Münîrî, Tuyugh 12: Rose Garden and Lamenting Rose

Tuyugh 12 — Ruḫlaruñ kim bāġ-ı cān gül-zārıdur

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

In Münîrî's tuyugh punning on "gül-zâr" and "gül zârî", thousands of nightingales and roses lament for the beloved's cheeks, and the lover is the nightingale sick from the thorn.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ruḫlaruñ kim bāġ-ı cān gül-zārıdur
Ṣad hezārān bülbül ü gül zārīdür
Bülbül-i dil-ḫasteñi unutma kim
Dem-be-dem ḫār-ı belā bīmārıdur

In English

1. Your cheeks, which are the rose garden of the garden of the soul: hundreds of thousands of nightingales and roses are weeping and lamenting for them. Do not forget your heart-sick nightingale; every moment he is sick from the thorn of affliction.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh; in the edition it is the twelfth of the tuyughs (tyğ 12). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The rhyme words are "gül-zārıdur", "zārīdür" and "bīmārıdur"; the third line ("kim") is unrhymed. The quatrain is found in all three manuscripts (VT 178a, VY 149b, Ü 62b). Like the previous tuyugh, this quatrain too is built on the image of the nightingale and the rose garden. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The pun of the tuyugh is at the end of the first two lines. The first line ends "gül-zārıdur" (is the rose garden), the second "gül zārīdür" (the rose is lamenting). The Kubbealtı explains "gülzar" as rose garden and "zârî" as weeping, lamenting. The two phrases are built from the same sounds, but one is the name of a place and the other a lament; this is a clear example of the punning rhyme that the TDV notes for the tuyugh.

"Hezārān" in the second line also has two senses. The Kubbealtı gives "hezâran" both the sense "thousands" and the sense "nightingales". In the phrase "ṣad hezārān bülbül" the word expresses a number, but together with "bülbül" next to it, it also calls up the nightingale. In the last two lines the lover names himself as the wounded nightingale in the beloved's garden; the rose's thorn (ḫār) has turned into affliction, and the nightingale is sick from this thorn every moment. The congruence of images (tenasüp) among rose, thorn and nightingale makes the quatrain a whole.