Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dilde kim sûz ola ney gibi nefesden bilinür
Ḫânenüñ şenlügi içindeki sesden bilinür

In English

1. That there is a burning, a fire of love, in the heart is known from the breath, just as with the reed flute; that a house is merry is known from the sound coming from within. (The ney, the reed flute, is made from a hollow reed and gives sound only through the breath blown into it; likewise the fire in the lover's heart shows itself in his sighs.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is given in Latîfî's entry on Âftâbî immediately after the poet's famous opening couplet, under the heading "Velehu" (also his). Since both lines rhyme ("nefesden / sesden"), it is probably the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal, but the rest of the ghazal is not known. The rhyme is "-esden" and the redif (refrain word) is "bilinür". The metre is from the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". When Hüseyin Hüsameddin quotes the couplet from Latîfî in his History of Amasya, he gives the first line as "Ney gibi sûz-i derûn âh-ı nefesden bilinür", "the inner burning is known, like the ney, from the breath of sighs". The source of this reading is not stated; the meaning is the same in both texts. Nothing is known of to whom or when the couplet was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet proves a claim by means of an observation everyone knows. The second line is built like a saying current among the people: whether a house is merry can be told from outside, from the sounds that come from within. In divan poetry, supporting the claim of the first line with a proverb, or a saying in the manner of a proverb, in the second line is called irsâl-i mesel. Latîfî records that Âfitâbî's contemporary Cezerî Kasım Paşa (Sâfî) was considered one of the pioneers of this manner; this couplet is a product of the same taste.

In the first line the image of the ney comes to the fore. The ney is a hollow reed, and sound comes from it only through the breath blown into it. The "sûz", the burning, in the lover's heart cannot be seen from outside; but as the lover breathes and sighs, that fire reveals itself. The likeness drawn between ney and breath, house and sound, carries the whole couplet: the voice of the ney comes from the emptiness within it, the merriment of the house from the people within it, and the lover's grief from the fire within him. Bringing together the words ney, breath, burning and sound creates a strong congruence of images (tenasüp). The idea of the ney as an instrument that voices the pain of separation was established in Sufi literature by Rumi's Mesnevî; in the couplet of Âfitâbî, whom the biographers portray as a Sufi in his last years, this association can also be sensed.

Bibliography

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 135, entry on Âftâbî; pp. 321-322, entry on Sâfî (use of proverbs). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Abdizâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi 6-8. Cilt, ed. Songül Keçeci Kurt - Recep Orhan Özel - Metin Hakverdioğlu, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2022, p. 20. amasya.bel.tr