Münîrî, Tuyugh 5: The Tear That Becomes a Ruby

Tuyugh 5 — Göz yaşı sensiz ki la‘l-i nāb olur

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

In Münîrî's tuyugh with the refrain "olur", without the beloved the tear becomes a ruby and the liver bloody water, until the bloody tear floods the land of the heart.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Göz yaşı sensiz ki la‘l-i nāb olur
La‘l-i nābuñsuz ciger ḫūn-āb olur
‘Āḳıbet dil mülkini vīrān ḳılur
Ḳanlu yaşum böyle kim seyl-āb olur

In English

1. Without you the tear becomes a pure ruby (it is dyed with blood); without your lip, a pure ruby, the liver turns to bloody water. As my bloody tear thus becomes a flood, in the end it ruins and lays waste the land of the heart.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh; in the edition it is the fifth of the tuyughs (tyğ 5). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif is "olur" (becomes) and the rhyme is the sound "-āb": la‘l-i nāb, ḫūn-āb, seyl-āb; the third line ("ḳılur") is unrhymed. The quatrain is found in all three manuscripts (VT 177a, VY 148b, Ü 61b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the tuyugh is that the second line begins with the last words of the first: the line ending "la‘l-i nāb olur" is followed by a line beginning "La‘l-i nābuñsuz". The same phrase is used in two different senses. The Kubbealtı gives "la'l" the sense of a precious stone of bright red colour, and "nâb" the sense of pure, unmixed. In the first line "la‘l-i nāb" is the colour of the bloody tear; in the second it is the beloved's ruby lip. The tear's becoming a ruby and the absence of the ruby lip are thus bound to each other.

The Kubbealtı explains "hûnâb" as bloody water and bloody tears, and "seylâp" as flood. Both rhyme words contain "āb", water; together with "nāb" all three rhymes end in the same sound. The tear first becomes a ruby, then the liver turns to bloody water, and finally the bloody tear becomes a flood; the quatrain thus grows from a drop to a flood. In the last line the flood lays waste the land of the heart; love's ruin of the lover's inner self is told like water overwhelming a city.