Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ḫaṭuña cân virür dil gerçi kim şâm-ı eceldür bu
Ezelden ey yüzi gün dün ġarîbüñdür mes̱eldür bu
Miyânından ḫaber ṣorarsañ iḳlîm-i melâḥatde
Ötesi kûh-ı billûra aşar bir ince beldür bu

In English

1. The heart gives its life for the down on your face (hat), though this down is the evening of death. O sun-faced one, since eternity night has been a stranger to you; this is a well-known saying. (The couplet can be read in two ways; for the second reading see the commentary below.)

2. If you ask about her waist in the realm of beauty, this is so narrow a waist (a pass) that beyond it the way crosses a mountain of crystal.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets, which Âşık Çelebi gives one after the other with "Ve lehu" (this too is his), are fragments of the same ghazal (gazel). The first couplet is the opening couplet (matla), both of its lines ending in "-eldür bu". The rhyme of the second couplet is the word "bel", and the redif (refrain word) of the ghazal is "-dür bu". The rest of the ghazal and its pen-name couplet are unknown. The second couplet is the one most often quoted from Ânî in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire): Kınalızâde and Beyânî also give it among the poet's examples, and Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar quotes it from the tezkire of Kâfzâde Fâizî. In Beyânî the line ends "bir ince yoldur bu". The Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü gives the first couplet from Âşık Çelebi with the readings "Hatuna" and "Ecelden"; here the text of Kılıç's edition has been followed. The editions of the tezkires do not indicate the metre. To whom it was addressed is unknown.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on "hat", one of the best-known conventional images (mazmun) of divan poetry. The appearance of down on the beloved's face is regarded as a darkness that shadows the brightness of the cheek, and is seen as the harbinger of the end of beauty. The poet therefore calls the down "the evening of death": night is falling over the face that shines like the sun. Even so the heart gives its life for this down. In the second line the address "yüzi gün" (sun-faced) is set against the word "dün" (night). Night cannot dwell where the sun is; beside the sun it is always a stranger, and this is a proverb everyone knows. The line can also be read another way: since eternity the night, that is, the dark down, has been your stranger, a foreigner that has taken refuge on your face. In both readings the opposition between day and night, face and down, carries the real craft of the couplet; the readings are ours.

The second couplet is built on a double entendre (tevriye). The word "bel" means both the human waist and a narrow pass between mountains. By saying "the realm of beauty" the poet turns the beloved into a country. In this country, the answer given to a traveller asking where the waist lies becomes a description of terrain: it is a narrow pass, and beyond it rises a mountain of crystal. The crystal mountain is a delicate allusion to the white and gleaming body of the beloved below the waist, or to her breast. Beyânî's reading "ince yol" (narrow road) also shows that the couplet was understood in the sense of a pass. The slenderness of the waist is so exaggerated in divan poetry that it is often declared "non-existent"; here, instead of abolishing it, the poet has placed it on the map.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi assigns these couplets to Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi, whom he introduces under the heading "Zîrekî"; Kınalızâde and Beyânî also record the second couplet as a poem of the judge Ânî known as Zeyrekzâde. Hüsameddin, however, ties the same couplet to Seyrekzâde Ânî Ahmed Çelebi, whom he says was born in Amasya. The attribution of the couplet therefore depends on the question of the identity of the poet who used the pen name (mahlas) Ânî. What the sources say and how the two men came to be confused is set out in detail in the article Ânî (Zeyrekî).

Bibliography

Primary sources

Books

Online sources