Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gül-şende yüzüñ şevḳı ki var her gül-i terde
Ṣank’āteş-i Mūsā gibidür şāḫ-ı şecerde
Bir dāmen-i gül-zārda yoḳ ġonca bu miḳdār
Şol deñlü k’oḫuñ demreni vardur bu cigerde
Götürse niḳābını fiġānum göge irer
Āvāz belī ḳatı gider vaḳt-i seḥerde
Ey zer yüzümüñ rengine sen de neye döndüñ
Ben hicr ileyem sen ḫo miyānında kemerde
Ṭāli‘ saña yār olmayıcaḳ şöyle Münīrī
Bir ẕerre ḳuṣūruñ yoġ imiş ṭut ki hünerde

In English

1. The longing for your face that is present in every fresh rose in the rose garden is like the fire of Moses burning on the branch of the tree.

2. Not even in a whole skirtful of rose garden are there as many buds as there are arrowheads of your arrow in this liver.

3. If she lifts her veil, my cry reaches the sky; yes, at the hour of dawn a voice carries very far.

4. O gold, why have you too turned the colour of my face (its yellowness)? I am in separation, but you are at her waist, in her belt.

5. Münîrî, when fortune is not your friend, suppose you have not an atom of fault in skill (what use is it?).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and sixty-eighth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 268). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". The list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction gives the redif (refrain) of this ghazal as "-dE"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-er" in the words "ter, şecer, ciger, seḥer, kemer, hüner". The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 161b, VY 138a, Ü 55a). According to the edition's apparatus, "belī" in the third couplet appears in Ü as "velī", "sen ḫo" in the fourth couplet appears in VT as "sen de", and "ṭut ki" in the fifth couplet appears in VY as "ṭutdı ki". It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet adds a religious allusion to the likeness of colour between rose and fire. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains Tûr as the mountain where Moses received revelation and the divine manifestation, and illustrates the name with couplets that mention it together with fire. The red roses on the rose branches are likened to the fire of Moses burning on the branch of the tree; the source of this fire is the longing for the beloved's face that the roses carry. A congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up between rose garden, branch and tree.

In the second couplet rosebuds and arrowheads are compared. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "temren" as the pointed iron at the tip of an arrow, spear and the like, and notes that the word was also used in the form "demren"; this is the form in Münîrî's text. The sharp arrowheads lodged in the liver resemble unopened buds in shape; these "buds" in the lover's liver outnumber those of a whole rose garden. This is a hyperbolic simile.

The third couplet rests on an observation: at dawn, because all is quiet, a voice carries far. The beloved's lifting of her veil resembles the rising of the sun; and the lover's cry rises at just this hour of dawn (our interpretation). The reading "velī" in the Ü manuscript turns the second line into a reply introduced by "but".

In the fourth couplet gold is addressed. In its entry "kemer" the Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the band wound around the waist and quotes Nedim's phrase "zerrin kemer" (golden belt). The lover's face has turned yellow from separation; gold too is yellow. The poet asks the gold, "Why have you turned yellow like me, when you rest as a belt on the beloved's waist?" That the word "miyān" means both waist and middle, between, also brings to mind the thought of the gold standing between the beloved and the lover (our interpretation).

The pen-name couplet voices a piece of life experience. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "tâli" as fortune, luck. This saying, that skill is of no use when fortune is not one's friend, can also be read as a complaint about the poet's own situation; no direct link can be drawn between this couplet and the remarks of Latîfî and Kınalızâde, as Ersoy reports them, that Münîrî did not find fame, but the couplet plainly voices the mismatch between skill and fortune.

Bibliography

Online sources