Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Baġ-ı ruhunda gül yüzüne zâr olam gibi
Sümbüllerine yine hevâ-dâr olam gibi
Mushafda geldi fâl açıcak sûre-i Duhân
Âşûfte-hâl-i hatt-ı siyeh-kâr olam gibi
Bir fâle bakıcı didi fâlünde geldi lâm
Bend-i kemend-i zülfe giriftâr olam gibi
İrmez kemend-i zülfine bir kimse saʿy ile
Ben bu hevâda son ucı ber-dâr olam gibi
Sevdâ-yı zülf-i müşk-i nigâr ile Ânîyâ
Bâzâr-ı ışk-ı yârda attâr olam gibi

In English

1. It seems I shall be one who laments for your rose face in the garden of your cheek; it seems I shall once again be enamoured of your hyacinth locks.

2. When I opened the Qur'an for an augury, the sura Duhân (Smoke) came up; it seems I shall be undone by the dark down on your face, which does dark deeds.

3. A fortune-teller said, "The letter lâm has come up in your fortune"; it seems I shall be caught, bound in the lasso of your locks.

4. No one reaches the lasso of your locks by striving; it seems that in this passion (in this air) I shall end up hanged on the gallows.

5. O Ânî, with the passion for the beloved's musk-scented locks, it seems I shall be a perfumer in the market of love for my darling.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a complete ghazal (gazel) of five couplets. The two lines of the opening couplet (matla) rhyme with each other, and in the remaining couplets only the second lines carry the same sound. The redif (refrain word) is "olam gibi", and the rhyme is the sound "-âr" in "zâr, hevâ-dâr, siyeh-kâr, giriftâr, ber-dâr, attâr". In the last couplet the poet addresses himself as "Ânîyâ" (O Ânî); the presence of the pen name (mahlas) in this couplet shows that we have the whole ghazal. The text appears in Ahdî's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire) Gülşen-i Şuarâ, completed in 1563, and was quoted from there in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre. To whom and on what occasion it was written is unknown.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal are built on the same pattern: in each the poet sees a sign and reads from it the fortune of his love. The refrain "olam gibi" is a conjecture in old Turkish meaning "it looks as though I shall be, I shall probably be". The ghazal therefore resembles a book of omens in which the lover reads in advance what will befall him. The second and third couplets tie this idea directly to scenes of divination. Opening the Qur'an at random and drawing meaning from the verse that comes up was a familiar method of augury in former times. The poet draws the sura Duhân, that is, "Smoke"; since in divan poetry the dark down appearing on the beloved's cheek is likened to smoke or to writing that clouds the bright face, the poet interprets this as a sign that he will be undone by the beloved's down (hat). The adjective "siyeh-kâr" means both "black in colour" and "doing black deeds, cruel", loading the down with a second sense.

In the third couplet the omen comes from the mouth of a fortune-teller. Because of its curved shape, the Arabic letter "lâm" is likened in divan poetry to the beloved's curling locks. The lover in whose fortune lâm appears understands that he will fall into the lasso of the locks. The fourth couplet carries this image of the lasso to a dramatic end: no one reaches the locks by striving; only one drawn up on the gallows can hang from them. The word "hevâ" is used in the sense both of "air" and of "desire, passion"; the hanged man remains in the air, and the lover goes to the rope in this passion. The phrase "ber-dâr" (on the gallows) completes the relation between lasso and rope. The closing couplet (makta) returns to the scent of the locks: the lover who has fallen into passion for the musk-scented locks carries that scent like someone who has opened a perfumer's shop in the market of love. Besides the passion of love, the word "sevdâ" in this couplet also means black bile in old medicine and calls to mind the link between the perfumer's trade and remedies; this second sense is our interpretation.

Historical Context

Ahdî assigns this ghazal to Ânî, known as Zeyrekzâde. The poet introduced by the tezkires and the dictionary is the judge Zeyrekzâde Mehmed Çelebi, of the line of Molla Zeyrek, who died in Bursa in 977 (1569-70). Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, however, ties the pen names Ânî and Zeyrekî to Seyrekzâde Şemseddin Ahmed Çelebi, whom he says was born in Amasya. The ghazal therefore carries only an indirect and disputed link with Amasya. How the two men came to be confused and what the sources say is set out in detail in the article Ânî (Zeyrekî). This ghazal does not appear in Hüsameddin's entry, which quotes only two couplets as the poet's.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Books

  • Ahdî, Gülşen-i Şu'arâ, ed. Süleyman Solmaz, Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Yayınları, 2005, p. 203 (as quoted in Atik Gürbüz 2014).
  • İncinur Atik Gürbüz, "Ânî/Zeyrekî, Zeyrek-zâde Mehmed Ânî Çelebi", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, 16.06.2014 (updated 08.12.2020). https://teis.yesevi.edu.tr/madde-detay/ani-zeyreki-zeyrekzade-mehmed-ani

Online sources