Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Uġratdı belāya beni bu vech ile dīde
Şimden girü bilsem ki göñül daḫı necide
Dil ġamzeñ ucından gideli sīneme gelmez
Gelmez yuvasına bes iñen murġ-ı remīde
Göz ḳarasın ezsem n’ola eşk ile dem-ā-dem
Mey ḫūb olur iñen kömür il’olsa çekīde
Sen serve elin ṣunduġı-çün gibi çenāruñ
Hep ṭutdı ḫazān ile dibin dest-i bürīde
Uġratdı göñül ‘ışḳa beni çıḳdı aradan
Kim dirdi kim ol baña bunuñ gibi iş ide
Kūyuñdan eger ‘azm-i Ḥarem ḳıldısa göñlüm
Āḫir gelecek yiri budur ḳancaru gide
Ḳan düşdi Münīrī dil ü çeşm ortasına kim
Dil şöyle ki gizlendi bulımaz daḫı dīde

In English

1. The eye has brought me into calamity in this way; if only I knew what more the heart will do from now on (we understand the word "necide" at the end of the line as "ne ide", that is, what it will do; the reading is ours).

2. Ever since the heart fled from the tip of your glance it has not come back to my breast; a startled bird, after all, hardly ever returns to its nest.

3. What wonder if I keep crushing the black of my eye with tears? Wine too becomes very fine when it is filtered and distilled through charcoal (the pupil is likened to charcoal, the tear to wine).

4. Because the plane tree stretched out its hand to you, the cypress-statured beloved, autumn has heaped its foot with severed hands (the fallen hand-shaped leaves of the plane are likened to cut-off hands).

5. The heart led me into love and then slipped out of the way; who would have said it would do such a thing to me?

6. Even if my heart has resolved to leave your street for the Kaaba, in the end this is where it will come back to; where else could it go?

7. Münîrî, blood has come between the heart and the eye; the heart has hidden itself so that the eye can no longer find it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a seven-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and fifty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 259). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The number of this ghazal does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme rests on the sound "-ide" in the words "dīde, necide, remīde, çekīde, bürīde, ide, gide"; the opening couplet and the pen-name couplet both end on the same word "dīde" (eye) (our observation). The ghazal is found in the VT (159b) and VY (132b) manuscripts. According to the edition's apparatus, the word "Mey" in the third couplet is missing in VT. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The main subject of the ghazal is the quarrel between the heart and the eye. In divan poetry love is thought to enter the heart by way of the eye; here too it is the eye that first leads the lover into calamity, while the heart then makes matters worse altogether. In the second couplet, with the word "remīde", which the Kubbealtı Lugatı explains as startled, frightened, the heart is likened to a bird that, scared by the arrow of a glance, never returns to its nest. The couplet has the air of irsal-i mesel, using a piece of knowledge drawn from observation as a proof.

The third couplet sets up a striking simile. The Kubbealtı Lugatı gives "çekîde" as dripped, distilled. The black of the eye is likened to charcoal and the tear to wine filtered through charcoal; the lover's crushing of his eye with tears turns into a distilling process that purifies the wine. We have no information on how wine was filtered through charcoal in the poet's time; we explain the simile on the basis of the wording of the couplet.

The fourth couplet is a fine example of hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology). The Kubbealtı Lugatı notes that the leaves of the plane tree are lobed; the poet sees these palm-like leaves as "dest-i bürīde", severed hands. Because the plane presumed to stretch its hand out to the cypress-statured beloved, its hands were cut off when autumn came, and the severed hands lie heaped at the foot of the tree. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between cypress and plane, and an idea of punishment between stretching out a hand and losing it.

In the sixth couplet the beloved's street and the Haram, that is the Kaaba, are set against each other; even if the heart resolves on pilgrimage, the place it will come back to is the beloved's door. The pen-name couplet returns to the opening: blood has come between the heart and the eye. The phrase can be understood in two ways: literally, as blood rising into the eye and flowing from the heart, and figuratively, as enmity arising between the two sides (our interpretation). The offended heart hides, and the eye can no longer find it.

Bibliography

Online sources