Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Ḳatı kār itdi göñül fürḳat odı cānumuza
‘Acabā ḥālümüzi kim diye cānānumuza
Ġarḳa-i āb-ı ḥayāt olmış iken ḫāl-i lebüñ
Ne revādur ki ṣuṣar bu bir avuç ḳanumuza
Ḫār elinde göreli sen gül-i ter dāmenini
Ġoncalar ṭaña ḳalur çāk-i girībānumuza
Dil ü cān almaġ ile ġamzelerüñ rāżī degül
Ḳaṣd ider her biri bir vech ile īmānumuza
Vaṣf-ı dendānuñı yazmaḳ diledügince Münīr
Dür döker naẓm-ı teri defter ü dīvānumuza

In English

1. O heart, the fire of separation has worked very hard upon our soul; I wonder who will tell our state to our beloved.

2. While the mole on your lip is drowned in the water of life (the water of immortality), how can it be right for it to thirst for this handful of our blood?

3. Ever since they saw your skirt, like a fresh rose, in the hand of a thorn (the rival), the rosebuds have stood amazed at our torn collars.

4. Your glances are not content with taking our heart and our soul; each of them in its own way also has designs upon our faith.

5. Whenever Münîr wishes to describe your teeth, his fresh verse pours pearls onto our notebook and our divan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and sixty-fourth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 264). The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". The list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction gives the redif (refrain word) of this ghazal as "-ımuza"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-ān" in the words "cān, cānān, ḳan, girībān, īmān, dīvān". The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 160b, VY 137b, Ü 54b); 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 suffix "-ımuza" (to our) in the refrain gives the ghazal the voice of the first person plural: the lover tells his own pain as the pain of all lovers. In the opening couplet there is a pun (cinas) resting on the likeness of sound between "cān" (soul) and "cānān" (beloved); while the fire of separation burns the soul, the beloved who owns that soul, the cânân, is unaware of its state. In the second couplet the beloved's lip is likened to the water of life that gives immortality. The Kubbealtı Lugatı presents Hızır (Khidr) as the figure believed to have attained immortality by drinking the water of life; the black mole beside the lip is imagined as sunk in this water. That a mole lying in such water should thirst for the lover's handful of blood creates a surprising image built on contrast.

The third couplet uses the familiar relation of rose and thorn. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "girîbân" as the collar of a garment, and "girîban-çâk" as with a torn collar, deeply grieved. The beloved's rose-like skirt has been left in the hand of a thorn, that is, the rival; the lovers have therefore torn their collars, and the rosebuds, which split open layer by layer as they bloom, stand amazed at the lovers' torn collars. The likening of a bud's opening to the tearing of a collar is the subtle side of the couplet (our interpretation). In the fourth couplet there is a gradation from heart and soul to faith: the glances first take the heart, then the soul, and finally have designs on faith itself.

The pen-name couplet is cited as an example in Ersoy's introduction. Ersoy (introduction, p. 11) mentions this couplet as an example of Münîrî's view that the poems he wrote meaning to describe the beloved's teeth scatter pearls over his notebook and divan, that is, that he saw the cause of his poetry's brilliance in the beloved herself. The likening of teeth to pearls is a common simile; here the pearl stands both for the tooth and for brilliant speech. In the phrase "defter ü dīvān" the word "divan" is read in the sense of a book of poems, and the poet places a boast about the worth of his own poetry within this comparison.

Bibliography

Online sources