Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Bilmezem n’oldı göñül şöyle ki mecnūn oldı
Yitürüp kend’özini ḥāli diger-gūn oldı
Cānuma ‘ilm-i ledün sırrını bildirmek içün
Lām olup dāl ile zülfüñ ü ḳaşuñ nūn oldı
Ṭurmayup delme durur yüregümi işi güci
Ḥāṣılı ġamzeñ ucından cigerüm ḫūn oldı
Ḳademüñde bu ḳadar var ki gözüm yaşlarınuñ
Seyl iken şimdi cihānda adı Ceyḥūn oldı
Çihre-i zerdüñi ‘arż itdüñ ise yāra Münīr
Var daḫı ġam yime hergiz işüñ altun oldı

In English

1. I do not know what has happened to the heart, such that it has become Mecnun (one who has lost his mind through love); losing itself, its state has become quite other.

2. To make known to my soul the secret of the "knowledge from the divine presence" (ledün), your tress became lâm and dâl and your brow became nûn. (The letters lâm, dâl and nûn written together spell the word "ledün"; see the commentary.)

3. Its whole business is to pierce my heart without pause; in short, from the tip of your glance my liver has turned to blood.

4. At your feet it has come to this much: the name of my tears, which used to be a flood, has now become the Ceyhun (the great river Oxus) in the world.

5. Münîr, if you have presented your pale yellow face to the beloved, grieve no more at all; your business has turned to gold. (The yellow face is likened to gold.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and eighteenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 318). The metre is "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as "oldı" (became); the rhyme rests on the sound "-ūn": mecnūn, diger-gūn, nūn, ḫūn, Ceyḥūn and altun. The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 173a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The word "mecnun" in the opening couplet is open to two meanings. The Kubbealtı Lugatı gives it the senses gone mad, insane, and one whose reason has left him through love; it also notes that the word is much used in our literature as the name of Kays, the male hero of the stories of Leylâ and Mecnun. The heart's "becoming mecnun" is both its going mad and its turning into Mecnun. The phrase "diger-gûn" in the rest of the line says that the heart's state has been wholly transformed.

The second couplet is the most striking in the ghazal. The Kubbealtı gives lâm as the twenty-third letter of the Arabic alphabet, and dâl, because of its shape, the figurative sense bent double. It explains "ledün" as the presence of God, and "ledün ilmi" as knowledge pertaining to divine secrets, which God teaches only to the prophets and saints He wills. In the couplet the beloved's curling tress is likened to the letters lâm and dâl and the arched brow to the letter nûn. When these three letters are written side by side the word "ledün" appears; that is, the beloved's face is spelling out, letter by letter, the name of the divine secret for the lover (this solution is our observation). In Münîrî's next ghazal (tg 319) the making of the tress into lâm and the brow into nûn to spell the word "len" is word-play of the same kind.

In the third couplet the glance is thought of as the point of an arrow or a dagger; piercing the heart without pause is its only business, and in the end the lover's liver has turned to blood. In the fourth couplet the hyperbole of tears grows step by step. The Kubbealtı gives "seyl" as the original form of "sel" (flood) found in older texts; under "bahir" it quotes the phrase "Bahr-ı Ceyhun" as an example of the sense great river. According to the article "Amuderya" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the Arabs called the Amu Darya, one of the two greatest rivers of Central Asia, the Ceyhun. The lover's tears were at first a flood; as they go on flowing at the beloved's feet they have taken the name of a river.

In the pen-name couplet there is a conceit built on colour. The Kubbealtı explains "zerd" as yellow and as faded, pale. When the lover's face, yellowed by suffering, is presented to the beloved, "his business has turned to gold": the yellow face has become gold, a treasure in the lover's hands to give to the beloved. The relation drawn here between yellow and gold, and the possibility that "işin altın olması" can also be read as the business coming right, are our observations.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

  • Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "mecnun", "lâm", "dal", "ledün", "ledün ilmi", "seyl", "bahir" and "zerd". https://lugatim.com/s/ledün

Online sources