Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Ṣūretde hemān la‘l-i lebüñ gül-be-şekerdür
Ma‘nīde velī aḫker ü yā āteş-i terdür
Kirpüklerüm ile gözüm ol ġamzeye ḳarşu
Gūyā ki ṭolu tīr-i ḫadeng ile siperdür
Her laḥẓa ḫayālāt-ı ḫad ü ḫaṭṭuñ u ḫālüñ
Elbette görinür göze zīrā ki memerdür
‘Uşşāḳ-ı naẓar-bāza bu ebrū-yı keşīde
Gül-zār-ı cemāl içre ‘aceb medd-i naẓardur
Ey merdümek-i dīde izi ṭozı nigāruñ
Ser-tāc-ı Münīr ise saña nūr-ı baṣardur

In English

1. In outward form your ruby lip is nothing but rose-sugar (a rose confection); but in meaning (in essence) it is an ember, or a moist fire.

2. Together with my eyelashes, my eye facing that glance is like a shield filled with arrows.

3. The images of your cheek, your down and your mole are surely seen by the eye at every moment, for (the eye) is their passage.

4. For lovers who play at glances, this drawn-out eyebrow is a wondrous "medd-i naẓar" (the reach of the gaze; a lengthening mark shaped like the brow) in the rose garden of beauty.

5. O pupil of the eye, if the dust of the beloved's footprint is Münîr's crown, for you too it is the light of sight.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the eighty-fifth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 85). The metre is "mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün". Ersoy's list of refrains places the ghazal among those with the refrain (redif) "-dür" (is); the rhyme is the "-er/-ar" sound before it: gül-be-şeker, ter, siper, memer, naẓar and baṣar. The ghazal is found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 117a, VY 97b, Ü 30b). According to the apparatus, in the Ü manuscript the first couplet is written on 30b and the other couplets on 32a. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet (matla) is built on the contrast between "ṣūret" (outward form) and "ma‘nī" (meaning, essence). In appearance the ruby lip is as sweet and red as rose-sugar, but in essence it burns. The expression "āteş-i ter" (moist fire) joins two opposite qualities; the lip is both moist and burning. The colour red links the rose, the ember and the fire.

The second couplet is a scene of battle. The ġamze is the beloved's languid and wounding glance; here too it is imagined as an archer shooting arrows. The lover's eye is a shield held up against them. The eyelashes resemble arrows stuck in the shield. The likeness between the roundness of the eye and of the shield, and between the thinness of the lashes and of the arrows, is the basis of the image.

In the third couplet the word "memer" (Arabic memerr, passage, way) turns the eye into a passage. The beloved's cheek, down and mole must pass through the eye to reach the heart; that is why their images are seen by the eye at every moment. The three words "ḫad", "ḫaṭṭ" and "ḫāl" all begin with the sound "ḫ"; this repetition of sound is our own observation.

In the fourth couplet "medd-i naẓar" means the furthest limit the gaze can reach. "Medd" is also the name of the lengthening mark in Arabic script; the horizontal and slightly curved form of this mark recalls a drawn-out eyebrow. The conception of the brow both as the last stop of the gaze and as a mark in writing is our own observation. There is also a repetition of the word "naẓar" in "naẓar-bāz" (player at glances).

In the pen-name couplet the dust of the beloved's footprint is imagined as a kohl that brightens the eye. Münîr makes that dust his crown; for the pupil, too, that dust is the light of sight. A congruence of images (tenasüp) descending from the head to the eye is set up between "ser-tāc" (crown) and "nūr-ı baṣar" (light of the eye).

Bibliography

Online sources