Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dil ki zencīr-i ser-i zülfüñle key dīvānedür
Āşnā-yı ‘ışḳ olaldan benden ol bī-gānedür
Sen büt-i meh-rū ḫayāli birle şöyle ṭoldı kim
Ḫāne-i vīrān-ı dil gūyā ki bir büt-ḫānedür
Cān u dil naḳdiyle varın yolına ṣarf eyledüm
Dōstum ma‘ẕūr ṭut fī’l-cümle dervīşānedür
Yār-ı gendüm-gūnumuñ sen ḫāl-i müşgīnin görüp
Zīnhār aldanma ey dil key ṣaḳın kim dānedür
Yanmadan ḳandīl-i çarḫ-ı nīl-gūn-ı cān Münīr
Mihr-i ‘ālem-tāb ḥüsnüñ şem‘ine pervānedür

In English

1. The heart, which has gone utterly mad through the chain of the tip of your lock, has been a stranger to me ever since it became acquainted with love.

2. (The heart) has so filled with the image of you, a moon-faced idol (beauty), that the ruined house of the heart is as it were a house of idols.

3. I spent all I had on your path with the coin of soul and heart; my friend, hold me excused, (what I give) is altogether dervish-like (unassuming, like a dervish's gift).

4. O heart, seeing the musky mole of my wheat-complexioned beloved, do not be deceived, beware; for it is a grain (a grain of bait set in a trap).

5. Münîr, even before the lamp of the blue sphere (the sun) is lit, the world-illuminating sun is a moth to the candle of your beauty. The couplet is not entirely clear: it is uncertain whether the word "cān" in the line is to be read as "the lamp of the soul" or as an address.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the sixty-seventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 67). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places this ghazal among those with the refrain (redif) "-dür" (it is); the rhyme is the "-âne" sound before it: dīvāne, bī-gāne, büt-ḫāne, dervīşāne, dāne, pervāne. The poem is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 113a, VY 101b, Ü 34b); no variant readings are recorded in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) builds a contrast between the familiar and the stranger. The heart has become acquainted with love, but as the price of this it has grown estranged from the lover himself. The opposition between "āşnā" (acquainted) and "bī-gāne" (stranger) says that love parts the lover from his own heart. The lock as a chain and the heart as a madman are well-known images of classical poetry.

The second couplet is built on a reversal. The heart is a ruined house; but when it fills with the image of the beloved it turns into a "büt-ḫāne" (house of idols). Calling the beloved a "büt" (idol) expresses in classical poetry an attachment to beauty as if in worship. The contrast between the ruined house and the house of idols, and the twofold use of the word "ḫāne" (ḫāne-i vīrān, büt-ḫāne), give the couplet a unity of sound.

In the third couplet the lover has spent his whole being on the beloved's path, yet finds it too little and apologises. "Dervīşāne" means, in its dictionary sense, "dervish-like, in a manner befitting a dervish". The thought that a dervish's gift is unassuming but sincere makes the lover's capital, consisting only of soul and heart, appear both precious and modest; this is our own inference.

The fourth couplet rests on the image of a trap. "Gendüm-gūn" means, in its dictionary sense, "wheat-coloured"; the mole on the beloved's cheek is a "dāne", that is, a grain. A grain of bait is set in a trap to catch birds; the mole too is a grain set to hunt the heart. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "gendüm" (wheat) and "dāne" (grain). The grain of wheat may also recall Adam's expulsion from paradise; this is an inference.

The pen-name couplet is built with images of light, but its syntax is not entirely clear. "Ḳandīl-i çarḫ-ı nīl-gūn" (the lamp of the blue sphere) is the sun; and the sun has become a moth to the candle of the beloved's beauty. That even the sun should be the moth of a candle is a hyperbole that sets the beloved's beauty above the highest light. The pen name "Münīr" means, in its dictionary sense, "illuminating", and forms a congruence of images with the words lamp, sun, candle and moth.

Bibliography

Online sources