Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫayl-i ġam dil mülkini her dem yaḳup talan ider
Leşker-i bī-gāne ḳanda varsa bes vīrān ider
Nāvek-i çeşmüñde k’iñler bülbül-i gūyā-yı dil
Ṣanki şāḫ-ı bādem üzre ‘andelīb efġān ider
Bāġ-ı ruḫsāruñda dil zülfeynüñi görüp didi
Her biri ṭāvūs-ı cennetdür meger cevlān ider
Lāle-ḫaddüñ-çün dinilen tāze ḥüsniyyāt ile
Bunca al evrāḳ ile beñzer ki gül dīvān ider
Gāh mesciddür maḳām u menzilüm geh mey-gede
Sen büt içün bes Münīrī der-be-der devrān ider

In English

1. The horsemen of sorrow burn and plunder the realm of the heart at every moment; a foreign army, after all, lays waste wherever it comes.

2. The eloquent nightingale of the heart, moaning in the arrow of your eye (pierced by it), is like a nightingale lamenting on a branch of almond.

3. The heart, seeing your two locks in the garden of your cheek, said: each is a peacock of Paradise, strutting there, it seems.

4. With the fresh poems of beauty spoken for your tulip cheek, the rose, with so many red leaves, seems to be compiling a divan.

5. Now the mosque is my station and dwelling, now the tavern; for you, idol of beauty, Münîrî wanders from door to door.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the ninetieth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 90). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". Ersoy's list of refrains places the ghazal among those with the refrain (redif) "ider" (does, makes); the rhyme is the "-ān" sound before it: talan, vīrān, efġān, cevlān, dīvān and devrān. The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 118b, Ü 33a); it is not in the VY manuscript. According to the apparatus, Ü reads "şeydā-yı" (mad) for "gūyā-yı" (eloquent) in the second couplet; this reading too suits the state of the lover-nightingale. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a scene of war. Sorrow is a troop of horsemen and the heart a realm. That a foreign army burns and ruins the place it enters is put in the second line as a known truth and made the proof of the claim in the first line; this is a way of speaking close to irsal-i mesel (the proverbial proof). There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words "ḫayl" (troop of horse), "leşker" (army), "mülk" (realm) and "talan" (plunder).

In the second couplet the eye is likened to a branch of almond. The eye is likened in shape to an almond; the arrow of the eye is also imagined as part of this branch. The heart, moaning as it is pierced by the arrow, becomes a nightingale lamenting on the almond branch. "Bülbül" and "‘andelīb" are two names of the same bird; their use together in the same couplet is our own observation.

In the third couplet the beloved's cheek is a garden, and the locks falling to either side are two peacocks of Paradise strutting in this garden. The peacock's association with Paradise and its strutting walk are likened to the movement of the curling, waving lock. In the fourth couplet the word "evrāḳ" means both the petals of a flower and the pages of a book; "dīvān" is the book in which poems are collected. The rose, with its red petals, seems to compile a divan of poems of beauty spoken for the beloved's tulip cheek. This double entendre (tevriye) is the basis of the couplet; by "ḥüsniyyāt" poems spoken on beauty appear to be meant. This last reading is an inference.

The pen-name couplet uses the familiar contrast between mosque and tavern. The lover is now in the mosque, now in the tavern; the beloved is called "büt" (idol), and the lover wanders from door to door for him. The words "der-be-der" (from door to door) and "devrān" (going round) describe the lover's restless, wandering state. The words "maḳām" (station) and "menzil" (halting place) are also conceived as the stages of a journey.

Bibliography

Online sources