Münîrî, Tuyugh 1: Until the Day of Reckoning

Tuyugh 1 — Şol kim oldı mübtelā-yı ‘ışḳ-ı yār

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 07 October 2026 • 4 min reading

In Münîrî's first tuyugh the lover seized by love has no patience left, and the finger of imagination holds the beloved's strand of hair until the day of reckoning.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Şol kim oldı mübtelā-yı ‘ışḳ-ı yār
Neyler anda ṣabr u ārām u ḳarār
‘Iḳd-ı zülfin ḳomaz engüşt-i ḫayāl
Tā olınca ey göñül rūz-ı şumār

In English

1. What use are patience, calm and steadiness to one who has been seized by love for the beloved? O heart, the finger of imagination will not let go of the strand of that hair until the day of reckoning comes. ("Rûz-ı şümâr", the day of numbering and reckoning, is the Day of Judgement.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh (tuyuğ), the first of the twenty-one tuyughs in the edition (tyğ 1). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The first, second and fourth lines rhyme on the sound "-ār" (yār, ḳarār, şumār); the third line is left unrhymed. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi defines the tuyugh as a four-line verse form generally written in this metre, mostly rhymed on the pattern "a a x a" with punning rhymes, and written without a pen name (mahlas); it also records that the form found little favour in Anatolia and that Atâyî is counted as the most important Anatolian tuyugh poet. None of Münîrî's tuyughs contains a pen name. Ersoy notes that in all three manuscripts of the divan these quatrains bear the heading "rubâî", the copyists having given that name to every four-line poem; judging by their metres he counts them as tuyughs, and he states as a conjecture that Münîrî's use of the form is due to the influence of Atâyî. This tuyugh is found in all three manuscripts (VT 177a, VY 148a, Ü 61a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two lines set out a judgement: one seized by love keeps neither patience nor peace nor steadiness. The Kubbealtı gives "mübtelâ" the sense of one seized by or addicted to something. The sequence "ṣabr u ārām u ḳarār" lists what the lover has lost in three closely related words. The last two lines show the cause of this judgement through an image: the finger of imagination has caught in the beloved's hair and will not let it go until the Day of Judgement.

The Kubbealtı gives "ıkd" the senses necklace and string (of beads), "engüşt" the sense finger, and "şümar" the senses number and counting; "rûz" is day. We see a congruence of images (tenasüp) among these words: a finger holds a string, a string is counted bead by bead, and the poem closes with the "day of counting". The reading that the finger of imagination moves through the string of hair until the Day of Judgement, as one tells a rosary, follows from this connection (our reading). The phrase "rûz-ı şümâr" also stretches the duration of love to the end of time and gives the last line of the tuyugh the character of a verdict.