Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ġam degül düşdiyse na‘l-i esbüñ ey çābük-süvār
Mīḫ-i müjgānumla perçīn itmek āsān bir ḳarār
Merdüm-i çeşme rutūbet ġālib olduġı müdām
Bāġ-ı ḥüsnüñde lebüñden mīveler yir āb-dār
Ḥāżır olmaġa temāşā-yı cemālüñe gözüm
Dīde-bān-ı eşkden ḫālī degül her reh-güẕār
Pertev-i ḥüsnüñ görüp ‘aḳlum ṭaġılsa ṭañ mı kim
Döymedi şevḳ-i tecellī-i cemāle kūh-sār
Türbem üzre dikeli ḳanlu ḫadeñgüñi Münīr
Her gören dir āl şem‘ ile kimüñdür bu mezār

In English

1. O swift rider, if your horse has cast a shoe, no matter; it is an easy thing to rivet it with the nails of my eyelashes.

2. Because moisture always prevails in the pupil of my eye, it eats juicy fruits from your lips in the garden of your beauty. The couplet can be read in two ways: the pupil, wet with tears, craves juicy fruit; or it feeds by gazing on the moist, fresh lips.

3. So that my eye may be present to gaze on your beauty, it posts a watchman of tears at every pass; no road is empty of a watchman of tears.

4. Is it a wonder if my mind is scattered on seeing the radiance of your beauty? Even the mountain could not endure the rapture of the manifestation of beauty.

5. O Münîr, ever since your bloody arrow was planted on my tomb, all who see it say, "Whose grave is this, with a red candle?"

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the forty-sixth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 46). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the sound "-âr": süvār, ḳarār, āb-dār, güẕār, kūh-sār, mezār. To whom and when it was written is not known.

The poem is found in the three manuscripts of the divan (VT 108b, VY 90a, Ü 24a) and in the anthologies of Pervâne Bey (PB 162a) and Edirneli Nazmî (MN 74b). According to the apparatus, in the first couplet VT reads "müjgān ile" for "müjgānumla"; in the second couplet PB reads "olduġça" for "olduġı"; and in the fourth couplet VY reads "tecellīya cemāl-i" for "tecellī-i cemāle". In his introduction, explaining that Münîrî lengthens the first syllable of some Turkish words, Ersoy cites the word "āl" (red) in the fifth couplet of this ghazal: the metre requires the word to be read long.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) opens with a scene of horsemanship. The beloved is a swift rider whose horse has cast a shoe. The lover offers his eyelashes as nails (mıḫ) and says the shoe can easily be fastened with them. Likening the eyelash to a nail or arrow is a known comparison in divan poetry; here it also carries the sense of the lover laying himself beneath the hooves of the beloved's horse.

The second couplet uses the old medical notion of "rutūbet" (moisture). "Merdüm" in its dictionary sense means both man and the pupil of the eye. Because the pupil is always wet with tears, it turns to the juicy (āb-dār) fruits of the lip. The word "āb-dār" also means lustrous, fresh. The couplet is obscure; we have given the two readings together above. In the third couplet there is a derivation (iştikak) between "dīde" (eye) and "dīde-bān" (watchman). The tears turn into watchmen waiting on every road by which the beloved might pass.

The fourth couplet alludes to Moses' wish to see God on Mount Sinai and the shattering of the mountain before the divine manifestation; this is a story told in the Qur'an. Identifying the allusion is our own work. Since even the mountain could not endure the manifestation, it is natural that the lover's mind should be scattered. The play of sound between "ṭaġılmaḳ" (to be scattered) and "ṭaġ" (mountain) is carried into the second line by the Persian "kūh-sār" (mountain); identifying this connection of sound is also our own.

The pen-name couplet imagines the lover's death. The beloved's bloody arrow has been planted on the lover's tomb, and those who see it take it for a red candle burning at the tomb. The likeness of shape between arrow and candle and the red of the blood make the image. The word "āl", which Ersoy gives as an example of lengthening, is in this line.

Bibliography

Online sources