Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Yār iti öñinde öl direm raḳīb uymaz söze
Kimse ey dil devlet ola mıbilür devletsüze
Levḥ-i çihremde gözümüñ yaşların kirpüklerüm
Her dem iderler ḥisāb ammā ṣaġış yoḳ yılduza
Yüz çevürme ġamzesi tīġinden ey dil zīnhār
Ḫod bilürsin k’utanılur baḳılıcaḳ yüz yüze
Ġarḳ-ı ḫūn olmış ṭuran kirpüklerümüñ her biri
Āteş-i dilden ḳızarmış mīldür ṭut kim göze
Ḳara zülfi pertev-i ḫaddiyle kim vardur Münīr
Gicedür meh-tāb ile ṣankim dönüpdür gündüze

In English

1. I tell the rival, "Die at the feet of the beloved's dog"; he does not heed the word. O heart, can anyone become good fortune for one who has none (no one can give luck to the luckless)?

2. On the tablet of my face my eyelashes reckon up my eyes' tears at every moment, but there is no counting the stars (they count my tears as a sleepless man counts stars, and still cannot finish).

3. O heart, beware, do not turn your face from the sword of her glance; you know yourself that one feels shame when looking face to face. The couplet can be read in two ways: if you turn away now you will be ashamed when you meet; or, do not run away out of shame at meeting face to face.

4. Each of my eyelashes, standing steeped in blood, is, as it were, a needle (mil) reddened in the fire of the heart and drawn across the eye.

5. Münîr, her black curl together with the radiance of her cheek is like a night that has turned into day by moonlight.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and forty-seventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 247). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The number of this ghazal does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains in the introduction; the rhyme, together with the dative suffix, rests on the sounds "-öze, -üze, -uza": söze, devletsüze, yılduza, yüz yüze, göze and gündüze. The ghazal is found in two divan manuscripts (VT 156b, VY 131a); no variant readings are recorded in the edition. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The language of the ghazal is plain and Turkish; several couplets have the air of advice close to everyday speech. In the opening couplet the lover tells the rival to die at the feet of the beloved's dog. To die before the beloved's dog means to be bound to the beloved even from the lowliest place; the rival's unwillingness to do so is, according to the second line, his ill fortune (our reading). There is a play on words of the same root (iştikak) between "devlet" (fortune) and "devletsüz" (fortuneless), and the second line is built like a proverb saying that no one can give luck to one who has none (our observation).

The second couplet again thinks of the face as a writing tablet; here the eyelashes are less pens than a clerk keeping accounts. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the idiom "yıldız saymak" (to count stars) as "not to sleep at night" and quotes Hisâlî's line "Tâ subh olunca her şeb yıldız sayar semâda" (every night until dawn he counts the stars in the sky). In Münîrî's couplet the tears are likened to stars; the lover counts them sleepless all night, but like the stars they are beyond number. In the third couplet "zīnhār" is a warning meaning beware (Kubbealtı Lugatı). A congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up between the sword of the glance and the idioms "yüz çevirmek" (to turn one's face away) and "yüz yüze bakmak" (to look face to face); the double use of "yüz" (face) opens the meaning of the couplet in two directions.

The simile in the fourth couplet is the harshest image of the ghazal. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "mil" as the thin, long instrument used for applying kohl to the eye and quotes Fuzûlî's line "Âteşin bir mildir kim çeşmime gayret çeker" (it is a fiery needle that draws zeal across my eye); the same dictionary records the idiom "mil çekmek" as blinding someone's eyes with a red-hot needle as a punishment. The bloody eyelashes are like needles reddened in the fire of the heart; the senses of applying kohl and of blinding with a needle can both be read into the couplet (our observation). In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) the black curl and the bright cheek are likened to night and moonlight; the contrast (tezat) between night and day is resolved as darkness turns to light.

Bibliography

Online sources