Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün
Şod besī müştāḳ ber-dīdār-ı to
Ber-fiken burḳa‘ zi-meh-ruḫsār-ı to
In English
1. (The heart) has longed greatly to see your face; cast off the veil from your moon-like cheek. (The couplet is in Persian; since the edition gives no meaning for it, the translation is ours. The first line does not say who it is that longs.)
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The seventh muamma (name riddle) of the edition is a single couplet in the metre "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the words "dīdār" and "ruḫsār" form the rhyme, and "-ı to" (your) recurs like a refrain word (redif). The muammas are found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 179b-180b, VY 151a-152b, Ü 63b-65b) in the same order; only in Ü are the 10th and 11th muammas transposed, and the 12th muamma and those after it are missing from Ü.
In language the couplet is Persian: it is built with Persian words such as "şod" (became), "besī" (much), "ber-fiken" (cast off), "zi" (from) and "to" (you) (our observation). Ersoy writes in his introduction that only one of the muammas is Persian, and the TDV likewise says "one of them Persian"; the edition also gives no Turkish meaning for this couplet. Either the count of Ersoy and the TDV rests on the 6th muamma alone, or the couplet has been counted as Turkish by some other criterion; we do not know which. The edition's heading gives the solution as "Seydī".
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The couplet is a short plea built on the lover's wish to see the beloved's face. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "burka" as the covering women used to hide their faces, a veil, and, in the entry "efgen", the Persian verb "efkenden" as to throw down, to cast; "ber-fiken burḳa‘" means to lift and cast off the veil. The simile "meh-ruḫsār" (moon-cheeked) likens the face behind the veil to the moon behind a cloud. The edition does not show the letter calculation of the riddle; we cannot show how the name Seydī is drawn from the couplet.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Ersen Ersoy (ed.), II. Bayezit Devri Şairlerinden Münîrî ve Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), p. 387, Muamma 7 (introduction p. 6). https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/56095,muniri-divanipdf.pdf (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20220803084052/https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/56095,muniri-divanipdf.pdf?0)
Academic studies
- M. A. Yekta Saraç, "Muamma" (Türk Edebiyatı), TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, pp. 320-321. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/muamma
- Ümran Ay, "Münîrî Amâsî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. EK-2, Ankara 2019, pp. 337-338. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/muniri-amasi
Books
- Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "burka" and "efgen". https://lugatim.com/s/burka
Online sources
