Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: fâilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün (remel). This note on metre, absent from the edition, rests on our own scansion.
Dür dişüñ fikri gözüm yaşını ummân eyler
Lâ‘l-i nâbuñ hevesi yüregümi kan eyler
Yarım ağız kime bendem dise ol şâh-ı cemâl
Sanasan ânı bütün ‘âleme sultân eyler
‘Işk derdine şifâ olmaz ise Kânûnda
Nûş-dârû-yı lebüñ anı da dermân eyler
Mest çıkmış müje tîğı-y-ile İslâm ehli
Hey meded komañuz ol kâfiri kim kan eyler
Geydürür cânına zevk ile safâ hullelerin
Her kim ol sîm-teni bir gice ‘üryân eyler
Gâh la‘li gibi gözüm yaşını al eyler
Gâh zülfi gibi hâlümi perîşân eyler
‘Avnîyâ yüzüñe sûret gözüñüñ yaşı virür
Kurı bâğa şerefi lâle-i nû‘mân eyler
In English
1. The thought of your pearl teeth turns the tears of my eye into an ocean; desire for your pure ruby lip turns my heart to blood.
2. If that king of beauty says "my slave" to someone with half a mouth, you would think he makes him sultan of the whole world.
3. If no cure for the pain of love is found in the Kânûn (Avicenna's book of medicine, or the kanun zither), the antidote of your lip cures that too.
4. Muslims, a drunken infidel (the eye) has come out into the field with the sword of the eyelash; for pity's sake, do not let him go, he will shed blood.
5. Whoever undresses that silver-bodied one for a single night clothes his soul in robes of joy and delight.
6. (The beloved) at times makes the tears of my eye red like her lip, at times makes my state dishevelled like her locks.
7. O Avnî, the tears of your eye give colour to your face; it is the poppy that gives honour to the dry garden.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The redif is the verb "eyler" (makes), and each of the seven couplets tells of someone turning one thing into another: the eye makes tears an ocean, the lip makes the heart blood, a word makes a slave a sultan. The words "ummân, kan, sultân, dermân, 'üryân, perîşân, nu'mân" rhyme on "-ân"; in the fourth couplet the word "kan" (blood) enters the rhyme a second time. The lines follow the mahbun branch of remel, "fâilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün", the last foot turning at times into "fa'lün".
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The opening couplet ties two precious stones to two liquids. The pearl comes from the bottom of the sea, and with the image of the pearl-like teeth the eye turns into an ocean. The ruby comes from the mine; according to a belief cited by Doğan, rubies came out of the earth white and were dipped in fresh bloody liver and reddened in the sun. The heart turning to blood with desire for the lip rests on this belief; the likeness in spelling and sound between "kan" (blood) and the Persian "kân" (mine) adds another play to the couplet. The second couplet is the plainest in the ghazal and the one most likely to be remembered: a "my slave" spoken by the king of beauty with half a mouth makes the lover sultan of the whole world.
The third couplet can be read in two ways. "Kânûn" is first Avicenna's famous medical book, el-Kânûn fi't-Tıb (the Canon of Medicine): if the cure for the pain of love is not in this book, the antidote of the beloved's lip cures it too. The word "nûş-dârû", Doğan notes, was used, besides antidote, also for wine and opium. The word is at the same time the kanun, the zither played on the knees. In this sense the couplet rests on the knowledge that the melancholy of love called black passion was treated with music; The support Doğan gives for this reading is Nev'î's line "Hasta-i 'ışkuz bize kânûn ile tîmâr olur" (we are sick with love, we are treated with the kanun). The cure of the lip is then a sweet word from the beloved's mouth or a melody sung to the kanun.
The fourth couplet calls the eye an "infidel" because of its blackness, its cruelty and its plundering of the land of the heart; it has girded on the sword of the eyelash and come out drunk into the field, and the poet calls on the Muslims for help. The sixth couplet distributes two comparisons over two balanced lines: tears red as the lip and a state as dishevelled as the locks. In the final couplet the face yellowed by love is likened to a dried-up garden, and the bloody tears running down it to the red poppies that grow at the edge of the garden; as Doğan points out, the poppy is also called "lâle-i nu'mân" or "şakâyık-ı nu'mâniye".
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 16, pp. 184-187 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 6a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx
Online sources
