Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi çekdi dāma dil murġın gözüñ al eyledi
Her ne itdiyse baña bu dāne-i ḫāl eyledi
Ḫāne-i dilde ḫayāl-i ḳaddüñ olaldan muḳīm
Ey elif-ḳad ḳāmetümi büküben dāl eyledi
Merdüm-i dīde yüzüñden ġayra ḳılmaġın naẓar
Eşk-i ḫūnīn geldi anı şöyle pā-māl eyledi
Ṭut ki nūş itmez dem-ā-dem baġrumuñ ḳanın lebüñ
Bellüsüz bu vech ile rengin neden al eyledi
İrmedi dirler daḫı vaṣla gözüñ yaşı Münīr
Gice gündüz gitmede beñzer ki iḥmāl eyledi

In English

1. It was indeed your eye that drew the bird of the heart into the snare and played a trick (al) on it; but whatever was done to me, this grain of the mole did it. (The mole is likened to the grain of bait that lures a bird into a trap.)

2. O beloved with a stature like the letter elif, ever since the image of your stature settled in the house of the heart it has bent my stature and turned it into the letter dâl. (Elif is a straight upright letter, dâl a bent one.)

3. Because the pupil of the eye looked at something other than your face, the bloody tear came and trampled it underfoot in this way.

4. Suppose your lip does not drink the blood of my liver at every moment; then it is not clear why it has made its colour red (al) in this way.

5. Münîr, they say the tear of my eye has not yet reached union; though it travels night and day, it seems it has been slack.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and sixteenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 316). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as "eyledi" (did, made); the rhyme rests on the sound "-āl": al, ḫāl, dāl, pā-māl, al and iḥmāl. The same word "al" enters the rhyme in the opening couplet and in the fourth couplet with two different meanings. The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 172b, VY 145a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is a hunting scene. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "dâm" as snare, "dâne" as seed, grain and bird-bait, and "hâl" as a small dark mole on the body. The eye has drawn the bird of the heart into the snare, but what really brings the bird down is the bait; the mole on the beloved's face is presented as this grain of bait. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words dâm, dâne and murg (bird). The "al" at the end of the line is the word the Kubbealtı derives from Old Turkic "āl" and explains as trick, cunning, scheme; the same dictionary notes that in Turkish the word was mostly pronounced "âl", in the Persian manner.

In the fourth couplet the same sound returns, this time as the name of a colour. The Kubbealtı defines "al" as a bright red verging on pink. The redness of the lip is attributed to its ceaseless drinking of the lover's liver-blood: if the lip does not drink this blood, there is no explaining why it has dyed its colour red. A perfect pun (tam cinas) is formed between "al" (trick) in the opening couplet and "al" (red) here; in this ghazal Münîrî's fondness for punning reaches as far as the rhyme word. The Kubbealtı explains "nûş" as drinking and "demâdem" as always, at every moment.

The second couplet rests on a comparison with letters. The Kubbealtı gives elif as the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and gives dâl the figurative sense "bent double", noting that this sense comes from the shape of the letter; under the same entry it quotes Âşık Ömer's line "Âh etmekten elif kaddim oldu dâl" (from sighing my elif-like stature became dâl). The beloved's stature, upright like an elif, has settled in the lover's heart and bent the lover's own stature like a dâl; there is a contrast (tezat) between elif and dâl.

In the third couplet the word "merdüm" is given in the Kubbealtı both as man, person and as the pupil of the eye. The pupil has looked somewhere other than the beloved's face; as punishment the bloody tear has come and made it "pâmâl", which the Kubbealtı explains as trodden underfoot, trampled. The bloody tear that fills the eye and covers the pupil is read here as a punishment. In the pen-name couplet the tear is thought of as a traveller: though it flows on night and day, it has not reached union. The word "ihmal", which the Kubbealtı defines as failing to do one's duty in due time, turns the never-ending tear into a sluggish traveller. This personification of the tear is the conceit of the couplet (our reading).

Bibliography

Online sources