Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Anuñ kim cân gözi ol dôstı gördi
Hemîn-dem gördi varın dôsta virdi
Göñül şehrinde ol dôst kaldı ancak
Fikir tagıldı 'aklın yile virdi
Ta'accüb itmeñ anı iy 'azîzler
Anı kim görmedi cân gözi gördi
Âşıkî 'ışka ma'nî iki vardur
Biri zâhir biri dôst ma'nî oldı
In English
1. He whose soul's eye saw that Friend gave all he had to the Friend at that very moment.
2. Only that Friend remained in the city of the heart; his thoughts scattered, he gave his reason to the wind.
3. Do not marvel at this, O dear ones; the eye of the soul saw one whom the eye had not seen.
4. Âşıkî, love has two meanings: one is the outward, one became the meaning of the Friend.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The Daughter of the Tekfur of Aydos
The taking of the fortress of Aydos is told in the twenty-sixth chapter through a love story. One night the tekfur's daughter sees the Prophet in a dream: she has fallen into a deep pit, a man of fair face and fair nature comes and lifts her out of it, takes off her old clothes and throws them away, washes her and dresses her in silk. On waking the girl marvels at her dream, but the image of the man in it takes away her reason; night and day he does not leave her eyes or her heart. The verse is spoken at just this point, before the story is resolved. Later in the chapter the girl will see the leader of the Turkish army besieging the fortress, Gazi Abdurrahman, and recognise in him the man of her dream.
The Two Meanings of Love
The girl's state is read in the language of Sufi love. "Cân gözi", the eye of the soul, is the heart's power of seeing as distinct from the eye of the head; the third couplet says so openly: the girl has seen with the eye of the soul one she had not seen. "Dôst", the Friend, in Sufi poetry is both the beloved and God. The closing couplet, which carries the pen name Âşıkî, distinguishes two meanings of love: one is outward, the love a person feels for a person; the other is "dôst ma'nî", the love of the Real. The girl of the story stands between these two meanings: the man of her dream is both the Prophet and the gazi who will shortly appear before her. The pen name Âşıkî is used here as a key to interpretation; the author, whose very name comes from the word "âşık", lover, draws his right to speak about love from his pen name. The verbs "virdi/gördi/oldı" at the line ends carry the refrain, the sound "-di" the rhyme.
Bibliography
- Âşık Paşazade, Osmanoğulları'nın Tarihi, ed. Kemal Yavuz, M. A. Yekta Saraç, Istanbul: K Kitaplığı, 2003, pp. 356-357 (transliterated text, bâb 26).
