Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Ḫaste-cāna lebüñ ki emsem olur
Derdüme andan özge em sem olur
Ey meh-i nev ḳaşuñ hilāli gibi
Āsmānda olur velī kem olur
Gördi bādāmuñ aġzı taş yidügin
Piste la‘lüñ ḳatında epsem olur
Merdüm-i dīde tıfl-ı eşki sürüp
Didi ġammāz olan benüm ne’m olur
Faḳr ile faḫr iderse n’ola Münīr
Her gedā pādşāh-ı ‘ālem olur

In English

1. For the sick soul it is enough that I suck (kiss) your lip; any remedy (em) for my pain other than that becomes poison (sem).

2. O new moon, there is in the sky too (a crescent) like the crescent of your brow, but (beside it) it falls short and is lesser.

3. The pistachio saw that the almond's mouth was struck by stones (cracked open with a stone); so beside your ruby lip it falls silent (becomes epsem, mute).

4. The pupil of the eye drove out the child of the tear and said: "What relation of mine is the one who tells tales (betrays the secret)?"

5. What if Münîr takes pride in poverty? Every beggar becomes the king of the world.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the sixty-second of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 62). The metre is "fe‘ilâtün mefâ‘ilün fe‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places this ghazal among those with the refrain (redif) "olur" (becomes); the rhyme is the "-em" sound before it: emsem, em sem, kem, epsem, ne'm, ‘ālem. The poem is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 112a, VY 96b, Ü 29b); no variant readings are recorded in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is the pun in the opening couplet (matla). "Emsem" (let me suck, let me kiss) at the end of the first line and "em sem" (remedy, poison) at the end of the second are identical in spelling and pronunciation, while their meanings are entirely different. Since the second is formed by joining two separate words, this is an example of the compound pun (mürekkep cinas). The TDV article states that Münîrî successfully applied every kind of pun; this opening couplet is a clear example. The meaning is as tight as the pun: the lover's only remedy is the beloved's lip, and every other remedy is poison.

In the second couplet the new moon and the brow are compared. The crescent in the sky resembles the beloved's brow but falls short of it. The word "kem" means, in its dictionary sense, "lacking, little, lesser"; since the crescent itself is a lacking state of the moon, the word works in two directions, which is our own observation.

The third couplet rests on the image of the small mouth. In divan poetry the beloved's small mouth is likened to a pistachio. Here the pistachio has seen the almond's mouth cracked with a stone and has chosen to fall silent beside the beloved's lip. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between almond and pistachio, both being nuts in the shell. The word "epsem" means, in its dictionary sense, "mute, silent", and binds the couplet to the idea of muteness: whatever tries to resemble the beloved's mouth is either broken or silenced. This interpretation is our own inference.

In the fourth couplet the tear is likened to a child and the pupil of the eye to its family. "Merdüm" means, in its dictionary sense, both "pupil of the eye" and "person"; together with "ṭıfl" (child) a family scene is set up. Because the tear betrays the lover's secret, it is reckoned a "ġammāz" (talebearer, informer), and the pupil drives it out of its house.

In the pen-name couplet there is a pun based on the likeness of sound between "faḳr" (poverty) and "faḫr" (pride). The lover with a dervish heart who takes pride in poverty says that every beggar is in truth the king of the world. The contrast between beggar and king recalls the exaltation of poverty in Sufism; this is an inference.

Bibliography

Online sources