly in red ink (in tears of blood): "This is the secret of love in this matter."

5. Münîr, seeing my heart under the arch of her eyebrow, I said: "It is as though a candle stood burning in the prayer niche (mihrab)."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and forty-sixth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 246). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains gives the redif (refrain word) of this ghazal as "-dE"; the locative suffix is repeated at the end of every couplet. The rhyme rests on "-āb": sīr-āb, āb, tāb, ḫᵛāb, bāb and miḥrāb. The ghazal is found in two divan manuscripts (VT 156a, VY 130b); no variant readings are recorded in the edition. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Each couplet of the ghazal takes up one part of the beloved's beauty: curl, face, union, the lover's tears of blood and the eyebrow. In the opening couplet the two senses that the Kubbealtı Lugatı gives for "sîrâb", "well-watered" and "fresh, tender", work together; the cheek is both fresh and bright as water. The ring of the curl lying on this surface is likened to a knot tied on water. Tying a knot on water is an impossible feat; by saying that it could only be done by magic, the poet presents the curl as a work of sorcery (our observation). In the second couplet the word "mihr", which the Kubbealtı Lugatı explains as sun and, figuratively, love, is used in both senses; the heat the sun feels every day arises from the beloved's face. The word "günde" can also be read both as "every day" and "in the sun". This way of speaking is an example of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology), claiming that the sun takes its light from the beloved (our observation).

In the third couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "bugün" (today), "gice" (night) and "ḫᵛāb" (sleep, dream): the bliss the lover has reached awake by day no one has seen even in a dream at night. The fourth couplet is built on the tools of writing. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "levh" as a flat surface for writing on, and "sürh" as red, red ink, and a chapter or section heading written in red ink in manuscripts. The eyelashes are pens, the face a tablet, the bloody tears red ink; and "bāb" in the phrase "bu bābda" is tied to "sürh" through its double sense of "matter" and "chapter of a book". The lover's face thus appears as the page of a book of love opening with a red heading.

In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the eyebrow is likened to a mihrab (prayer niche). In its entry "mihrap" the Kubbealtı Lugatı records that in the old literature the beloved's arched eyebrows and the space between them were called by this name. The heart burning beneath the eyebrow is a candle burning in the mihrab. A link is also made between the meaning of the pen name "Münīr" (luminous) and the candle (our observation).

Bibliography

Online sources