Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). Doğan's edition shows no metre; the pattern is from our scansion.

Sîneden ben kim çekem âh ü figân-ı derd-nâk
Yaralar kan ağlayup ol dem iderler sîne çâk
Şerbet-i la‘lüñ sunup ağyâra öldürdüñ beni
Gayre cân viren ‘acebdür kim beni eyler helâk
Her ne deñlü zülfüñüñ şahbâzı cânlar sayd ider
Ol hevâda cân kuşı pervâz ider bî-vehm ü bâk
Sürmege yüz pây-i serv-i yâre bulur dest-res
Kangı ‘âşık kim su gibi meşrebini ide pâk
Sîneye gelsün hayâl-i yâr dirseñ ‘Avnîyâ
Zahma merhem gibidür ger eyler iseñ sîne çâk

In English

1. Whenever I draw from my breast a sigh and lament full of pain, my wounds at that moment weep blood and tear open (their own) breasts.

2. By offering the sherbet of your ruby lip to others you have killed me; what gives life to others destroys me, how strange.

3. However many souls the falcon of your locks may hunt, the bird of the soul flies fearless in that air (with that desire).

4. Whichever lover makes his nature pure as water, he it is who gains the means to rub his face at the foot of the beloved's cypress stature.

5. O Avnî, if you say "let the beloved's image come to my breast", tear open your breast; (that image) is like a salve for the wound.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five couplets rhyme on the "-âk" sound of the words "derd-nâk, çâk, helâk, bâk, pâk, çâk"; there is no redif, and the phrase "sîne çâk" (tearing the breast) of the opening couplet is repeated exactly in the final one. This repetition frames the ghazal: at the beginning the wounds tear their breasts, at the end the lover tears his own. The measure is remel.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is an example of personification. As Doğan explains, Avnî gives his breast's wounds a personality: every time the lover sighs, the wounds, like a friend, share his grief, weep blood and tear their collars. The open mouth of a wound resembles a torn collar; the comparison joins the shape of the wound with the custom of mourning.

There is a strangeness in the second couplet. The beloved's lip is a sherbet that gives life to others, but its being offered to others kills the lover; the same lip is life in one place and death in another. In the third couplet the locks are a falcon that hunts every soul in its path. The lover's soul-bird does not flee from it; on the contrary, it flies fearlessly in its air. The word "hevâ", Doğan notes, calls up together the senses of air, love, desire, death and the dive of a bird of prey on its quarry; the soul-bird flies to death with love.

The fourth couplet brings water and the cypress together. Cypresses grow at the water's edge; clear running water, by reflecting the cypress's shadow, rubs its face at the tree's foot. So too, if the lover purifies his nature and temperament like water, he can rub his face at the beloved's foot. Doğan says that the cypress, resembling the letter elif, stands for God in Sufism, and that the expressions "rubbing the face" and "making pure as water" also allude to ablution and prayer. The final couplet ties in with the divan lover's contentment with the image of the beloved. The beloved's image comes to the breast only when the breast is torn open, and it becomes a salve for the wound. Alongside this thought Doğan cites Fuzûlî's couplet "Hayâl ile tesellâdur gönül meyl-i visâl etmez" (the heart is consoled by the image and does not long for union) and with a couplet by Necâtî saying that the image does not stay in the heart but flees.

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 39, pp. 311-314 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 12b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources