Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Bir keret yār elüme girseyidi
Ölür isem daḫı ḳayurmaz idi
Kim ne dir ġamzeñ oḳı küştesiçün
Ḫūn behāsını ölmeden ḫo yidi
Gerçi engel durur raḳīb kāfir
Ḫāṭıruñ çün direm ki ?
Göñlümüñ şīşesini seng-i cefā
Ḫurd u ḫām eyledi vü küllī ṣıdı
Lebüñe iremedi cān-ı Münīr
Ġālibā Ḥācī Bekteş oñma didi

In English

1. If only the beloved had once fallen into my hands, I would not have cared even if I died.

2. Who can say anything about the one slain by the arrow of your glance? He had already eaten his blood money before he died. (The couplet can be read in two ways; see the commentary.)

3. True, the infidel rival is an obstacle; (second line) "For your sake I say that …" The end of the line could not be read in the manuscript and is left incomplete in the edition.

4. The stone of cruelty has smashed the glass of my heart into fragments and broken it altogether.

5. Münîr's soul could not reach your lip; it seems Hacı Bektaş said to it "may you not prosper" (onma).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and twentieth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 320). The metre is "fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as "-di"; the rhyme rests on the sound "i" at the ends of the lines: girseyidi, ḳayurmaz idi, yidi, ṣıdı and didi. The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 173b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

The second line of the third couplet is incomplete. Ersoy placed an image of the manuscript in the text in place of the words he could not read, but in the electronic copy of the edition this image has come out corrupted; the line therefore remains as "Ḫāṭıruñ çün direm ki ?". By Ersoy's convention a question mark at the end of a couplet marks a couplet that could not be interpreted. The missing part of the line has not been supplied here; the legible part is given as it stands.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is written in plain Turkish, in a manner close to everyday speech. The Kubbealtı Lugatı links the Old Turkic root of the verb "kayırmak" to the sense to grieve, to worry; "ḳayurmaz idi" in the opening couplet is understood in this old sense as "would not grieve, would not care". The lover finds it worth even death to possess the beloved once.

The second couplet is built on the notion of blood money. The Kubbealtı explains "diyet" as money or goods taken from one who kills or wounds another and given to the heirs of the dead, the price of blood; it gives "küşte" as killed, slain. The couplet can be read in two ways: the lover who dies by the arrow of the glance is reckoned to have received his blood money before dying, in the delight he took in the beloved's look; or the glance has eaten that money before the victim died, leaving nothing to be paid. In both readings it is said that no claim can be pursued for the slain lover.

In the fourth couplet the heart is a glass and cruelty a stone. The Kubbealtı explains "hurdahaş", from the Persian phrase "ḫurd u ḫāş", as smashed to pieces, broken and battered; the phrase "ḫurd u ḫām" in the edition must be a form of this expression (our observation). The Kubbealtı gives the Old Turkic verb "sımak" the sense to break; "ṣıdı" in the couplet is the past tense of this verb. The Kubbealtı notes that the original sense of "şîşe" is glass, crystal, and quotes Fuzûlî's couplet "Bir şîşe ki oldu pâre pâre / Perverdine var mı hîç çâre" (a glass that has broken into pieces, is there any remedy for mending it); in Münîrî's couplet too the glass broken to pieces is the heart.

The pen-name couplet is the most striking point of the ghazal. The Kubbealtı explains "onmak" as to heal, to come right, to find relief, and with examples such as "Şeyhine niçin diyen onmaz dahi" (he who asks his sheikh "why?" will never prosper) it shows the negative form of this verb used in the sense of never prospering. The imperative "oñma" in the couplet is a curse in this sense (our reading). When Münîr's soul fails to reach the beloved's lip, the poet attributes this failure to a curse by Hacı Bektaş. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Hacı Bektâş-ı Velî is known in the legends as the patron saint of the abdals of Rum and one of the great saints of Anatolia. In Münîrî's divan the name "Abdalān-ı Rūm" also appears in the heading of a ghazal written for Koyun Baba (tg 237). Making a saint's curse the cause of the lover's misfortune is a playful fanciful aetiology (hüsn-i talil) (our reading). The TDV article on Münîrî notes that the poet was successful in setting proverbs and idioms in his poetry and that many archaic words are found in his poems; the curse "onma" and the verbs "sımak" and "kayırmak" are examples of this in the present ghazal.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Books

  • Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "kayırmak", "diyet", "küşte", "şişe", "hurdahaş", "sımak" and "onmak". https://lugatim.com/s/onmak

Online sources