Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Görse dil gözüñi ‘ayş u ṭarab u yād eyler
İçse cām-ı lebüñi nāle vü feryād eyler
Ṣanma dil sen var iken iy yüzi gül gülşende
Heves-i būy-ı gül ü sāye-i şimşād eyler

In English

1. Should the heart see your eye, it recalls pleasure and revelry and speaks of them; should it drink from the cup of your lip, it moans and cries out. (The couplet can be read in two ways: the wine the lip offers makes the heart drunk and sets it weeping, or that cup brings the heart only longing and pain.)

2. O you whose face is a rose, do not think that while you are here the heart longs, in the rose garden, for the scent of the rose and the shade of the boxwood. (The rose recalls the beloved's face, the boxwood the beloved's stature; with the originals at hand, the heart does not seek their likenesses.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a two-couplet poem given in the edition under the heading "Nazm" (short verse); it is the "1 nazm" in Bayram's count as quoted in TEİS. It is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) is "eyler", and the rhyme is the "-âd" sound in the words "yâd", "feryâd" and "şimşâd". The two lines of the first couplet rhyme with each other and the second couplet returns to the same rhyme; the rhyme scheme therefore resembles the first two couplets of a ghazal (gazel), but the poem has no pen name (mahlas). In Bayram's edition it is number 147 and, according to the edition's footnote, it is found only in manuscript T (45a); it is absent from OR, İBB, M1 and M2. Whether it is the surviving part of a ghazal or was composed as two couplets from the start is not known. To whom and when it was written is not known either.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet describes two of the beloved's beauties, the eye and the lip, through their opposite effects. When the eye is seen, the heart recalls "ayş u tarab", that is, pleasure and revelry; when it drinks from the lip as from a cup, the heart moans and cries out. There is a clear contrast (tezat) between "ayş u tarab" and "nâle vü feryâd" (moaning and lament). In the phrase "câm-ı lebüñ" (the cup of your lip) the lip is likened to a cup; since neither the particle of comparison nor the point of likeness is stated, this is a teşbîh-i belîğ (condensed simile). Placing the lip beside the wine cup is common in divan poetry; red colour, sweetness and intoxication are the shared points of this comparison. The second line of the couplet can be read in two ways: the wine of the lip carries the heart away and makes it weep, or drinking from that cup brings the heart not joy but pain and longing.

In the second couplet the beloved is addressed as "rose-faced", and the rose and boxwood of the rose garden lose their worth beside the beloved. The words rose, rose garden, bûy (scent), sâye (shade) and şimşâd form a congruence of images (tenasüp). The boxwood (şimşir), in its dictionary sense, is a tree with a straight trunk and dense leaves; in divan poetry, like the cypress, it is compared to the beloved's stature. The repetition of the word "gül" (rose) in "gülşen", in "yüzi gül" and in "bûy-ı gül" gathers the couplet around a single image: the heart does not want the scent of the garden rose because it has the true rose beside it. The line beginning "Sanma" (do not think) reads like an answer to a possible doubt on the beloved's part.

Bibliography

Online sources