Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün (the edition records no metre; we scanned the pattern of this opening ghazal ourselves)

Yüzüñ meh-i ‘îd ü ser-i zülfüñ şeb-i İsrâ
Gamzeñ yed-i Mûsâ leb-i la‘lüñ dem-i ‘Îsâ
Bu hüsn-i Hudâyî ki Hudâ saña virüpdür
Mânî-i cihân yazmadı tasvîrüñe hem-tâ
Alnuñ kamerine yüzüñ ayına müşâbih
Bunca göz ile görmedi bu çarh-ı muallâ
Şol câm ki nûş eylemişem bezm-i gamuñda
Bir sâde habâbıdur anuñ künbed-i hadrâ
‘Avnî seni medh eyledi çün tarz-ı gazelde
Matla‘ dedi yüzüñe vü ağzuña mu‘ammâ

In English

1. (O beloved,) your face is the crescent moon of Eid and the tip of your hair the night of the Night Journey (İsrâ); your languid glance is the hand of Moses (which worked miracles), your ruby lip the breath of Jesus (which raised the dead).

2. For a picture of this divine beauty that God has given you, the world, that Mani (the famous painter), could draw no equal.

3. This lofty sky, though it keeps watch with so many eyes (its stars), has seen nothing to match the brightness of your brow or the full moon of your face.

4. In the gathering of grief for you I drank such a cup that this green dome (the sky) is no more than an empty bubble on that wine.

5. When Avnî praised you in the manner of the ghazal, he called your face the "matla'" and your mouth a "riddle" (muamma).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The divan opens with this ghazal (gazel); its five couplets begin on folio 1b of the manuscript in the Millet Library. The rhyme is the long "â" sound at the end of the words "İsrâ, hem-tâ, muallâ, hadrâ, mu'ammâ"; there is no redif (refrain word). The "mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün" pattern of the ahreb hezec metre, with its long and heavy syllables, gives a grave sound suited to praise.

Muhammet Nur Doğan reads the ghazal as a poem in praise of the Prophet, that is, a na't. This reading, which fits the custom of opening a divan with prayer and praise, is also supported by the poem's images: the Night Journey, the hand of Moses and the breath of Jesus surround the beloved with the miracles of the prophets. Yet the ghazal is written entirely in the language of love poetry, without naming the beloved; the reader can also follow it as a praise of beauty.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet fits four comparisons into two lines. The crescent moon, which announces the end of Ramadan and the beginning of the festival, gives the face its brightness and its sense of joy. The long black hair is the night of İsrâ, on which the Prophet ascended to heaven (the Mi'raj). Doğan explains the link between the glance (gamze) and the "hand of Moses" (yed-i Mûsâ) in two ways: Moses' white hand (yed-i beyzâ) astonished his enemies, and a single blow of his fist killed an Egyptian (a Copt); the beloved's glance kills in the same way. The "breath of Jesus" (dem-i 'Îsâ) given to the lip is the breath that raised the dead. Since the same word "dem" means blood in Arabic, the phrase also recalls the wine of the Christian rite, the blood of Jesus; a double entendre (tevriye) is thus set up between the red lip and wine.

The Mânî of the second couplet is the painter known as the founder of the Manichaean religion, famous for his illustrated holy book. The world is likened to a Mani: even this master who draws all forms has not been able to paint the beloved's equal. The third couplet imagines the sky as a spectator that has opened its stars like eyes. "Kamer" here means moonlight, and the couplet builds the picture of a full moon shining in a night lit by moonlight; the black hair framing the face is the darkness of that night.

With the fourth couplet the scale is reversed. Life spent apart from the beloved is a gathering of grief, and the wine of this gathering is love itself. The whole sky, the "green dome" (künbed-i hadrâ), is worth no more than a small bubble of air rising on this wine. The final couplet plays with literary terms. "Matla'" is both the first couplet of a ghazal and the place where the sun and moon rise; used of the face, it points to the horizon where beauty rises. "Muamma" is a riddle in verse, a fitting name for a mouth that holds secrets hard to solve. The poet thus ends his praise by pinning the ghazal's own technical terms on the beloved.

Bibliography

  • Fâtih Sultan Mehmed (Avnî), Fâtih Dîvânı ve Şerhi / Dīwān of Sultan Mehmed II with Commentary, ed. Muhammet Nur Doğan, English trans. Michael D. Sheridan, 3rd ed., Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2023, poem 1, pp. 90-94 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 1b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources