Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün

Eğerçi kim işin cevr ü sitemdir
Bana senden gelen lutf ü keremdir
Gözün ger cân ala ve ger içe kân
Bana şâdîdir ol sanma ki gamdır
Yanarken şem’ gibi firkatünde
Gözüm kan yaşları-la nice nemdir
Eğerçi ağzın nişânın kimse bilmez
Diyemezem ki ol nokta ademdir
Saçın sevdâsına düşdü benefşe
Benim gibi anın-çün kaddi hamdır
Eğer girse elüme sürmeyiçün
Ayağın tozu kim zî-hoş kademdir
Ne devlet bundan artuk Ahmediye
Ki aşkın ile âlemde alemdir

In English

1. Though your whole business is cruelty and oppression, what comes to me from you is grace and generosity.

2. Whether your eye takes my life or drinks my blood, it is joy to me; do not think it is grief.

3. As I burn like a candle in your absence, how wet my eye is with tears of blood.

4. Though no one knows the trace of your mouth, still I cannot say that that point is nothingness.

5. The violet has fallen in love with your hair; that is why its stature, like mine, is bent.

6. If only the dust of your foot, so fine a step, would come into my hand to be applied as kohl. (The connection between the lines cannot be fully established; the couplet may have been transmitted incomplete or corrupt.)

7. What greater fortune could Ahmedî have than this, that through your love he is known in the world like a banner.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-dir", and the rhyme is built on the sound "-em" (sitem, kerem, gam, nem, adem, ham, kadem, alem). The source gives no metre; the lines fit the pattern "mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün" of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre), a scansion that is ours. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar quotes the ghazal, together with the other two, from the Mecma'ü'n-Nezâ'ir in the Nuruosmaniye Library, introducing it with "this too is his". In a footnote placed after the last couplet he writes, "The place of this line is left blank thus in the Mecma'ü'n-Nezâir"; that is, the place of one line was left empty in the anthology. He does not say which line is missing. The fact that no connection of meaning can be established between the two lines of the sixth couplet suggests that the gap may concern this couplet; this is an inference. The text is as in Hüsameddin; to whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal continues the theme seen in Ahmedî's other ghazal: cruelty from the beloved is grace for the lover. In the first couplet "cevr ü sitem" (cruelty and oppression) is set against "lutf ü kerem" (grace and generosity); in the second, even the eye that takes life and drinks blood brings the lover joy rather than grief. The third couplet joins the images of the candle and of tears: the lover burns like a candle, yet his eye is wet with tears of blood; the contrast between burning and wetness is the finesse of the couplet.

The fourth couplet rests on one of the best-known conceits of divan poetry. The beloved's mouth is so small that it is likened to a point, even to nothingness; no one can find its trace. Ahmedî takes the conceit a step further: though the trace of the mouth is unknown, he cannot say it is nothingness, for words come out of that mouth. The link between "nokta" (point) and "adem" (nothingness) comes from the language of theology. In the fifth couplet the drooping posture of the violet is likened to the bent stature of a lover smitten with the beloved's hair; beneath the simile also lies the likeness between the colour of the violet and the darkness of the hair. In the last couplet the words "âlem" (world) and "alem" (banner, emblem) stand side by side and form a paronomasia (cinas); love has made the poet known in the world like a banner.

Bibliography

Online sources