Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Sen ol şehsin kim ey rūḥ-ı muṣavver
Kemīne çākerüñdür şems-i ḫāver
Göñül kim cām-ı ‘ışḳuñ ser-ḫoşıdur
Ayılmaz hergiz ol tā rūz-ı maḥşer
Beni mest-i ḫarāb itdi be-ġāyet
Bugün bir sāḳī-i serv-i semen-ber
Bu yolda ḳıldan ince anca iş var
Tırāş ile kişi olmaz ḳalender
Münīrüñ külbe-i aḥzānın aṣlā
Yüzüñ şem‘iyle ḳılmaduñ münevver

In English

1. O spirit given form, you are such a king that the sun of the east is your humblest servant.

2. The heart that is drunk from the cup of your love will never sober up until the Day of Judgment.

3. Today a jasmine-breasted, cypress-statured cupbearer has made me utterly drunk and ruined.

4. On this path there is a task finer than a hair; a man does not become a kalender (wandering dervish) by shaving.

5. You never lit Münîr's hut of sorrows with the candle of your face.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the seventy-eighth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 78). The metre is "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif); it does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The rhyme rests on the sound "-er": muṣavver, ḫāver, maḥşer, semen-ber, ḳalender, münevver.

Besides the three manuscripts of the divan, the poem is also found in two anthologies of response poems: VT 115b, VY 100b, Ü 34a, the Pervâne Bey Anthology (PB 188b) and Edirneli Nazmî's Mecmau'n-nezâ'ir (MN 121b). Two variants are recorded in the apparatus: in the third couplet PB has "iden" instead of "itdi", and Ü has "mest ü" instead of "mest-i". The inclusion of the ghazal in anthologies of response poems suggests that it stands within a nazire (response poem) relationship (this is an inference), but the edition does not state to which poem it responds. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) praises the beloved as a sovereign. The beloved is "rūḥ-ı muṣavver", a spirit given form; even the sun of the east is her humblest servant. A relation of loftiness is drawn between "şems-i ḫāver" (the sun of the east) and "şeh" (king). The second and third couplets work the theme of intoxication. The heart drunk from the cup of love will not sober up until the Day of Judgment; and today a cypress-statured cupbearer has utterly ruined the lover. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) of the drinking gathering among the words "cām" (cup), "ser-ḫoş" (tipsy), "mest" (drunk) and "sāḳī" (cupbearer).

The fourth couplet carries the intellectual weight of the ghazal. "Ḳalender" means, in its dictionary sense, a wandering dervish who pays no heed to the world. The poet says that on this path there is a task finer than a hair, and that a man cannot become a kalender merely by shaving. It is known that the Kalenderi dervishes shaved their hair and beards; the couplet puts inner subtlety before this outward appearance. This point rests on general knowledge, and the interpretation of the couplet is our own inference. There is a congruence of images between "ḳıl" (hair) and "tırāş" (shaving): in shaving the hair is cut, but the path is finer than a hair.

The pen-name couplet closes with a reproach. The beloved has never lit Münîr's hut of sorrows with the candle of her face. The words "Münīr" and "münevver" come from the same root and mean, in their dictionary sense, "illuminating" and "illuminated"; though the poet's name is "illuminating", his hut has not been illuminated. This derivation (iştikak) and the irony it produces are our own observation. The phrase "külbe-i aḥzān" (hut of sorrows) also occurs in the third couplet of tg 56.

Bibliography

Online sources