Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Aşkının odına düşdüm hâlimi sor ey habîb
Derd-mendem derdime tîmâr eyle ey tabîb
Her gice senin cemâlin şevki ile tâ seher
İnlerim ben şöyle kim gül hasretinden andelîb
Senden ayru şem’ bigi hûn-ı dilimdür yedüğüm
Herkes anı yer ki olmışdır ezel ana nasîb
Tâpuna irem diyü kapında çok oldum mukîm
Dimedin bir gün ki neyler eşiğimde bu garîb
Ne aceb yansa yüzün şevki ile canum oda
Ola mı pervâneden şem’a düşüb yanmak acîb
Sen bana benden yahın ma’nîde senden ben sana
Gerçi sûretde ırağ etdi beni senden rakîb
‘Ud bigi yanar iken Ahmedînin nâlesi
İşidin dir inne İbrâhime evvâhün münîb

In English

1. O beloved, I have fallen into the fire of your love; ask how I fare. I am stricken; O physician, give my pain its remedy and care.

2. Every night until dawn, longing for your beauty, I moan as the nightingale moans only for want of the rose.

3. Apart from you, what I eat, like a candle, is the blood of my heart; everyone eats what was allotted to him in pre-eternity.

4. Hoping to reach your presence I waited long at your door; not once did you say, "What is this stranger doing at my threshold?"

5. What wonder if my soul should fall into the fire and burn for longing for your face; is it a wonder that the moth falls into the candle and burns?

6. In meaning you are nearer to me than I am, and I am nearer to you than you are; though in outward form the rival has set me far from you.

7. While Ahmedî's lament burns like aloeswood, hear it; he says, "Truly İbrâhim is tender-hearted and turns to God in repentance."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. The rhyme is built on the sound "-îb" (habîb, tabîb, andelîb, nasîb, garîb, acîb, rakîb, münîb), there is no redif (refrain word), and the pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The source gives no metre; its long lines recall the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), but because of the lengthened vowels and liaisons of old Turkish no definite scansion is offered here. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar included the ghazal in his Amasya Tarihi, saying that he saw it in the copy of the Mecma'ü'n-Nezâ'ir in the Nuruosmaniye Library. Hüsameddin notes that this anthology collected the response poems (nazire) of Amasya poets; the TEİS entry also stresses how often Ahmedî's poems served as models in the anthologies of response poems. To whom and when the ghazal was written is not known; the text is as in Hüsameddin and could not be compared with the editions of the divan.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal sets out the familiar conceits of divan poetry in plain and flowing Turkish. In the opening couplet the words "habîb" (beloved) and "tabîb" (physician) are linked by both rhyme and meaning: the one who causes the lover's pain is also the one who will cure it. The second couplet brings the rose and the nightingale, the third the candle, and the fifth the candle and the moth. The phrase in the third couplet, "eating one's heart's blood like a candle", likens the candle that consumes its own substance as it burns to the lover consumed from within by separation; the saying "everyone eats what was allotted to him in pre-eternity" binds this suffering to a decree of fate. In the fourth couplet the word "tapu" means presence or service in old Turkish; the lover appears as a stranger waiting at the threshold in the hope of being admitted to the beloved's presence. In the translation of the entry in the encyclopedia section the word "irem" was taken as the Garden of Irem; here the reading "ireyim" (that I may reach) is preferred.

The sixth couplet is the deepest in thought. In outward form (sûret) the rival has driven the lover away from the beloved, but in meaning (ma'nî) the two are nearer to each other than to themselves. The contrast of form and meaning is one of the basic concepts of Sufism, and the couplet speaks of human love in the language of divine love. In the last couplet the word "ud" is used in two senses: aloeswood, which gives off a sweet scent when burned, and the ud, a lute that moans. Burning and moaning thus meet in the same word; this is a congruence of images (tenasüp) built on a double entendre (tevriye), and the observation is ours.

Historical Context

The last line quotes part of the words said of Abraham in verse 75 of the sura Hûd in the Qur'an: "Truly Abraham was forbearing, tender-hearted and turning to God". Because Ahmedî's real name was İbrâhim, the prophet's name in the verse also stands for the poet's own name; pen name and real name meet in the same couplet. Hüsameddin states plainly that he also deduced from this line that the poet's name was İbrâhim. This ghazal has thus been used, besides its literary value, as one of the sources for Ahmedî's identity.

Bibliography

Online sources