Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün (remel). The edition names no metre and gives no pattern; both come from our scansion.

Görsek ol gonca-lebi çâk-ı girîbân iderüz
Gül yüzüñ yâdına bülbül gibi efgân iderüz
Haste dil kapuña varsa n’ola tîmâr ister
Yine bu derde anuñ derdine dermân iderüz
Mihrüñ ey hüsn[i] bedî‘ ü leb-i la‘li şîrîn
Kıssa-i Hamza gibi ‘âleme destân iderüz
Kâmetüñ şevki ‘alem-veş ne kadar olsa ‘ıyân
Dilde râz-ı dehenüñ sırrını pinhân iderüz
‘Avnîyâ gerçi ölüm dünyede müşkil işdür
Gamze-i dilber ile biz anı âsân iderüz

In English

1. Should we see that bud-lipped one, we tear our collars; remembering her rose face, we lament like the nightingale.

2. What if the sick heart goes to your door; it seeks treatment; we find a cure for its pain at this same door.

3. O you whose beauty is matchless and whose ruby lip is sweet, we make our love for you an epic to the whole world like the Tale of Hamza.

4. However openly the longing for your stature shows, like the finial of a banner, we keep the secret of your mouth hidden in the heart.

5. O Avnî, death is a hard thing in this world, but we make it easy with the beloved's glance.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

As in the twenty-seventh ghazal, the lovers here speak as "we"; the redif "iderüz" (we make, we do) tells in every couplet what the community does. The rhymes "girîbân, efgân, dermân, destân, pinhân, âsân" are in "-ân". The mahbun branch of remel supplies the metre. There is a difference of reading in the third couplet: Kemal Edip Ünsel reads "hüsn-i bedî'" (matchless beauty); Doğan, thinking that two epithets of the beloved are listed in the line, reads "hüsni bedî'", that is, "whose beauty is matchless", and argues that the letter at the end of the word "hüsn" was mistakenly left out in the manuscript.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet carries the relation of nightingale and rose over to lover and beloved: when the bud-like lip and the rose face are seen, collars are torn and laments are raised like the nightingale's. The second couplet makes the beloved's door a hospital; Doğan says that the heart is imagined as a patient struck by black passion and the door as a hospital. The cure of the pain lies at the same door that gave the pain.

The third couplet refers to the Hamzanâme, which tells of the heroic deeds of Hamza and was widely read among the people; the lovers will make the beloved's beauty an epic to the whole world like that tale. The fourth couplet compares the open and the hidden. The tall, straight stature is visible to all like the finial at the top of a banner; the mouth, by contrast, is almost non-existent because of its smallness, and the words that come from it are kept like a secret. Doğan finds a second layer in this couplet: "şevk" (longing) recalls wine and "râz-ı dehen" (the secret of the mouth) recalls hashish; while the wine cup shows itself like a banner with its redness, drugs are carried hidden on the breast like an amulet. Drawing on Ahmet Talât Onay, he adds that "dilber dudağı" (the beauty's lip) and "gamze-i dilber" (the beauty's glance) were names used for hashish.

The final couplet speaks of making death easy. The first meaning is plain: because the arrow and sword of the beloved's glance give pain worse than death, death comes easy to the lover who is their target. Recalling that the name "gamze-i dilber" also denoted hashish, Doğan says that the couplet may contain a reference to the use of drugs to relieve the pain of the gravely ill, and, starting from the likening of the glance to a sword, that it may also point to suicide, which was called "falling on the dagger". These additional readings are the commentary's suggestions; on the surface of the couplet there is only love's power to lighten death.

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 29, pp. 260-262 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 10a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources