Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Baña meylüñ yoġ ey göñül ḳılca
Saña ben görinür iken ilce
Ḥāşe lillāh ki baş çekem ben de
Bend-i zülfüñe boynumuz ḳılca
İntiẓār-ı viṣāl-i ṭal‘at ile
Fürḳatüñ her demi gelür yılca
N’ola dil dürlü dürlü söylerse
Sensin anuñ murādı her dilce
Reh-i ‘ışḳı ḳoma Münīr elden
Tīz uzar varmayan kişi yolca

In English

1. O heart, you have not a hair's worth of inclination towards me; I appear to you like a stranger (in our reading, "ilce": like an outsider, like a stranger). The couplet can be read in two ways: the address is to the lover's own heart, which has gone over to the beloved, or the beloved is being addressed as "heart".

2. God forbid that I too should turn my head away (from your command); our neck is thin as a hair for the bond of his curl.

3. While I wait to be united with his face, every moment of separation stretches as long as a year.

4. What if the heart (dil) speaks in all manner of ways? In every tongue (dil) its desire is you.

5. Münîr, do not let go of the path of love; for one who does not walk it, the road quickly grows long.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and seventy-second of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 272). The metre is "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as the suffix "-cA"; the rhyme words kıl, il, kıl, yıl, dil and yol take this suffix to close the couplets. The short metre and the monosyllabic rhyme words give the ghazal a plain diction that comes close to the spoken language. The closeness in sound of kıl, yıl, dil and yol creates an echo at the ends of the couplets (our observation). The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 162b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking device of the ghazal is the cinas (pun) between the opening couplet and the second. The Kubbealtı Lugatı gives the word "kılca" two meanings: thin as a hair, and as much as a hair, very little. In the first couplet the inclination of the one addressed towards the lover is not even "kılca", that is, it does not exist at all; in the second the lover's neck is "kılca", thin as a hair, for the bond of the curl. The same word serves as rhyme in two different senses. We understand the word "ilce" in the opening couplet as "like an outsider, like a stranger", connecting it with "il", which the Kubbealtı gives in Old Turkish in the sense of homeland, country, and notes as surviving today in the form "el" (our reading).

The second couplet uses the idiom "baş çekmek", which the Kubbealtı explains as to oppose, to rebel. The lover does not even think of rebelling against the beloved; his neck, grown thin as a hair from wasting, is already prepared to enter the bond of the curl. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among head, neck and bond. In the third couplet "tal‘at", which the Kubbealtı explains as face, beautiful face, is set against "fürkat", separation; every moment of the waiting is like a year.

The fourth couplet plays on the two meanings of the word "dil": in Persian "dil" is the heart, in Turkish "dil" is the tongue, language. Though the heart speaks in all manner of ways, whatever tongue it speaks, its desire is the beloved. In the couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) love is conceived as a road. The Kubbealtı explains "tîz" as quick, swift. The saying "for one who does not walk it, the road quickly grows long" has the ring of a proverb; but we found no record of a proverb in this form, so it is more accurate to regard it as the poet's own phrasing (our observation).

Bibliography

Online sources