Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Döndiyise çihrem altuna baña virmez żarar
Çünki çeşm-i ṣād u iki rā ḳaşı didi ṣarar
Kirpigümle merdüm-i dīde işigüñ ḫākini
Dem-be-dem ṭurmaz eler beñzer ki göñlümi arar
Rāḥat itdise ‘aceb mi şerbet-i tīġuñ beni
Böyle nāfi‘ şerbet el-ḥaḳ kime gerekse yarar
Bunda peykānum yetüpdür diyü tīr-i ġamzesi
Geh deler baġrumı ṭurmaz yüregümi geh yarar
Eşk-i ḥasret dökmek içün her dem çeşm-i Münīr
Ṭurma baġrum ḳanıla ebr-i siyeh gibi ḳarar

In English

1. If my face has turned (yellow as) gold, it does me no harm (żarar); for (the beloved's) eye shaped like the letter ṣād and brows shaped like two letters rā said "ṣarar". The couplet rests on a play of letters: ṣ (ص) and two r (ر) written side by side read "ṣarar", that is, "it turns yellow".

2. The pupil of my eye, with my eyelashes (as a sieve), sifts the dust of your threshold without pause; it seems to be searching for my heart.

3. Is it any wonder if the sherbet of your sword has brought me ease? Such a beneficial sherbet, by God, does good (yarar) to whoever needs it.

4. The arrow of his glance, saying "my arrowhead has reached this place", now pierces my breast, now ceaselessly splits (yarar) my heart.

5. To shed the tears of longing at every moment, Münîr's eye ceaselessly darkens (ḳarar) like a black cloud with my heart's blood. The couplet can be read in two ways: the word "ḳarar" can be read as "darkens", and it also evokes "ḳarār", rest; on that reading the eye, like a black cloud, "never comes to rest".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the eighty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 89). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The number of this ghazal does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The ghazal has no refrain (redif); the rhyme is the sound sequence "-arar": żarar, ṣarar, arar, yarar, yarar and ḳarar. The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 118a, VY 93a); it is not in the Ü manuscript. No variant readings are given in the apparatus. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is the play of sound among its rhyme words. The TDV article says that Münîrî applied every kind of pun (cinas) with success; this ghazal is one of the clear examples of it. In the opening couplet (matla) there is a pun between "żarar" (harm) and "ṣarar" (turns yellow). The third and fourth couplets both end with the word "yarar"; in the first it means "is of use", in the second "splits open", and so a perfect pun is formed. "Ḳarar" in the pen-name couplet is also double, between "darkens" and "rest". The identification of these relations of sound is ours.

The opening couplet is built on a play of letters. In divan poetry the eye is likened in shape to the Arabic letter ṣād (ص), and the eyebrow to the letter rā (ر). When the beloved's ṣād-eye and two rā-brows stand side by side, the word "ṣarar" is written. The yellowing of the lover's face like gold is therefore reckoned a decree written on the beloved's face, and the lover takes no harm from it. In Arabic script the letter żād (ض), the first letter of the word "żarar", differs from ṣād by a single dot; it may be thought that the poet made use of this closeness. This last interpretation is an inference.

In the second couplet the eyelashes are likened to a sieve, and the pupil to the one who sifts. The lover searches for the heart he lost at the beloved's threshold by sifting its dust. In the third couplet the beloved's sword offers a sherbet; since death gives the lover ease, this sherbet is beneficial. In the expression "şerbet-i tīġ" (sherbet of the sword) the deadly and the healing are brought together.

The fourth couplet makes the arrow of the glance speak: saying that its point has reached the target, the arrow now pierces the breast, now splits the heart. The verbs "deler" (pierces) and "yarar" (splits) describe two different effects of the arrow. In the pen-name couplet the darkening of the eye with bloody tears is described through the image of a black cloud; as the cloud pours rain, the eye pours the tears of longing.

Bibliography

Online sources