Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

La‘l-i lebüñden idilicek ey nigār baḥs̱
Meclis tamām olunca olur yoġ u var baḥs̱
Düşdükçe müşkilāt-ı ser-i zülfüñ ortaya
Her bir ḫamında göñlüm ider bī-şumār baḥs̱
Nuṭḳum ṭutuldı viremedüm hīc bir cevāb
La‘linden itdi dün baña bir gül-‘iẕār baḥs̱
Her ne dir ise ġamzesi teslīm ider göñül
Ḳılmaz cihānda mest ile bes hūş-yār baḥs̱
Her dem mesāyil-i ġam-ı ‘ışḳından ey Münīr
Mülzem ḳılur beni dil idüp ṣad hezār baḥs̱

In English

1. O beloved, once talk turns to your ruby lip, the dispute over "is it there or is it not" goes on until the gathering breaks up.

2. Whenever the knotty problems of the tip of your lock come up, my heart opens countless disputes over each of its curls.

3. Yesterday a rose-cheeked beauty began to speak to me of her lip; my tongue was tied and I could give no answer at all.

4. The heart accepts whatever the beloved's glance says; for a sober man does not dispute with a drunkard in this world.

5. O Münîr, at every moment the heart opens a hundred thousand disputes on the questions of the sorrow of your love and silences me (leaves my case without answer and defeats me).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the thirty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 33). The metre is "mef‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the Arabic word "baḥs̱" (dispute, debate); the rhyme is the sound "-âr": nigār, var, bī-şumār, ‘iẕār, hūş-yār, hezār. To whom and when it was written is not known.

The ghazal is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 105b, VY 87a, Ü 22b). It is the ghazal Ersoy names separately in his introduction: Münîrî's ghazal with the refrain "bahs" appears in the Câmi‘u'n-nezâ'ir compiled in 1512 by Eğridirli Hacı Kemal (CN 38b, Bayezid Library 5782), and it is the only poem of the poet taken into CN. The variant readings are of interest: in the second couplet Ü reads "lā-büd olur" for "göñlüm ider"; while the edition has "bī-şumār" (countless) in the second couplet and "ṣad hezār" (a hundred thousand) in the fifth, according to the apparatus VT and Ü read "ṣad hezār" in the second couplet and Ü reads "bī-şumār" in the fifth. The reading of CN in the second couplet cannot be fully made out because its letters could not be printed in the edition.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the images of the ghazal are taken from the disputation of the madrasa. "Baḥs̱" means scholarly dispute, "müşkilāt" knotty problems, "mesāyil" questions, "nuṭḳ" the power of speech, "cevāb" reply, "teslīm" conceding the opponent's point, and "mülzem" the one who, unable to answer in a dispute, is silenced. In their dictionary senses these words are terms of the art of disputation, and in the ghazal they build a wide congruence of images (tenasüp) that complete one another. One recalls that Ersoy quotes in his introduction a couplet showing that the poet belonged to both the learned and the military establishments; but drawing a connection between this ghazal and the poet's profession is our own inference.

The dispute over "is it there or is it not" in the opening couplet rests on the idea in divan poetry that the beloved's mouth is so small that it is almost counted as non-existent. Those in the gathering argue until morning over whether this mouth exists or not; it is like a jest on the debates about being and non-being in books of theology. In the second couplet the curls of the lock turn into so many "knotty problems", and the heart opens a separate dispute for each curl.

In the third couplet the direction of the dispute changes: this time it is the beauty who begins to speak, and the lover's tongue is tied. In the fourth couplet the drunken look of the glance is set against the sober man. The saying "the sober man does not dispute with the drunkard" has the air of a proverb used in verse (irsal-i mesel) and explains why the heart surrenders to the glance. The TDV notes that Münîrî was successful in the tradition of setting proverbs and idioms into poetry.

In the pen-name couplet the picture is reversed. This time it is the heart that opens the dispute, and by raising a hundred thousand questions on the sorrow of love it silences the poet. The word "mülzem" describes the one who is left without an answer and defeated in a disputation; the poet has been defeated by his own heart.

Bibliography

Online sources