Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün (remel). The edition writes no metre; we identified this branch of remel.

Görüñ ol gonca-lebi kim nice ra‘nâ olmış
Bir nihâl idi kadi serv-i dil-ârâ olmış
Kâm-ı cân istedügi lezzeti sordum bildüm
Hân-ı hüsninde lebi şehdi müheyyâ olmış
Halk-ı ‘âlem ki hilâli gözedür illâ ben
Kaşların seyr iderem özge temâşâ olmış
Yalıñuz ben degülem gülşen-i kûyında hezâr
Gül yüzi yâdına bülbül dahi şeydâ olmış
‘Avnîyâ şehd-i lebin göreli hayrân oldum
Nice nâzik nice ter sükker-i helvâ olmış

In English

1. Look at that bud-lipped one, how graceful he has become; he was a sapling, and his stature has become a heart-adorning cypress.

2. I asked after (or sucked) the taste the palate of the soul desired, and understood: on the table of his beauty the honey of his lip has been laid ready.

3. The people of the world watch for the crescent moon, but I gaze on his brows; it has become a sight of another kind.

4. I am not the only one lamenting in the rose garden of his street; remembering his rose face, the nightingale too has gone mad.

5. O Avnî, since I saw the honey of his lip I have been entranced; what a delicate, fresh sugared halva it has become.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal's opening couplet is news of growing up: the beloved, once a sapling, has become a cypress. The redif "olmış" (has become), as in the thirty-first ghazal, lists changes that have come about. The rhyme rests on the "-â" sound of the words "ra'nâ, dil-ârâ, müheyyâ, temâşâ, şeydâ, helvâ". The pattern "feilâtün feilâtün feilâtün feilün" places it in the mahbun branch of remel.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet sees the beloved's stature turn from a sapling into a cypress; when the epithet "dil-ârâ" (heart-adorning) is added to the cypress, the tree adorning the garden and the beloved adorning the heart come together. In the second couplet a table is laid: beauty is a dining table, and the honey of the lip is ready on it. The verb "sordum" (I asked), Doğan observes, also means "I sucked"; the lover has both asked after the taste of the lip and tasted it.

The third couplet rests on a custom of Ramadan. The end of Ramadan and the beginning of the feast are fixed by the sighting of the crescent on the horizon; everyone watches for this crescent. The lover, however, gazes on the beloved's crescent-shaped brows and says that this sight is a world of its own. In the twenty-third ghazal the brow was the crescent of the feast and separation was Ramadan; here the same comparison turns into a short, simple scene. In the fourth couplet the lover is not alone: the beloved's street is a rose garden, and there the nightingale too has gone mad with longing for the rose face.

The final couplet continues the image of taste: the honey of the lip is a sugared halva, "nâzik" and "ter", delicate and fresh. Here too the commentary digs beneath the surface. "Hayrân olmak" (to be entranced) also means to be intoxicated with hashish, and one name of hashish is known to be "leb-i dilber" (the beauty's lip); the use of the words "hayrân" and "sükker" (sugar) together may be an allusion to the craving for sweets of those who smoke hashish. This reading by Doğan, who points out the same associations in the twenty-ninth ghazal, adds a hidden joke to the sweet and innocent praise on the surface of the couplet.

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 32, pp. 273-274 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 10b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources