Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Hicr ile ‘ömrüm dükendi geçdi vāveylāyile
Vāy şol ‘ömre ki geçe böyle āh u vāy ile
Çarḫ-ı kej-rev bir keret vaṣl ile şād itdüm diyü
Aġladur hicrān elinden yıllar ile ay ile
Sīnemüz mecrūḥ işimüz nāle baġrumuz delük
Bilmezem kim ne belāya uġramışuz nāy ile
Dād-ı Ḥaḳdur devlet-i rūz-ı viṣāl ey dil belī
Ḥāṣıl olmaz dāniş ü tedbīr ü ‘aḳl u rāy ile
Mün‘am-ı ḫāk-i derüñle nice söyleşsün Münīr
Bir gedādur nā-tüvān ol ne sözi var bay ile

In English

1. My life has been used up in separation and has passed in wailing; alas for a life that passes thus in sighs and woe.

2. The crooked-going sky, saying "Once I made him happy with union", makes me weep at the hands of separation for years and months.

3. Our breast is wounded, our work is lament, our heart is full of holes; I do not know what calamity we have fallen into together with the reed flute (the lover likens himself to the ney).

4. O heart, yes, the fortune of the day of union is God's gift; it is not gained by knowledge, by planning, by reason or by judgement.

5. How could Münîr talk with one who is blessed with the dust of your door? He is a feeble beggar; what has he to say to a rich man?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and seventy-first of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 271). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction gives the redif (refrain word) of this ghazal as "ile" (with); the rhyme rests on the sound "-āy" in the words "vāveylā, vāy, ay, nāy, rāy, bay". The ghazal is found only in the VT manuscript (162b); it does not appear in the other two divan manuscripts or in the anthologies. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with the complaint of a life spent in separation. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "vâveylâ" as a scream, a cry, an outcry and, as an interjection, as "alas, woe". In the opening couplet the words "vāveylā", "vāy" and "āh u vāy" follow one another; these repetitions, imitating the sounds of lament, form the sound texture of the couplet. In the second couplet the word "çarh", which the Kubbealtı explains as the sky, the celestial sphere and figuratively fortune, luck, is qualified as "kej-rev", crooked-going. The sky has once granted the lover union but makes him pay for it with separation lasting years and months; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "yıl" (year) and "ay" (month), and the rhyme word "ay" also brings to mind the moon in the sky (our interpretation).

The third couplet carries the finest simile of the ghazal. The Kubbealtı Lugatı presents the ney as a wind instrument made of a nine-jointed reed with six holes in front and one at the back, and relates that in the Mevlevi order the Mesnevî begins with the couplet telling how the ney complains of separation. Münîrî applies the parts of this description to the lover: his breast is wounded, his work is lament, his heart is full of holes. The lover is thought of beside the ney as a fellow traveller struck by the same calamity; this likeness between the ney and the lover is set up through attributes, without being stated openly in the couplet.

The fourth couplet voices a Sufi idea. Beside the sense of justice, the Kubbealtı Lugatı also explains the word "dâd" as giving, gift, bounty. Union is a gift of God; knowledge, planning, reason and judgement cannot win it. The listing of these four notions one after another in the line is a gradation that counts up all the means of human effort and finds them all insufficient.

In the pen-name couplet the word "bay", which the Kubbealtı explains from Old Turkish and popular speech as rich, moneyed, owning property, is set against "gedā", beggar. In the examples from Bâkî and Ziyâ Paşa given in the same entry, too, bay and gedâ are mentioned together. We understand the word "mün‘am" in the couplet as the passive counterpart of "mün‘im", which the Kubbealtı explains as one who bestows blessings, and so as one who has been blessed (our reading). The person blessed with the dust of the beloved's door, perhaps the rival, is counted a rich man; the feeble and poor lover has nothing to say to him.

Bibliography

Online sources