Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün (remel). The edition does not specify this branch of remel; the identification is ours.

Ten-i bî-câna müjeñ hançeri kim câna geçer
Haste-i ‘ışka ecel şerbeti dermâna geçer
Görse ağyâr söger yüzüñe ‘âşık olana
Görüñ ol kâfiri kim dîn ile îmâna geçer
Hâr bakma dil-i vîrânuma ‘ışka nazar it
Gördügüñ genc-i nihân mahzen-i vîrâna geçer
Kûy-i dilberde figânuma ider ta‘n rakîb
Zâğ-ı nâ-sâzı görüñ murg-i hoş-elhâna geçer
Çok varup geldügüme kûyına dildâr dimiş
‘Avnî ‘âşık degül ise buradan ya ne geçer

In English

1. When the dagger of your eyelash pierces my lifeless body it comes to me like life; for the sick of love the draught of death passes for medicine.

2. If the rival sees someone in love with your face, he curses him to his face; look at that infidel who passes for a man of faith.

3. Do not look down on my ruined heart, look at the love within it; the hidden treasure you see lies in a ruined vault.

4. In the beloved's street the rival finds fault with my lament; look at the harsh-voiced crow that runs down the sweet-singing bird (or passes itself off as that bird).

5. Seeing me come and go so often to her street, the beloved said: "If Avnî is not a lover, why does he pass by here?"

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The verb "geçer" has many meanings in Turkish, and the ghazal uses almost all of them in turn: to take the place of something, to pass oneself off as someone, to be found in a place, to run someone down, and in its plain sense to pass through a place. That the redif takes on a different meaning in each couplet is the ghazal's real art. The words "câna, dermâna, îmâna, vîrâna, hoş-elhâna" rhyme on "-âna"; in the final couplet the redif is left without the rhyme, and the phrase "ya ne geçer" carries the close on its own. The metre is the branch of remel that begins with "feilâtün", the remel-i mahbun.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet reverses the medicine of love. Steel weapons are spoken of with "water" in divan poetry because they were sharpened by tempering in water; Doğan recalls this, adds that lovers await wounds from the beloved's dagger and arrow like water that will quench the fire of their hearts, and quotes a couplet from Fuzûlî's Water Qasida. In Avnî the dagger of the eyelash is a draught of death, but for the sick of love this draught is medicine and gives life to the lifeless body.

The rival of the second couplet curses those in love with the beloved's face. According to Doğan, the juxtaposition of the words "söger yüzüne" (curses to the face) refers to the ruling in books of doctrine that cursing someone's face and eyes counts as unbelief; this is why the rival is an infidel who passes for pious. The third couplet works with the belief that treasures are hidden in ruins. The lover's ruined heart is a ruin, and the love within it a hidden treasure. The couplet also alludes, in Doğan's view, to the saying "I was a hidden treasure and wished to be known", which Sufis count as a sacred hadith but which does not appear in the authoritative hadith collections.

In the fourth couplet the lover is likened to a sweet-voiced bird and the rival to "zâğ-ı nâ-sâz", the harsh-voiced crow. The verb "geçer" is read in two ways here: the crow runs down the nightingale, or the crow passes itself off as the nightingale. The final couplet is a scene of speech. The beloved has noticed that the lover often passes through her street and has said: "If Avnî is not a lover, why does he pass by here?" Doğan sees in these words, together with a reproach, a hidden pleasure awakened by something newly noticed. The phrase printed in the edition as "ya ne geçer" can also be read as "yana geçer"; the line then means "if Avnî is not a lover, he passes off to the side (in another direction)" or "unable to bear the fire of love, he passes by burning".

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 10, pp. 144-147 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 4a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources