Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Götürmeyince āh ile dil zülfi cismini
Genc-i cemālüñ ıramadı mār ṭılısmını
Göñlüm ne deñlü nestene bilmezse ey ṣanem
Ġāyetde ḫūb bilür iñen ‘ışḳ ḳısmını
‘Işḳuñ ki dürlü dürlü belālar baña k’ider
Görmek degül cihānda işitmedüm ismini
Ma‘mūr ide ġamuñ dil evin dir idüm velī
Fikri budur ki götüre ‘ālemde resmini
Çarḫ-ı felekde görinen encüm degül Münīr
Āhum odıyla ābiledür ṭutdı cismini

In English

1. Until the heart, with its sigh, carried off the (snake-like) body of the curl, the treasure of your beauty could not drive away the snake-talisman. (The construction of the line is not entirely clear; we have taken the verb "ıramak" as "to drive away"; see the commentary.)

2. O idol of beauty, however little my heart may know of anything, it knows the business of love (its own share of love) extremely well.

3. The many kinds of calamity that your love inflicts on me, far from having seen them in this world, I had never even heard their names.

4. I used to say that your grief would make the house of the heart flourish; but its intent is to leave not even a trace of that house in the world.

5. Münîr, what appears on the wheel of heaven is not stars; with the fire of my sigh its body has broken out in blisters.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and thirteenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 313). The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as "-ını"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-ism/-ısm": cism, ṭılısm, ḳısm, ism, resm and cism again. The opening couplet and the pen-name couplet end with the same rhyme word, "cismini". The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 172b, VY 144b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet rests on the belief in the snake that guards a treasure. Under "tılsım" (talisman) the Kubbealtı Lugatı gives one sense of the word as figures and writings made to prevent the discovery of buried treasures, and quotes this example from Kemal E. Kürkçüoğlu: it is believed that a snake guards hoards and buried treasures, and this is its talisman. The same entry also contains Necâtî Bey's line "Açılır genc-i cemâlinden tılısm-ı kâinât"; "treasure of beauty" and "talisman" had been used together before Münîrî. In Münîrî's couplet the treasure of beauty is the cheek, and the snake that guards it is the coiling curl. Unless the lover's sigh lifts the curl like a wind, the treasure cannot be rid of its snake. The Kubbealtı assigns the verb "ıramak" to Old Anatolian Turkish and popular speech and explains it as "to move away"; since in the couplet the verb seems to take an object, we have understood it as "to drive away" (our reading).

In the second couplet the archaic words stand out. The Kubbealtı notes that "nesne" comes from the words "ne ise ne" by way of "nesene" and in negative sentences carries the meaning "nothing at all"; "nestene" in the couplet seems to be an old form of this word (our reading). We understand the rhyme word "iñen" from the context as "very, greatly". The heart understands nothing else, but it knows its share of love very well.

In the third and fourth couplets "isim" (name) and "resim" (trace, mark) enter the rhyme. The calamities of love are so varied that the lover had never even heard their names. In the fourth couplet there is a contrast between making prosperous and wiping out every trace: while the lover supposed that grief would make the house of the heart flourish, grief intends to erase that house from the world.

The pen-name couplet is an example of fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil). The Kubbealtı explains "âbile" as a water blister and a blister forming on the skin, with an example from Nâbî. The stars in the sky are not stars; the fire of the lover's sigh has burned the body of the sky, and its blisters look like stars. Thus the "cism" of the opening couplet (the body of the curl) becomes the body of the sky in the pen-name couplet, and the ghazal opens and closes with the power of the sigh.

Bibliography

Online sources