Münîrî, Tuyugh 11: Nightingale of Beauty's Garden

Tuyugh 11 — Bāġ-ı ḥüsnüñ kim cihān bostānıdur

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

In Münîrî's garden tuyugh, the beloved's beauty is the orchard of the world and her locks the basil of spirits, while the heart is that rose garden's nightingale of a thousand songs.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Bāġ-ı ḥüsnüñ kim cihān bostānıdur
Ṣaçlaruñ rūḥānīler reyḥānıdur
Gül-şen-i ḥüsnüñüñ ey cān bülbüli
Dil daḫı murġ-ı hezār-elḥānıdur

In English

1. In the garden of your beauty, which is the orchard of the world, your locks are the sweet basil of the spiritual beings. O beloved (cān), the heart too, the nightingale of the rose garden of your beauty, is a bird of a thousand melodies. (The third line can also be read as "O nightingale of the soul"; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh; in the edition it is the eleventh of the tuyughs (tyğ 11). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The rhyme is the sound "-ānı" and the redif is the suffix "-dur" (is): bostānıdur, reyḥānıdur, hezār-elḥānıdur; the third line ("bülbüli") is unrhymed. The quatrain is found in all three manuscripts (VT 178a, VY 149b, Ü 62a). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The quatrain is built from beginning to end out of garden words: bāġ (garden), bostān (orchard), reyḥān (sweet basil), gül-şen (rose garden), bülbül (nightingale) and murġ (bird). The Kubbealtı explains "reyhan" as sweet basil. The beloved's beauty is a garden that is the orchard of the world; her locks are the basil of this garden, and spiritual beings breathe its scent. Likening hair to a fragrant herb brings to mind both the sweet scent of the hair and its resemblance to curling green leaves.

"Murġ-ı hezār-elḥān" in the last line means a bird of a thousand melodies. The Kubbealtı gives "hezar" on the one hand the sense "thousand" and on the other the sense "nightingale". Here the word is used as a number in the phrase "a thousand melodies", but together with the word "bülbül" just above it, it also recalls the nightingale; this is a double entendre (tevriye). The syntax of the third line can be built in two ways: if "ey cān" is taken as an address to the beloved, the heart is the nightingale of beauty's rose garden; if "cān bülbüli" is taken as a phrase, the beloved is called "nightingale of the soul". In the translation we have followed the first reading.