The divan of Farrukhi Sistani (d. 1037) teems with evocations of a lively Ghaznavid minstrel culture, a culture Farrukhi knew first-hand, as he was not only poet at the courts of both Mahmud (r. 998–1030) and Mas'ud (r. 1030–1041) but was also, according to Nizami's Chahar maqala, a "dexterous performer on the harp." Though numerous studies (by M. Boyce, J.T.P. de Bruijn, and C.E. Bosworth) document and highlight the public, courtly persona of the minstrel, the divan-e Farrukhi presents a much less studied aspect of Ghaznavid minstrelsy, namely, the minstrel's private, erotic persona as the "moon-faced," "silken-breasted" beloved; auditory beauty and visual beauty become semantically entwined and at times interchangeable. The fact that this musico-poetic "beloved" was often a Turkish slave (ghulam), however, has broad implications for both Ghaznavid minstrelsy and "stock" Persian poetic imagery. This study takes as its point of departure the "lyric" nasib to several of Farrukhi's qasidas that describe intimate and manifestly erotic encounters between Farrukhi, the poet, and a (always unnamed) Turkish beloved, the minstrel. In recounting such erotic encounters, Farrukhi's poetry affords us a glimpse into the formative stages of a still-living symbol that was to become, in later Persian poetry, entombed in a dead metaphor: the beloved as "Turk". Although the legendary love between Mahmud and Ayaz remained the touchstone for the Turkish beloved, Farrukhi's poetry reminds us that Ayaz was not the only ghulam to wield agency beyond his station, and the extraordinary musico-poetic agency Farrukhi grants his Turkish minstrels far outstrips the more perfunctory and business-like references to Ghaznavid minstrel culture in the Tarikh-e Bayhaqi. A careful reading of Farrukhi's poetry, with occasional glances to Manuchehri and `Unsuri, allows us to chart with more precision the emergence of this symbolic minstrel persona, which was rooted in the historical realities of the Ghaznavid court, but came to resonate more broadly with the imagery of music and musical performance unique to the Persian poetic tradition.