Münîrî, Müfred 7: No One Has Enough of Honour

Müfred 7 (single couplet) — Bir kez irişem mi yā Rab vuṣlata

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 07 October 2026 • 3 min reading

In Münîrî's seventh müfred the beggar-lover longs for union and asks to be called "my dog", resting his request on the saying "no one has enough of honour".

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Bir kez irişem mi yā Rab vuṣlata
Az irer zīrā gedā bu devlete

İsterem geh geh baña k’itüm diye
Bes mes̱eldür kimse ṭoymaz ‘izzete

In English

1. O Lord, shall I ever attain union, even once? For a beggar seldom attains such fortune (such happiness).

2. I want you now and then to call me "my dog"; for there is a saying: "no one ever has enough of honour (esteem)".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The seventh müfred of the edition is a piece of two couplets in the metre "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The edition prints these two couplets under the heading "Müfredler", with a space between them. Since the Kubbealtı Lugatı defines the müfred as a single couplet not bound to other couplets, the piece here has two couplets despite its name; the genre name is kept as in the edition. Ersoy writes in his introduction that the nine müfreds of the divan are found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT) and that all of them are in Turkish; they stand on folios 180b-181b of that manuscript.

The rhyme is formed with the words "vuṣlata", "devlete" and "‘izzete". Both lines of the first couplet rhyme; the Kubbealtı Lugatı calls a couplet with rhyming lines musarra and notes that the opening couplets (matla) of poems are almost always musarra. In this respect the piece resembles the opening of a poem, a matla followed by one couplet (our observation). For whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet presents the lover as a beggar (gedā) and union as a devlet, that is, fortune and happiness. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "gedâ" as beggar, poor man, pauper. That a beggar seldom attains fortune is the reason given for why union is so hard to reach.

The second couplet contains an unexpected request: the lover asks the beloved to call him "my dog" now and then. In divan poetry the dog at the beloved's door is an image of the lover's attachment to that door even as he abases himself; coming from the beloved's lips, the word counts for the lover as a compliment rather than an insult. The poet grounds his request in a proverb with the word "mes̱eldür" (it is a saying): no one has enough of honour, that is, esteem and regard. This is a clear example of setting a proverb into speech (irsal-i mesel); the TDV too records that Münîrî was successful at setting proverbs and idioms into poetry. Counting it an honour to be called a dog also forms the couplet's quiet irony.