Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Hīc ben la‘l-i lebüñden dimezem nesne beter
Bilürem kim nesnesi yoḳ yoġ olan ṭaşdan beter
Āteş-i ‘ışḳumla dūd-ı āhumı ma‘ẕūr ṭut
Ḫod bilürsin bir yire kim od düşe ṭurmaz tüter
Niçün uyarsın hevā-yı zülfine yārüñ diyü
Sen de öldürme beni ey dil benem baña yeter
Hīc raḥm itmez ḳılur ‘uşşāḳını her dem helāk
Şöyle ṣanur ġālibā kim ādem ot gibi biter
Gözleri yaşına ġarḳ oldıysa ṭañ mıdur Münīr
Bes mes̱eldür ‘āḳıbet ṣulu señek ṣuda yatar

In English

1. I never say an ill word of your ruby lip; I know that one who has nothing (who has fallen into nothingness) is worse off even than a stone. The couplet is obscure and can be read in two ways: the phrase "has nothing, is nothing" may describe the lover who has nothing left in his hand, or it may point to the beloved's mouth, which in divan poetry is thought so small as to count as "nothing"; there is also a link between "ruby" and "stone".

2. Forgive the smoke of my sighs, caused by the fire of my love; you know, after all, that where fire falls it smokes without pause.

3. O heart, do not you too kill me, saying "why do you follow the whim of the beloved's lock"; I am enough for myself (my own pain is enough to kill me).

4. (The beloved) shows no mercy at all and destroys his lovers at every moment; he seems to think that man springs up like grass (grows again of himself).

5. Münîr, is it any wonder if his eyes have drowned in their own tears? It is a proverb: in the end the water-filled senek (water jug) lies in water.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the ninety-first of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 91). 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) "-Er". The rhyme words are beter, beter, tüter, yeter, biter and yatar; both lines of the opening couplet end with the same word "beter" (worse), while "yatar" (lies) in the pen-name couplet, with its back vowel, matches this rhyme only approximately. These two observations are our own. The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 118b, VY 158a); 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 ghazal has a language close to popular speech, laden with idioms and proverbs. The TDV article notes that Münîrî too was successful in the tradition, begun by Necâtî Bey and continued by Zâtî, of using local expressions and setting proverbs and idioms into poetry. In this ghazal the second, fourth and fifth couplets are clear examples of this side of his work.

The opening couplet (matla) is obscure. "La‘l" (ruby) is a red precious stone; the lip is likened to it. The lover says he speaks no ill of the beloved's lip, because he knows that one who has nothing is worse off even than a stone. In divan poetry the beloved's mouth is counted as "nothing" because of its smallness; it is possible that the expression "yoġ olan" (that which is nothing) points to this theme. This reading is an inference.

The second couplet likens the lover's sigh to smoke and his love to a fire. The saying in the second line, "where fire falls it smokes without pause", uses an everyday observation as proof. In the third couplet the lover addresses his own heart: let the heart not reproach and kill him for following the beloved's lock; his own pain is already enough to kill him.

In the fourth couplet the beloved's cruelty is expressed through a popular saying: the beloved thinks that the people he kills will spring up again like grass. The same expression occurs in Latîfî's biographical anthology (tezkire); in his entry on Temennâyî, Latîfî names him as one of the unbelievers who said "Âdem ot gibi biter ve ot gibi yiter" (man springs up like grass and vanishes like grass). From this it can be seen that the saying was a known expression of the period; the link between Münîrî's couplet and Latîfî's record is our own observation.

The pen-name couplet closes with a proverb: "ṣulu señek ṣuda yatar." The dictionary of the Turkish Language Association explains the word "senek" as "a water jug made of pine wood". Just as the jug that carries water in the end falls into water and stays there, the eye that carries tears is in the end buried in its own tears. We have not been able to verify whether the proverb occurs in this form in any other source.

Bibliography

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