Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Āşūb-ı cihānsın k’olur ol zülf-i ḫam ey dost
Şūr-ı ‘Arab u fitne-i Türk ü ‘Acem ey dost
Mehtāb-ı ruḫuñda niçün iki bükülür bes
Düzd-i dil eger olmasa bu zülf-i ḫam ey dost
Her geh kim irer sīne-i pür-sūzuma tīġuñ
Ṣuyın anuñ od ala diyü aġlaram ey dost
Zencīr-i ser-i zülfüñe el ṣundısa göñlüm
Dīvānedür anuñ gibiye ne ḳılam ey dost
Ḥāşā ki çevürem yüzümi ġamzeñ oḳından
Ben şem‘ miyem yanıcı pervāneyem ey dost
Biñ ḥayret ile sūre-i ve’ş-şems oḳuram ben
Gördükçe Münīrī yüzüñi ṣubḥ-dem ey dost

In English

1. O friend, you are the turmoil of the world, and that curling lock of yours becomes the tumult of the Arab and the strife of the Turk and the Persian.

2. O friend, if this curling lock were not a thief of hearts, why would it bend double in the moonlight of your face (your cheek shining like the moon)?

3. O friend, whenever your sword reaches my breast full of fire, I weep lest the fire take away its water (the temper given to the steel, that is, its edge and its sheen).

4. O friend, if my heart has reached out its hand to the chain at the tip of your lock, it is a madman; what am I to do with one like that?

5. O friend, God forbid that I should turn my face from the arrow of your glance; am I the candle, that I should shrink from it? I am the moth that throws itself into the fire and burns.

6. O friend, I, Münîrî, whenever I see your face at dawn, recite the Sura of the Sun (Ve'ş-şems) in a thousand bewilderments.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the thirty-first of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 31). The metre is "mef‘ûlü mefâ‘îlü mefâ‘îlü fe‘ûlün". The refrain (redif) is "ey dost" (o friend); Ersoy's list of refrains gives this refrain for this ghazal together with tg 23. The rhyme is the sound "-am/-em": ḫam, ‘Acem, ağlar-am, ḳıl-am, pervāne-y-em, ṣubḥ-dem. The phrase "zülf-i ḫam" (curling lock), which ends the first line of the opening couplet, is set again in rhyme position in the second couplet; so close a repetition of the same rhyme word is noticeable. The poem is found in all three manuscripts, the Vatican (VT 105b), Vienna (VY 86b) and Istanbul University (Ü 22a) copies; no variant readings are recorded in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) presents the beloved as a force that upsets the order of the world. "Āşūb-ı cihān" in its dictionary sense means "the turmoil of the world" and is an epithet used of beauty. That the lock throws the Arab, the Turk and the Persian into confusion at once is a way of saying that the effect of this beauty reaches every nation. The fact that the word "şūr" means both tumult and rapture lends the line a second colour.

In the second couplet the lock is likened to a thief of hearts. Between a thief bending double and cowering in the moonlight and the lock curling over the cheek a poetic aetiology (hüsn-i talil) is built: the lock is curved because it knows that what it does is theft. This interpretation is our own inference.

The third couplet rests on the double sense of the word "water". The water of a sword is the hardness and sheen the steel gains from the water poured on it when it is tempered; the lover's weeping is real water. The lover sheds tears for fear that the fire in his breast will take away the sword's water and blunt it; thus he both protects the sword and tries to quench his own fire. We have identified this double entendre (tevriye) ourselves.

In the fourth couplet there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the chain and the madman. It is known that madmen were once put in chains; here the mad heart reaches for the chain with its own hand. In the fifth couplet the candle and the moth are compared: the candle is the seat of the fire but does not stir from its place, while the moth throws itself into the fire. Likening himself to the moth, the lover says that he will not flee from the arrow of the glance.

The pen-name couplet alludes to the Qur'anic sura "Ve'ş-şems" (The Sun). Since the face seen at dawn is likened to the sun, the lover recites the Sura of the Sun whenever he sees it. The poet's pen name (mahlas) "Münîrî" in its dictionary sense means "illuminating, shedding light"; that there is a congruence of images between the pen name and the sun, the dawn and the face is our own observation.

Bibliography

Online sources