Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Gül devridür ister yine dil cām-ı şarābı
Sāḳī kerem it ḳandasın al gel mey-i nābı
Māhiyyet-i ḥüsnüñi nice derk ide zāhid
Gösterdüñ aña gün gibi nūrānī ḥicābı
‘Iḳd ile ṣayam dir ise ‘uşşāḳını zülfüñ
Mümkin degül ol yoḳdur anuñ hīc ḥisābı
Sīnem gibi yüz yirde delük baġrı cefādan
Efġān-ı ney iñletse n’ola çeng ü rebābı
Bir baḥr daḫı var mı ki ‘ālemde Münīrī
Eşküm gibi baḥr ola gözüm gibi ḥabābı

In English

1. It is the season of the rose; the heart again desires the cup of wine. Cupbearer, be generous; where are you? Bring the pure wine.

2. How could the ascetic grasp the essence of your beauty? You have shown him a veil luminous as the sun.

3. If your tress should say "I will count your lovers on a string (strung like a necklace)", that is impossible; there is no reckoning of them at all.

4. If the lament of the reed flute, whose breast like mine is pierced in a hundred places by cruelty, makes the harp and the rebab moan, is that any wonder?

5. Münîrî, is there in the world another sea whose sea is like my tears and whose bubble is like my eye?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and twenty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 323). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". In the list of refrains in his introduction Ersoy gives the refrain of this ghazal as "-İ"; the rhyme rests on the sound "-āb": şarāb, nāb, ḥicāb, ḥisāb, rebāb and ḥabāb. The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 175a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with spring and the wine gathering. The season of the rose has come and the heart wants wine; the cupbearer is told to bring "mey-i nâb". The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "nâb" as pure, unmixed, unadulterated, and quotes a couplet by Fuzûlî in which "şarâb-ı nâb" occurs. After the opening couplet the ghazal moves on to the ascetic, the beloved's tress, music and tears; there is no close unity of theme among the couplets.

In the second couplet the ascetic appears as one who cannot grasp the beloved's beauty. The Kubbealtı explains "mâhiyet" as the essential element that determines what a thing is, and "hicap" as shame, bashfulness and as curtain, veil, obstacle. The beloved has shown the ascetic a veil luminous as the sun; just as the sun's light prevents one from looking at it, the beloved's radiance prevents the ascetic from reaching his essence (our reading). The sense of shame in the word "hicab" can also be felt in the couplet: before beauty the ascetic is left abashed.

The third couplet is built with words related to counting. The Kubbealtı gives "ıkd" the senses necklace and string, row; under the same entry it quotes Fuzûlî's couplet naming the "ıkd-i şebnem", the string of dewdrops, among the petals of the rose. Even if the tress wished to string its lovers like the beads of a necklace and count them, it could not, for there is no reckoning of them. The lovers' being caught in the tress is imagined as beads strung on the tress's rings (our reading).

In the fourth couplet musical instruments are brought together. The Kubbealtı explains "çeng" as a kind of stringed instrument resembling the harp, and "rebap" as an instrument played resting on the knee or against something; in its example from Zâtî the phrase "inler rebâb" (the rebab moans) occurs. A likeness is drawn between the holes in the reed flute's breast and the lover's breast pierced through by cruelty. If the lament of so wounded a reed makes the other instruments moan as well, that is no wonder. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the ney, the çeng and the rebab.

The pen-name couplet ends with a hyperbole. The Kubbealtı gives "bahir" the senses sea, ocean and great river, and "habap" the sense of an air bubble appearing on the surface of water. The lover's tears are a sea, and his eye is the bubble on that sea; there is no other sea like it in the world. The Kubbealtı's entry "bahir" also includes the sense of "bahir" as a term of prosody (metre); we think this word, coming in the last couplet of a ghazal, may also be connected with the metre of the poem, but this is our observation.

Bibliography

Online sources