Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Fikri bu gerd-i rehin ḳan ile didüm yoġura
Anı işitdi gözüm yaşı gider düşe ṭura
Kūyuñ itini görüp n’ola feraḥ-nāk ise dil
Her seḥer-geh ki ṭurur evvel anı ṭutar üre
Dīde ḫāk-i rehüñe dökdügi yaşını müdām
Fikri budur yoġurup yaramuza merhem ura
Ṭut kim irişdi ḳażādur bize bu şekl-i raḳīb
Çāremüz ne meger anı yine Allāh göstere
Ṭa‘n-ı bed-gūy-ı ḳo gel isteyelüm yārı Münīr
Kārbāna żarar itmez ne ḳadar kim it üre

In English

1. I said, "The eye means to knead the dust of your road with blood"; hearing this, my tears go stumbling and rising (towards that road).

2. What wonder if the heart rejoices on seeing the dog of your street? Each dawn, when that dog gets up, the first thing it does is bark at the heart (even the attention of the dog at the beloved's door gladdens the heart; the reading is ours).

3. The eye's purpose in endlessly shedding tears on the dust of your road is to knead that dust and lay it as a salve on our wound.

4. Suppose this shape of the rival has come upon us as fate; what remedy have we, unless God once again shows (a way out) (the second half of the line is our reading).

5. Münîr, leave aside the slanders of the evil-tongued; come, let us seek the beloved; however much a dog may bark, it does no harm to the caravan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and sixty-sixth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 266). The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". The number of this ghazal does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The words at the end of the couplets, "yoġura, ṭura, üre, ura, göstere, üre", meet in the sound "-ra / -re"; most are verb forms expressing wish or the aorist, and the word "üre" (barks) serves twice as the rhyme, in the second and fifth couplets (our observation). The ghazal is found in the VT (161a) and VY (134a) manuscripts; 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 two main images of the ghazal are the dust of the beloved's road and the dog at her door. The first and third couplets treat the same idea from two sides: the lover's eye wants to knead the dust of the beloved's road with tears and blood. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "merhem" as a medicine spread on the skin and, figuratively, as a consolation that eases the force of a spiritual pain. The eye means to spread this kneaded mud as a salve on the lover's wound; the earth of the beloved's road thus becomes a medicine. In the first couplet the tears going "düşe kalka" (stumbling and rising) is a personification that likens the drops running down the cheek to the staggering of a traveller.

In the second couplet the dog in the beloved's street is thought of, as often in divan poetry, as a creature more fortunate than the lover. The lover's heart takes joy even in the dog's barking at it first thing every morning; everything belonging to the beloved's door is precious. In the fourth couplet the rival is accepted as kaza, a decree coming from God; the lover says he has no remedy against it and can only wait for God to show a way.

The pen-name couplet is the most striking place in the ghazal. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the verb "ürümek" as to bark, to howl, and gives as its first example the proverb "İt ürür, kervan yürür" (the dog barks, the caravan moves on). Münîrî places this proverb almost word for word in the couplet: the gossip of the evil-tongued is likened to the barking of a dog that cannot harm the caravan. A link is thus made between the endearing dog of the second couplet and the barking dog of the last; the first is the guardian of the beloved's door, the second the gossip who tries to block the lover's way. The TDV article states that Münîrî succeeded in the tradition of working proverbs and idioms into poetry; this couplet is a clear example of it and carries an irsal-i mesel (the use of a proverb as proof).

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