Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şöyle ser-gerdān beni şol kākül-i müşgīn ider
Acı sözle baġrumı ḫūn o leb-i şīrīn ider
Sūz-ı dil bir gün yaḳardı germ olup nā-geh beni
Līkin āb-efşānlıḳ idüp yaşlarum teskīn ider
Gül-şen-i ḥüsnüñden ayru lāle-ḫaddüñsüz gözüm
Eşk-i gül-gūn ile her dem çihremi rengīn ider
Bilürem cānā binā-gūşuñda zülf-i ser-keşüñ
Bī-güneh miskīnleri öldürmege telḳīn ider
Ḥasret-i mihr-i cemāl-i yār ile her şeb Münīr
Gözlerüm yir yüzini ser-tā-ḳadem Pervīn ider

In English

1. That musky forelock makes me so dizzy and bewildered; that sweet lip turns my breast to blood with bitter words.

2. The burning of the heart, flaring up, was about to burn me suddenly one day; but my tears, sprinkling water, calm (it).

3. Parted from the rose garden of your beauty and without your tulip cheek, my eye colours my face at every moment with rose-red tears.

4. O soul, I know that your rebellious lock beside your ear whispers (suggests) to (you) to kill the innocent wretches.

5. Münîr, with longing for the sun of the beloved's face, my eyes every night make the face of the earth, from end to end, the Pleiades (Pervin).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the seventy-fourth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 74). 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) "ider" (makes); the rhyme is the "-în" sound before it: müşgīn, şīrīn, teskīn, rengīn, telḳīn, Pervīn. The poem is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 114b, VY 102a, Ü 31a). The apparatus has a note: in the Vatican manuscript the pen-name couplet is not beside the ghazal but further on, at 116a. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) is built on a contrast. Though the beloved's lip is "şīrīn" (sweet), it speaks "bitter words" and turns the lover's breast to blood. This opposition between sweet and bitter is a small instance of the opposition between the beloved's beauty and her cruelty. In the first line the musky forelock makes the lover dizzy; a relation may be thought of between "ser-gerdān" (dizzy, literally head-turned) and "kākül" (forelock), since the hair belongs to the head. This is an inference.

The second couplet is set between fire and water. When the burning of the heart flares up and is about to burn the lover suddenly, the tears calm it by sprinkling water. "Āb-efşānlıḳ" means, in its dictionary sense, "sprinkling water". That tears are both pain and rescue for the lover forms a subtle side of the couplet.

In the third couplet the words of colour gather: "gül-şen" (rose garden), "lāle-ḫad" (tulip cheek), "gül-gūn" (rose-red) and "rengīn" (coloured). The tears of the lover parted from the beloved are bloody and dye his face red; thus the lover's face too takes on a colour like the beloved's tulip cheek. This is our own observation.

In the fourth couplet the lock is an instigator standing beside the beloved's ear. "Telḳīn" means, in its dictionary sense, "to instil something in someone, to say it into his ear". The lock's nearness to the ear is interpreted as its whispering evil counsel to the beloved; this interpretation is our own inference. Calling the lock "ser-keş" (rebellious) also reinforces this instigation.

In the pen-name couplet the tears turn into stars. "Pervīn" means, in its dictionary sense, the Pleiades. Every night the lover weeps with longing for the sun of the beloved's face; the tear-drops spilled on the ground make the face of the earth like a sky full of stars. There is also a contrast between night and the sun: the lover weeps at night, in the sun's absence.

Bibliography

Online sources