Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḳāmetüñ üzre gören destāruñ ucın çīn çīn
Didi zībā yaraşuḳdur göre ser üzre semen

In English

1. One who saw the end of your turban, fold upon fold, curl upon curl, above your stature said: "A lovely adornment; look, jasmine upon the head." (Kâmet means stature, figure; destâr turban; çîn fold, curl; semen jasmine. The word "göre" can be read in two ways: "on seeing, looking" or "like, resembling"; in the second reading the line means "like a jasmine upon the head".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a single couplet given in the edition as a matla (opening couplet), written in the remel metre "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The matla is the first couplet of a ghazal (gazel), with both lines rhyming; the line endings of this couplet ("çîn çîn" and "semen"), however, do not end in the same sound, and the edition gives no note explaining this. In Bayram's edition it is number 151 in the "Matla‘lar" section, and according to the edition's footnote it is found in only one of the five manuscripts, T (44a); of the edition's four matlas, this is the only one found in manuscript T. Bayram's description of manuscript T likewise counts one matla for it. According to the edition's footnote, Bayram removed the word "ne" from the second line for the sake of the metre; that is, the manuscript has one more "ne" in this line. The footnote does not state where in the line the word stood. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on a comparison drawn from the beloved's dress, the turban on the head. The end of the turban, wound fold upon fold and curled, rises above the tall stature; someone who sees it says how well the turban suits the beloved and likens it to a jasmine upon the head. Jasmine, in its dictionary sense, is a plant that bears white, fragrant flowers; the shared points of the comparison are the whiteness and the folds of the turban. One may think of the stature as likened to a sapling and the turban to a flower blooming at its top; neither sapling nor cypress is named in the couplet, so this is a reading. The turban rising above the tall stature also adds praise of the beloved's height to the couplet; in divan poetry a tall, straight stature counts among the beloved's chief beauties.

The doubled word "çîn çîn" literally means curl upon curl, fold upon fold; the repetition lets the ear, too, sense the layered windings of the turban. The word "çîn" is written the same way as the name of China; but nothing else in the couplet supports this second meaning. In this couplet the speaker is not the lover but someone else who sees the beloved: the verb "Didi" (said) turns the line into reported speech. The beloved's beauty is thus presented as something acknowledged by everyone who sees it. The words "kâmet" (stature), "destâr" (turban) and "ser" (head) follow the beloved's body from below upward, while "zîbâ" (lovely) and "yaraşuk" (adornment, becomingness) give the verdict this gaze arrives at.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 186, poem no. 151 (manuscript information and the note on the metre in the footnote on the same page; description of manuscript T p. 31). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • "Matla‘", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/matla.

Online sources