Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi bu teşne-dil leb-i cānāna ḳaṣd ider
Beñzer ki ḳanına ṣuṣadı cāna ḳaṣd ider
Yā Rab ne fitnedür yine devr-i ḳamerde kim
Jengār-ı ḫaṭṭuñ āyīne-i cāna ḳaṣd ider
Ṣan kim ġazāl-i ḫuftedür āhū gözüñ velī
Her bir naẓarda ādeme şīrāne ḳaṣd ider
Zülf-i ḫamuñ ki göñlümüzüñ pençesin burup
Uzatdı el meger ki girībāna ḳaṣd ider
Dil cān virüp diler ki ola saña müşterī
Alçaḳ bahāya Yūsuf-ı Ken‘āna ḳaṣd ider
Kimdür çerāġ-ı ḥüsnüñe dil virmesün diyen
Elbette şem‘a yanmaġa pervāne ḳaṣd ider
Bunca ḫadeng ü nāvek-i müjgān ile gözüñ
Gūyā peleng-i bīşedür insāna ḳaṣd ider
Yetişmek istedügi yüzüñ mihrine Münīr
Burc-ı şerefde ṭāli‘-i Keyvāna ḳaṣd ider

In English

1. Though this thirsting heart aims at the beloved's lip, it seems it has grown thirsty for its own blood; it makes an attempt on the soul. The couplet can be read in two ways: through the idiom "to thirst for someone's blood" it may mean that the heart seeks its own death, or that the beloved's lip thirsts for the lover's blood.

2. O Lord, what tumult is this, that again in the age of the moon (the season of the moon-faced beloved's beauty) the verdigris of your down makes an attempt on the mirror of the soul?

3. You would think your gazelle eye a sleeping gazelle; yet at every glance it springs upon a man like a lion.

4. Your curling lock, having twisted the wrist (the paw) of our heart, has stretched out its hand; perhaps it is after the collar (means to seize us by the collar).

5. The heart, giving its life, wishes to become your buyer; (thus) it is after buying Joseph of Canaan at a low price.

6. Who (would say) that the heart should not give itself to the lamp of your beauty? Of course the moth makes for the candle in order to burn.

7. With so many arrows and darts of eyelashes your eye is like the leopard of the forest; it springs upon man.

8. Münîr's wish to reach the sun of your face is an attempt on the fortune of Saturn standing in its house of exaltation.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is an eight-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the eighty-second of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 82). The metre is "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains gives the ghazal the refrain (redif) "ḳaṣd ider" (aims at, makes an attempt on); the rhyme is the "-āna" sound before it: cānāna, cāna, şīrāne, girībāna, Ken‘āna, pervāne, insāna and Keyvāna. In the opening couplet (matla) there is a likeness of sound between "cānāna" (to the beloved) and "cāna" (to the soul). The ghazal is found in three manuscripts of the divan and in two anthologies of response poems (VT 116b, VY 102b, Ü 38a, PB 210b, MN 142b). According to the apparatus, the fifth couplet is missing from VT and VY and the sixth from PB; in VT couplets 7 and 8, which ought to be on 117a, are written on 119a. PB reads "zülfüñ ḫamı" for "zülf-i ḫamuñ" in the fourth couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The key word of the ghazal is its refrain. "Ḳaṣd itmek" means both "to turn towards something, to intend it" and "to make an attempt on someone's life, to attack". In each couplet the poet moves between these two senses. The heart "turns towards" the lip, the moth towards the candle, Münîr towards the sun of the face; the eye, the lock and the down, on the other hand, "attack" the lover.

In the second couplet "jengār" is the green verdigris that forms on mirrors of copper and bronze. The greenish down appearing on the beloved's face is likened to this verdigris; just as verdigris clouds a mirror, the down spoils the brightness of the mirror of the soul. "Devr-i ḳamer" (the age of the moon) denotes both a period of time and the season of beauty of the moon-faced beloved.

The third and seventh couplets build a contrast through beasts of the hunt. The eye at first looks harmless, "a sleeping gazelle", then springs like a lion. In the seventh couplet the eyelashes are likened to the kinds of arrow called "ḫadeng" and "nāvek", and the eye to the leopard of the forest. In the fourth couplet the lock, like a wrestler, twists the heart's wrist and reaches for the collar. The fact that a long lock falls from the shoulder to the breast, that is, to the level of the collar, may be the basis of this image; this is an inference.

The fifth couplet rests on the story of Joseph. Joseph was sold by his brothers for a low price; the lover who wishes to become the beloved's buyer by giving his life thus sets out to buy him at that low price. Even life itself is counted a cheap price for the beloved. The sixth couplet uses the theme of the candle and the moth and is spoken with the certainty of a proverb.

The pen-name couplet is built with terms of astronomy. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "mihr" (sun), "burc" (sign of the zodiac), "şeref" (exaltation) and "ṭāli‘" (fortune, ascendant). "Burc-ı şeref" is the sign in which a planet is reckoned at its strongest; "Keyvān" is Saturn, which in the old picture of the heavens lies in the seventh sphere. Münîr's wish to reach the sun of the beloved's face is as impossible as an attempt on the strongest fortune of the highest planet.

Bibliography

Online sources