Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Aḳar şûr-âbe-i eşküm raḳîb-i ḫûr ile ḫardan
İlâhî sen ḫalâṣ eyle bizi bu şûr ile şerden
Gözine beñzeyüp nergis ḳulaġına gül öykünmiş
Ne lâzım bunca cür'etler bir iki kûr ile kerden

In English

1. The bitter water of my tears flows because of the rival, base and asinine. O God, deliver us from this turmoil and this evil.

2. The narcissus has tried to resemble her eye, the rose to imitate her ear. What need of such audacity from a couple of the blind and the deaf.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The two couplets are a fragment of a ghazal (gazel) which Âşık Çelebi gives with the words "Eş'âr-ı û" (his poems). The first couplet is the opening couplet (matla); both its lines end in the sounds "-ardan / -erden". The rhyme of the ghazal is in the words "ḫar, şer, ker", and its redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-den". The rest of the ghazal and its pen-name couplet are unknown. These two couplets are found only in Âşık Çelebi; Kınalızâde, Beyânî and Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar do not quote this fragment. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre. To whom and when it was written is unknown.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The real craft of the fragment lies in its sound play. At the end of each line two words differing in a single vowel are set side by side with the conjunction "ile": "ḫûr ile ḫar", "şûr ile şer", "kûr ile ker". Expression based on this kind of sound resemblance is regarded in divan poetry as a play close to the pun. Two of these pairs are clear. "Şûr u şer", turmoil and evil, and "kûr u ker", blind and deaf, are well-known paired expressions taken over from Persian. We have read the first pair as "ḫor ile ḫar", that is, base and donkey. In Persian "ḫor" means contemptible, worthless, and "ḫar" means donkey; together they make a heavy insult directed at the rival. This reading and meaning are ours. "Şûr-âbe" means bitter, salty water and points to the salt of tears; the "şûr" in this word forms another sound play with "şûr" (turmoil) in the second line.

The second couplet displays an attitude common in divan poetry: the flowers' imitation of the beloved's beauty is counted as insolence. Because of the round crown at its centre, the narcissus is likened to an eye, but although this eye seems to look it does not see; divan poets often call the narcissus a sleepy, languid or sick eye. The layered petals of the rose are likened to an ear, but the rose is an ear that does not hear the nightingale's lament. The poet turns these two likenesses upside down: the narcissus that looks like an eye is blind and the rose that looks like an ear is deaf, so how can this "couple of the blind and the deaf" dare to compete with the beloved's eye and ear. We offer the blindness of the narcissus and the deafness of the rose as an interpretation drawn from this couplet. The word "cür'et" in the couplet also recalls "cur'a", meaning "a sip". This second association remains a possibility reaching into the world of the drinking gathering.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi gives these couplets under the heading "Zîrekî" as the poetry of the judge Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi, of the line of Molla Zeyrek. Considering that Âşık Çelebi knew this poet and gives vivid details about the conversations in his house and about his table, the attribution of the couplets to him is strong. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, however, ties the pen names Ânî and Zeyrekî to Seyrekzâde Ahmed Çelebi, whom he says was born in Amasya. The fragment's link with Amasya therefore depends on the outcome of the debate about the poet's identity. The details are in the article Ânî (Zeyrekî).

Bibliography

Online sources