Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ġamzesine baġrumuñ ḳanın şu kim ḫᵛān eyledi
Zaḫm-ı tīri yüregümi ṭopṭolu ḫūn eyledi
Ḥüsnüñi mecmū‘a-i ma‘nī diyü cem‘ eyleyen
Ḥaḳḳa minnet kim bizi daḫı ġazel-ḫᵛān eyledi
Len-terānīden cemālüñde nişān göstermegin
Lām idüp zülfüñi niçün ḳaşuñı nūn eyledi
Kāse-i serden kināyet ḳaṣd iden Leylīyi gör
Nice ḳaṣd-ı kāse-i pür-ḫūn-ı Mecnūn eyledi
Āsyā-yı çarḫdur diñle Münīrī ḫasteñi
Gerdiş ile ögüdüp ḥınnā gibi un eyledi

In English

1. That beauty who made the blood of my liver a feast (a laden table) for his glance has filled my heart from end to end with blood through the wound of his arrow.

2. Thanks be to God, who gathered your beauty together as an anthology of meanings, that He has made us too a reciter of ghazals.

3. Why did (God) make your tress lâm and your brow nûn? To show in your beauty a sign of "len terânî" ("you shall not see Me"). (Lâm and nûn written together spell the word "len".)

4. Look at Leylî, who means something by way of allusion through "kâse-i ser" (the bowl of the head, the skull): how she has made an attempt on the blood-filled bowl of Mecnun. (The couplet is not entirely clear; see the commentary.)

5. Listen: the wheel of the heavens is a mill; turning, it has ground your sick Münîrî and made him flour like henna.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and nineteenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 319). 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 words are ḫᵛān, ḫūn, ġazel-ḫᵛān, nūn, Mecnūn and un. It is notable that in the opening couplet and the second couplet the sound "ḫᵛān" is rhymed with "-ūn"; in the Arabic-script spelling the Kubbealtı Lugatı gives for "hân" (table) and "-han" (reciting) the word contains a vav, and so we think the rhyme rests on a resemblance in writing (our observation). The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 173b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets use two different words of the same sound. The Kubbealtı explains "hân", from Persian, as a table, a dining tray and a meal; it gives "-han" as a suffix from the Persian verb "to read" that adds the sense "reciting", and defines "gazelhan" as one who recites ghazals. In the opening couplet the lover's liver-blood has been made a feast for the beloved's glance; in the second couplet the poet thanks God, who has compiled the beloved's beauty as a "mecmua-i ma'nî" (anthology of meanings), for making him a "gazel-hân". The Kubbealtı also gives "mecmua" the sense of a notebook containing poems and selected sayings and writings. Beauty is an anthology of poetry, and the lover is the ghazal-reciter who reads from it.

The third couplet joins a play on letters with a story from the Qur'an. According to the article "Len Terânî" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, these words are the answer "You shall not see Me" given to Moses' request to see God (al-A'raf 7:143). The same article states that in Arabic and Persian poetry the beloved who fills the lover's heart yet does not show herself to him is represented by "len terânî", and that this answer is cited as an example of the lover's desire to see the beloved's face. In Münîrî's couplet the beloved's tress is the letter lâm and the brow the letter nûn; these two letters written side by side spell "len" (this solution is our observation). The beloved's face thus says to the lover who longs to see it, at the very first glance, "you shall not see me". The couplet is a fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil) in which question and answer have changed places. The spelling of "ledün" in the previous ghazal (tg 318), with the tress as lâm and dâl and the brow as nûn, shows the same method.

The fourth couplet rests on the story of Leylâ and Mecnun, but its meaning cannot be fully resolved. The Kubbealtı explains "kâse-i ser" as the skull; it gives the word "kasıt" both the senses intention, aim and the sense attempt to kill, wound or harm. The word "kasd" occurs twice in the couplet, and a pun between these two senses can be sensed: Leylî meant something by way of allusion through the bowl of the skull, and in the end made an attempt on Mecnun's blood-filled bowl, his head (our reading). We could not find in the sources which episode of the story is alluded to.

In the pen-name couplet the heavens are a mill. The Kubbealtı explains "âsiyâb – âsiyâ" as mill, "gerdiş" as turning, and "hınnâ" as henna. The turning wheel has ground the lover into flour; the flour being like henna points to the lover's blood-dyed state (our reading). That the word "çarh" means in the Kubbealtı both a turning wheel and the sky, the heavens, makes the simile between the mill and the heavens a natural one.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

  • Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "hân", "-han", "gazelhan", "mecmua", "kâse-i ser", "kasıt", "âsiyab – âsiyâ", "gerdiş", "hınnâ" and "çarh". https://lugatim.com/s/gazelhan

Online sources