Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün

Vasl içün çok ağladım yok çâre hicrân aglasun
Bir gülün uğrunda mahv oldum gülistân aglasun
Yakdı sevdâ cânımı bu aşk ü irfân aglasun
Ah derdim bir zamân sevdâ ile cân aglasun
Kalmadı cânımda tâkat şimdi cânân aglasun
Lutf edib cânân bir gün sormadı üftâdesin
Vasl ile şâd itmedi bir dem bile dildâdesin
Cevrini artırdı eyvâh öldürür gamzedesin
Dehr bir sâkî gibi sundu bana gam bâdesin
Halime baksun değil hüşyâru mestân aglasun
Kalmadı cevre tahammül itmeye bir tâkatim
Ağlarım hicrân içinde geçdi ömr ü müddetim
Kendime sıklet virir her ân hayât ü râhatim
Zevk ü vaslından cüdâ mahzûn esîr-i mihnetim
Derdile bî-çâre gönlüm itsün efgân aglasın
Halka düşmen eyledi cânân içün gayret beni
Vahşet-âbâde götürdi halkdan nefret beni
İntihâra sevk iderse şaşma bu sîret beni
Kerbelâ-yı gamda medhûş eyledi hayret beni
Âh mâtem-zâre düşdüm gözlerim kan aglasun
Aşk ü sevdâ ömrümün mecmû’ını itdi hebâ
Aklımı idrâkimi hüsn uğruna itdim fedâ
Sûziş ü efgânıma Asrî bile itdi bükâ
Âteş-i hasretle yandım, kurtuluş yok Nelmiya
Hâlime âgâh olan her ârif insan aglasun

In English

1. I wept much for union, there is no remedy; now let separation weep. I was ruined for the sake of a rose; let the rose garden weep. Passion burned my soul; let this love and this understanding weep. Once I used to say, "Ah, let the soul weep with passion"; now no strength is left in my soul, let the beloved weep.

2. Not once did the beloved kindly ask after the one who had fallen for her; not for a moment did she gladden with union the one who had given her his heart. Alas, she increased her cruelty; her glance kills the one it wounds. Fate, like a cupbearer, offered me the wine of grief; let not the sober but the drunk look on my state and weep.

3. No strength is left me to bear cruelty; I weep in separation, my life and my time have passed. Life and rest alike weigh on me at every moment. Parted from the delight of union, sorrowful, I am the captive of affliction; let my helpless heart cry out in its pain and weep.

4. The jealousy I felt for the beloved made me an enemy of people; hatred of people drove me to wild and fearful places. Do not be surprised if this state drives me to take my own life. In the Karbala of grief bewilderment has stunned me; ah, I have fallen into a place of mourning, let my eyes weep blood.

5. Love and passion squandered the whole of my life; I sacrificed my reason and my understanding for beauty. Even Asrî wept at my burning and my lament. O Nelmî, I have burned in the fire of longing, there is no escape; let every discerning person who knows my state weep.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The tahmis is a verse form in which a poet takes another poet's ghazal and adds three lines in the same metre and rhyme before each of its couplets, building five-line stanzas. Here Hüsameddin has written a tahmis on the five-couplet ghazal with the refrain (redif) "aglasun" ("let it weep") by the Amasyan poet Nelmî (Tahsîn Hasan Efendi); the poem consists of five stanzas and twenty-five lines. The first three lines of each stanza are Asrî's, the last two are a couplet taken from Nelmî's ghazal. In the first stanza all five lines end with the sound "-ân aglasun". In the other stanzas the three lines Asrî added rhyme with the first line of the ghazal couplet: "üftâdesin, dildâdesin, gamzedesin, bâdesin", "tâkatim, müddetim, râhatim, mihnetim", "gayret beni, nefret beni, sîret beni, hayret beni", "hebâ, fedâ, bükâ, Nelmiya". According to Mücahit Kaçar the poem is written in the pattern "Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilâtün Fâ‘ilün".

The lines of the ghazal within the tahmis are spelled differently in a few places from the text of the ghazal that Hüsameddin gives separately on the same page: "hüşyâr mestân" appears here as "hüşyâru mestân", "düştüm" as "düşdüm", "Nelmiyâ" as "Nelmiya". The original text is given exactly as it is spelled in the tahmis. Kaçar, in the paper in which he studies this tahmis, read the pen name as "Nâmî" and refers to the poet by that name; in the 2022 edition of the History of Amasya the pen name appears clearly as "Nelmî", and Hüsameddin explains that it was chosen to rhyme with the name of Hilmî Bey, whom the poet loved.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Hüsameddin says he wrote the tahmis "in his voice", that is, in Nelmî's. So the speaker of the poem is Nelmî; the line in the fifth stanza "Sûziş ü efgânıma Asrî bile itdi bükâ" (even Asrî wept at my burning and my lament) is the point where the author of the tahmis places himself inside the poem as a witness. This is a skilful instance of the tahmis tradition's practice of setting the pen names in the stanzas: Nelmî's pen name stands in the ghazal's own couplet and Asrî's in the added lines, side by side.

The added lines prepare for each couplet of the ghazal. In the second stanza, after the beloved's indifference and her killing glance have been recounted, comes Nelmî's line "Dehr bir sâkî gibi sundu bana gam bâdesin"; the wine of grief thus appears as the result of the beloved's cruelty. The fourth stanza is the most shattering part of the tahmis. While the ghazal itself speaks of mourning through an allusion to Karbala, the lines Asrî added say openly that Nelmî fled from people ("halka düşmen", "vahşet-âbâd") and finally took his own life ("İntihâra sevk iderse şaşma bu sîret beni"). The death that stands as a foreboding in the ghazal appears in the tahmis as an accomplished event. There is congruence of images (tenasüp) between "gül" and "gülistân", "sâkî" and "bâde", "âteş" and "yandım"; and antithesis between "hüşyâr" and "mest", "vasl" and "hicrân". Karbala is, in divan poetry, the symbol of the greatest grief and mourning.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin tells Nelmî's life in the eighth volume of the History of Amasya. Nelmî had fallen into a mental crisis through his passion for Mehmed Ârif Efendi, the son of his teacher; in 1315 he returned from Istanbul to Amasya, shut himself in a cell of the Kapancızâde Madrasa and stopped seeing anyone. When Hüsameddin came to Amasya in Receb 1317 he met him from time to time, and Nelmî gave him his ghazal with the refrain "aglasun". The historian relates that he read the ghazal aloud beside him, that Nelmî's sorrow moved him deeply and that they wept together. On the seventeenth day of Zilhicce of the same year (April 1900) Nelmî took his own life by throwing himself into the Yeşilırmak from above the Yörgüç Pasha soup kitchen. Hüsameddin writes, "Merhûmun intihârını duyunca ağladım. Onun lisânından o gazeli şöyle tahmîs eyledim" (when I heard of the late man's suicide I wept; I wrote a tahmis on that ghazal in his voice as follows). The tahmis is the earliest of Asrî's known poems. For Nelmî's ghazal and life see Nelmî, Ghazal 2 and Nelmî (Tahsîn Hasan Efendi).

Bibliography

Online sources