Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef’ûlü mefâilün feûlün

Gamzen gönüle belâdır ey dost
Can zülfüne mübtelâdır ey dost
Cevrin bana hoş vefâdır ey dost
Derdin dileği devâdır ey dost
Bağlandı gönül saçına ol bağ
Can diledügü hevâdır ey dost
Gözlerime nûr u rûşinâyı
Senden nazar-ı safâdır ey dost
Sen dürr içün ûş gözüm çü gavvâs
Deryâda hoş âşinâdır ey dost
Ne cevr ider isen it bana kim
Bînüm sana hoş du’âdır ey dost
Yüzün güline gül Ahmedînin
Ne bülbüş-i hoş edâdır ey dost

In English

1. O friend, your glance is a calamity for the heart; and the soul is captive to your tresses.

2. O friend, your cruelty is to me a sweet faithfulness; and what the pain you give desires is the cure. (The second line can be read in two ways: "your pain is itself the cure that is sought" or "the wish of your pain is that it be cured".)

3. The heart was bound to your hair with that bond; and this passion is what the soul desires, O friend.

4. O friend, what gives light and brightness to my eyes is the pure and gentle look that comes from you.

5. O friend, you are like a pearl; and see, my eye, like a diver plunging into the sea for that pearl, is one well acquainted with the sea, a good swimmer.

6. Inflict whatever cruelty you will upon me; O friend, my answer to you is a sweet prayer. (The reading of the word "Bînüm" is not clear; the meaning is given according to the reading "benim", mine.)

7. O friend, what a sweet-voiced nightingale Ahmedî's heart is to the rose of your face. (The words "gül" and "bülbüş" in the text should most probably be "dil" and "bülbül"; the meaning follows this correction, and the reading is ours.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. The redif (refrain word) is "ey dost" (in most couplets "-dır ey dost"), and the rhyme is the sound "-â" (belâ, mübtelâ, vefâ, devâ, hevâ, safâ, âşinâ, du'â, edâ). The source gives no metre; the lines fit the pattern "mef'ûlü mefâilün feûlün" of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre), a short and lively pattern which, together with the address "ey dost" in the refrain, gives the ghazal a song-like cadence; the scansion is ours. After the opening couplet, both lines of the second couplet also end with the refrain. This may point to a second rhyming couplet following the opening one, or it may result from the ghazal having been confused when copied from the anthology. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar quotes the ghazal, together with the preceding one, from the Mecma'ü'n-Nezâ'ir in the Nuruosmaniye Library; the text is in the form he gives and could not be compared with the editions of the divan. The translation of the entry in the encyclopedia section also noted that some lines were written in a corrupt form. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The theme of the ghazal is that everything coming from the beloved counts as a favour to the lover. The glance becomes a calamity, the tresses a passion, cruelty faithfulness, pain a cure; the lover accepts even the suffering the beloved inflicts. This reversal is built in the first two couplets on pairs of opposites such as calamity and cure, cruelty and faithfulness. In the third couplet the image of the tresses as a bond to which the heart is tied is strengthened by the repetition of the word "bağ" (bond). The word "hevâ" means both desire and passion and also air.

The fifth couplet carries the richest image of the ghazal. The beloved is the pearl at the bottom of the sea, and the lover's eye is the diver plunging into the sea to seek that pearl; the sea, though not named, recalls the tears. The word "âşinâ" means both acquaintance, someone familiar, and swimmer; the eye is no stranger to the sea of tears but a diver who knows well how to swim there. This double meaning is a fine example of double entendre (tevriye), and the observation is ours. The word "ûş" means "see, behold" in old Turkish. In the last couplet the conceit of the rose and the nightingale joins the pen name: the poet's heart is a nightingale singing to the rose of the beloved's face. The corruption of two words in the text also shows the problems carried by poems copied from anthologies.

Bibliography

Online sources