Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Āḫir deme irgürdi lebüñ va‘desi cānı
Virmez daḫı la‘lüñ dile bu çeşme-i cānı
Göñlüm nice vech ile yatar zülf-i ḫamuñda
Ḫāl-i lebüñüñ dāġıyıla var ḫo nişānı
Cān vir dehen-i la‘line dime bir iki hīc
Ey dil benüm olsun ne ki var ise ziyānı
Ḳanlu yaşumuñ niteligin añdı didüm kim
Çoḳdan bu durur gül-şen-i dil lāle-sitānı
Sırr-ı lebi eşkümle yeter baña Münīrī
Sen kān-ı ḫayāl olduñ ise baḥr-i ma‘ānī

In English

1. Do not say "in the end the promise of your lip has brought the soul to its goal"; your ruby lip still does not give the heart this fountain of the soul. (The couplet can be read in two ways; see the commentary.)

2. (Do not ask) how my heart lies in your curling tress; it already bears a mark, the brand (burn scar) of the mole of your lip.

3. O heart, give your soul to that ruby mouth and do not say "one or two nothings"; whatever loss there is, let it be mine. (The beloved's mouth is so small as to be next to nothing, that is, a "nothing".)

4. (The beloved) asked what my bloody tears were; I said: this has long been the tulip garden of the rose garden of the heart.

5. Münîrî, even if you have become a mine of imagination, the secret of the lip together with my tears is enough for me as a sea of meanings. (The meaning of the couplet is not entirely clear.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the three hundred and twenty-fourth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 324). 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 "-ān": cān, cān, nişān, ziyān, lāle-sitān and ma‘ān(ī). Both lines of the opening couplet end with the word "cānı". 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

In the opening couplet the word "cān" (soul, life) is repeated at the end of both lines. In the first line the promise of the lip has "brought" the soul somewhere; in the second the "çeşme-i cān", the fountain of the soul, appears. The couplet can be read in two ways: the lover is not to be told "you have at last attained your wish", for the lip still does not give the fountain of the soul; or it is said that the promises have brought the lover's soul to the point of exhaustion. In both readings the lip is thought of as a life-giving spring (our reading).

In the second couplet occurs the word "dâğ", which the Kubbealtı Lugatı explains as a brand or mark burned onto the body with a red-hot iron, and figuratively as the burning, the wound left by feelings such as love, pain and grief. The mole on the beloved's lip is a brand burned into the lover's heart; marked with this brand, the heart lies among the curls of the tress. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between the words dâğ and nişan (mark).

The third couplet rests on a motif concerning the beloved's small mouth. The Kubbealtı explains "dehan – dehen" as mouth and quotes Fuzûlî's couplet "Dehenin derdime derman dediler cânânın / Bildiler derdimi yoktur dediler dermânın" (they said the beloved's mouth is the cure for my pain; they understood my pain and said there is no cure), in which it is said with wit that the beloved's mouth "does not exist". Münîrî too counts the beloved's mouth a "hîç", a nothing: he asks his heart to give its soul to this mouth and not to belittle it as "one or two nothings". The Kubbealtı gives "ziyan" as loss; the lover is willing to bear the loss of this bargain.

In the fourth couplet the tears turn into the image of a garden. The Kubbealtı explains "lâlezar" as tulip garden. The redness of the bloody tears is likened to the tulip, and the lover's heart is thought of as a rose garden; the bloody tears are the tulip beds of that rose garden. The words rose, tulip and rose garden form a congruence of images.

In the pen-name couplet "kân" and "bahr" come side by side. The Kubbealtı gives "kân" the sense of a mineral deposit, a mine, and figuratively a place where something is found in abundance, a source; it gives "bahir" the sense of sea. In the example the Kubbealtı gives for "kân" the phrase "kân-ı zer", a gold mine, occurs. Mine and sea are set side by side as two sources from which precious things are drawn; the poet seems to think of himself as a mine of imagination and of his tears as a sea of meaning (our reading). Since it is not entirely clear to whom each element of the couplet belongs, the rendering above is not certain.

Bibliography

Online sources