Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ṣād-ı çeşmüñ dāl-i zülfüñ ḫod belādur cāna ṣad
Çeşm ü zülfeynüñ di artuḳ ḳılmasun budur ‘aded
Göñlüm mülkini Ye’cūc-i ġam iderdi ḫarāb
Sīn-i dendānuñla zülfüñ fikri olmasaydı sed
Ḳaşuñ ile bu fem ü zülf-i siyeh devrinde ben
Ḳara çölde ḳalmışamdur şöyle muḥtāc-ı nemed
Gāh zülfüñ cīm ü geh dendānuñ ile dāl olup
Yanmaġ içün ‘ışḳ odına bizi baġlarlar cesed
Ṣād-ı çeşmüñle dehānuñ mīmi zülfüñ dālını
Gördügünce dir Münīr iḫlāṣ ile Allāhü’ṣ-ṣamed

In English

1. The ṣād of your eye and the dāl of your lock are already "ṣad" (a hundred) afflictions to the soul; tell your eye and your two locks not to increase this number any further, this is the count (this is enough).

2. Had the sīn of your teeth and the thought of your lock not been a rampart, the Gog (Ye'cûc) of sorrow would have laid waste the realm of my heart.

3. In the age when your brow, this mouth and your black lock hold sway, I am like a man left in the black desert, in need of a piece of felt.

4. Your lock becoming now a jīm, and now with your teeth a dāl, they bind for us a "cesed" (body), so that we may burn in the fire of love (they join the letters and write the word "cesed").

5. Whenever Münîr sees the ṣād of your eye, the mīm of your mouth and the dāl of your lock, he says with sincerity (iḫlāṣ) "Allāhü'ṣ-ṣamed".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the forty-third of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 43). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the sound "-ed": ṣad, ‘aded, sed, nemed, cesed, ṣamed. The poem is found only in the Vienna manuscript (VY 89b); in the edition it stands on the same folio as the preceding tg 42 and, like it, rests wholly on plays with the letters of the Arabic alphabet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In this ghazal the play on letters is taken one step further: the letters in the beloved's face join to form meaningful words. In the opening couplet (matla), when the ṣād of the eye and the dāl of the lock come side by side, the Persian word "ṣad" (a hundred) is written; and the poet says that these two letters are "a hundred afflictions" to the soul. The word "‘aded" (number) that follows makes it plain that the game is a game of numbers. This solution is our own observation.

In the second couplet the teeth are likened to the letter sīn; the toothed shape of the letter sīn makes the comparison easy. The image of Gog and the rampart, seen in earlier ghazals of the edition (tg 35 and tg 39), is used again here: the thought of the teeth and the lock is a rampart protecting the realm of the heart against the Gog of sorrow. In the third couplet the word "ḳara" (black) qualifies both the lock and the desert; before this black beauty the lover is like a poor man left in the black desert. The word "nemed" (felt) is also used as a rhyme in tg 39.

The fourth couplet carries the most skilful play of the ghazal. The word "cesed" in Arabic letters is made of the letters jīm, sīn and dāl. When the lock becomes jīm and dāl and the teeth become sīn, these letters join and "cesed" (body) is written. The verb "baġlamaḳ" can be taken both as "to bind" and as "to join letters together"; identifying this double entendre (tevriye) is our own work. Thus the lover is given a body to burn in the fire of love.

The pen-name couplet completes the play with a religious allusion. When the ṣād of the eye, the mīm of the mouth and the dāl of the lock are joined, the word "ṣamed" appears. "Allāhü'ṣ-ṣamed" (God is the Self-Sufficient, on whom all depend) is the second verse of the sura İhlâs. The phrase "iḫlāṣ ile" in the line means "with sincerity" and at the same time recalls the name of this sura. This double entendre is our own observation and makes the couplet the most striking place in the ghazal.

Bibliography

Online sources