Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün (hezec). The edition does not name this short hezec pattern; the identification is ours.

Eger meyl itmese nâza güzeller
Göñül aldurmaz idi ehl-i diller
Dehânuñuñ beyânı muhtasardur
Mutavveldür saçuñda muhtasarlar
Harâmî gamzeñ ü tarrâr zülfüñ
Göñül şehrinde bilmen ne ararlar
Senüñ vasluñ metâı cân degermiş
İşidürüz görenler şöyle dirler
Dile zülfüñde gamzeñden irişür
Gice içinde korhulu haberler
Kalur ayakda zülfüñe uyanlar
Saçuñ sevdâ iden başdan çıkarlar
Gül-i dünyâda yokdur bûy-i rahat
Hemân ‘Avnî irişür derd-i serler

In English

1. If beautiful ones did not incline to coquetry, the people of the heart would not lose their hearts.

2. The account of your mouth is brief (a Muhtasar); in your hair even brief accounts are long (a Mutavvel).

3. Your brigand glance and your pickpocket locks: I do not know what they are looking for in the city of the heart.

4. The goods of union with you are worth a life, so those who have seen it say, and so we hear.

5. In your locks (in the night of your locks), fearful news reaches the heart from your glance.

6. Those who follow your locks are left stranded; those who make your hair their passion lose their heads.

7. In the rose of the world there is no scent of ease; O Avnî, (to one who smells it) nothing comes but headaches.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Among the divan's ghazals, this one is written in a short metre: the "mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün" pattern of the hezec metre, with its eleven-syllable lines, suits a plain manner close to speech. There is no redif; the rhyme rests on the plural suffix "-ler / -lar" and the sounds before it in the words "güzeller, ehl-i diller, muhtasarlar, ararlar, dirler, haberler, çıkarlar, derd-i serler". The looseness of the rhyme shows that the ghazal is after fluency more than ornament.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The second couplet is a joke from the world of the madrasa. "Muhtasar" means abridged and "mutavvel" lengthened; since the mouth is described by its smallness, its account is brief, while the hair reaches to the heels, so even a brief account of it takes long. As Doğan points out, the two words are at the same time the titles of two rhetoric textbooks studied in the madrasas: of Teftâzânî's commentaries on the Telhîsü'l-Miftâh, the shorter is known as the Muhtasar and the longer as the Mutavvel. The couplet thus turns the beloved's beauty into a reading list.

The third and fifth couplets draw the same picture twice. The heart is a city; the beloved's glance is a brigand carrying arrows of eyelashes and the sword of a look, and the locks are a pickpocket who steals the cash of life with a long hand. To Doğan's ear, the lover who asks "what are they looking for" is really pleased with this plunder. In the fifth couplet the locks resemble night and the glance a brigand, and in the night fearful news comes to the heart; there is an ordered lef ü neşr between locks and night, glance and fearful news.

The sixth couplet is built on two idioms. "Ayakda kalmak" in Old Turkish meant to be unable to carry a task forward and be left halfway, to be left forlorn in the open; whoever follows the locks is left stranded on the road. "Başdan çıkmak" means both to lose one's mind and to lose one's life. The final couplet likens the world to a rose: strongly scented flowers bring on a headache the more they are smelled, and in the rose of the world there is no scent of peace. "Derd-i ser", headache and trouble, is a well-known idiom; the ghazal gives no advice and simply closes on this everyday expression.

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 15, pp. 178-180 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 5b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources