Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Her dem ki dīde derdüñ ile ġarḳ-ı ḫūn olur
Gördükçe ḫaste göñlüm anı dir iven bulur
Zülfüñ yolında dīde döker sīm-i eşkini
Bilür ki āġ aḳça ḳara gün içün olur
Dil virdüñ ise la‘line bini de var diyü
Görseñ ki ḫaste cān baña her dem neler ḳılur
Var la‘l-i yāra itme ḥaẕer tīr-i ġamzeden
Bilürsin ey göñül yine cānı viren alur
Ġam yime derd-i ‘ışḳ ile ölürseñ ey Münīr
Ölmez cihānda şol kişi k’eyü adı ḳalur

In English

1. Whenever my eye is drowned in blood with the pain of you, my sick heart, seeing it, says "He who hastens finds." The second line is not certain; "iven bulur" can also be read as "it soon finds".

2. On the path of your lock the eye scatters the silver of its tears; it knows that white coin is for the black day.

3. If you gave your heart to his ruby lip, saying "there are a thousand more", you should see what the sick soul does to me at every moment. The first line of the couplet is not certain; the rendering is one reading.

4. O heart, go, approach the beloved's ruby lip, do not fear the arrow of the glance; you know that he who gives the soul takes it back again.

5. O Münîr, do not grieve if you die of the pain of love; the one whose good name remains in the world does not die.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the forty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 49). The metre is "mef ‘ûlü fâ‘ilâtü mefâ‘îlü fâ‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains gives the refrain (redif) of this ghazal as "-ur"; the rhyme is the "-l" sound before it: ol-ur, bul-ur, ol-ur, ḳıl-ur, al-ur, ḳal-ur. All the rhyme words are Turkish verbs. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 108b) and Istanbul University (Ü 29a) manuscripts; no variant readings are recorded in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is full of proverbs and proverb-like sayings. Ersoy notes that proverbs and idioms are used abundantly in Münîrî's works; the TDV also writes that he was successful in the tradition of setting proverbs and idioms into verse. In this ghazal nearly every couplet closes with such a saying.

The plainest example is the second couplet. The saying "ak akçe kara gün içindir" (white coin is for the black day) is a well-known proverb meaning that money saved is kept for days of hardship. Münîrî sets it among the images of love: tears are "white coin" because they gleam like silver, and the beloved's black lock is the "black day". The eye spends the silver of its tears on the path of the lock. The contrast between white and black and the congruence (tenasüp) between silver and coin enrich the couplet. This solution is our own observation.

The phrase "iven bulur" in the opening couplet comes from the verb "ivmek" (to hasten) and in its dictionary sense can be understood as "he who hastens finds" or "it soon finds". The heart's saying this when the eye is drowned in blood may carry the hope that the bloody tears will soon reach the heart's desire; this reading is our own inference. The third couplet is also obscure, and it is hard to give it a certain meaning.

In the fourth couplet the saying "he who gives the soul takes it back again" recalls the common expression that it is God who gives the soul and He who will take it back. Münîrî applies this saying to the beloved: the lip gives life, the arrow of the glance takes it; both belong to the same beloved. In this example of a proverb used in verse (irsal-i mesel) the opposition between lip and glance is joined with the contrast of giving and taking life.

The pen-name couplet also closes with a piece of folk wisdom: he whose good name remains does not die. The word "eyü" is the old form of "iyi" (good). The poet who dies of the pain of love will thus gain an undying name.

Bibliography

Online sources