Münîrî, Tuyugh 7: Not a Stature but an Affliction

Tuyugh 7 — Ḳāmetüñle serv hem-bālā degül

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

In Münîrî's tuyugh with the refrain "degül", neither cypress nor rose matches the beloved; seeing her lofty stature, the heart says it is no stature (bâlâ) but an affliction (belâ).

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḳāmetüñle serv hem-bālā degül
Lāle-ḫaddüñ ile gül hemtā degül
Müntehā ḳaddüñ görüp didi göñül
Bu belādur ‘āşıḳa bālā degül

In English

1. The cypress is not of a height with your stature; nor is the rose equal to your tulip-like cheek. Seeing the utmost height of your stature, the heart said: This is not a stature (bâlâ) for the lover; it is an affliction (belâ).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh; in the edition it is the seventh of the tuyughs (tyğ 7). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif is "degül" (is not) and the rhyme words are "hem-bālā", "hemtā" and "bālā"; the third line ("göñül") is unrhymed. The rhyme words of the first and fourth lines both carry the same word "bālā". The quatrain is found in all three manuscripts (VT 177b, VY 149a, Ü 61b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The Kubbealtı gives "bâlâ" the senses up, high, and stature, height, and "belâ" the senses of a situation causing great distress, trouble, calamity. The art of the tuyugh rests on the similarity of sound between these two words: in the last line it is said of the beloved's stature, "bu belādur ‘āşıḳa bālā degül", this is an affliction for the lover, not a stature. "Hem-bālā" (equal in height) in the first line and "bālā" (stature) in the fourth rhyme on the same word, while "belā" echoes this rhyme within the line. The punning manner that the TDV notes for the tuyugh is plainly seen in this quatrain.

The first two lines reject two well-known comparisons: the cypress is not equal to the stature, nor the rose to the cheek. The Kubbealtı explains "müntehā" in the third line as the last point a thing can reach. The same dictionary records under "sidre" that in literature the Sidretü'l-müntehâ (the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary) stands for the beloved's tall, hard-to-reach stature, and gives as an example Ahmed Paşa's couplet "Sidreye benzettiğim ayb etme cânâ kaddini / K'anı benzetmekte bundan müntehâsın bilmedim". We think that the phrase "müntehā ḳaddüñ" also recalls this image (our reading). The stature is so lofty that for the lover it ceases to be a beauty and becomes an affliction.