Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün

Gülşen-i hüsnünde açmış lâle sünbül yâsemen
Gül cemâlin fark olunmaz gülden ey nâzik-beden
Ruhların gülden gül-âb almış lebinden bâdenin
Sâkiyâ peymâne devr itdin mi Cem bezminde sen
Kıldı âfâkı mu'attar bûy-ı zülfün ba'de-zîn
Hâke düşsün nâfesi yine harâb olsun Huten
Hâb-ı nâzından imızganmış çözülmüş dügmeler
Cism-i pâk-i nâzeninden sen de çık ey pîrahen
Âsım-ı mestim reh-i aşkında lâyıkdır bana
Der-be-der Mecnûn olup gerdâna takdırsam resen

In English

1. In the rose garden of your beauty tulip, hyacinth and jasmine have bloomed. O delicate-bodied one, your rose-like face cannot be told apart from the rose.

2. Your cheeks have taken their rosewater from the rose, and the wine (its colour) from your lip. O cupbearer, was it you who passed the cup round at the feast of Cem? (The couplet can be read in two ways; in Hüsameddin's reading the second half says: your cheeks have become rosewater from the rose and wine-coloured from your lip.)

3. From now on the scent of your locks has filled the horizons with perfume. Let the musk pods fall to the ground, let Khotan be ruined once again. (Khotan, the Central Asian city held to be the home of the musk deer; beside the beloved's locks its musk is worthless.)

4. She has dozed off in her coy sleep, her buttons undone. O shirt, you too slip away from that pure and delicate body.

5. I am Âsım the drunken; on the path of your love it befits me to become a Mecnun wandering from door to door and to have a rope put round my neck.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Two Sources, Two Readings

The complete ghazal is found in Fatîn Dâvud's Hâtimetü'l-eş'âr, in the edition prepared by Ömer Çiftçi; the text given here is the one quoted in Yunus Kaplan's entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar takes only the first two couplets from Fatîn in Amasya Tarihi. The main difference between the two texts lies in the first line of the second couplet: Hüsameddin reads "Ruẖlarıň gülden gülâb olmuş lebüňden bâde renk", while the edition has "Ruhların gülden gül-âb almış lebinden bâdenin". The first reading makes a neat comparison, linking the cheeks to rosewater and the lip to the colour of wine; in the second, the word "bâdenin" leaves the sentence open, and the couplet can only be understood by completing it as "and the wine took its colour from your lip". Whether the difference comes from the manuscripts or from the reading cannot be said without seeing the edition. The sources are silent on the metre; that the ghazal follows the fâilâtün pattern is our own finding.

From the Garden to the Shirt

The poem opens with a picture of spring but draws steadily closer to the beloved's body. In the first couplet beauty is a rose garden; the tulip suggests the cheek, the hyacinth the hair, the jasmine the skin, and face and rose cannot be told apart. The second couplet moves from the garden to the drinking party: rosewater is paired with wine, rose with lip, and the feast of Cem, the legendary Persian king, is recalled. In the third couplet the scent fills the whole horizon, and the musk of Khotan, the musk pod of the deer, becomes so worthless that it may be thrown to the ground. The fourth couplet is the boldest moment of the ghazal: a beloved sunk in coy sleep with buttons undone, and the shirt that is told "you too slip away". In the pen-name couplet the poet compares himself to the Mecnun of the story of Leylâ and Mecnûn, wandering from door to door with a rope round his neck; the word "mest", drunken, closes the circle that the feast had opened.

A Notable's Poem

Fatîn's verdict of "middling" may be explained by the stock images seen in these couplets. Even so, the poem shows how closely a notable who governed the sanjak of Amasya, and who lived between exile and pardon, was bound up with the culture of the literary gathering. The poet's life between exile and pardon is told in Âsım İbrâhim Bey (Yeğenzâde).

Bibliography

Primary sources

Books

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