Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). The commentary does not name the pattern; that it is remel is our own scansion.

Dimezem vuslat ümîdiyle beni şâd eylegil
Râzıyam cevr ü cefâ kılmağ içün yâd eylegil
Ger sanevber hizmet-i kaddüñde kıldıysa hilâf
Serv kaddüñçün çevir başuñdan âzâd eylegil
Cevr içinde cân virmekdür murâdum çün benüm
Ey rakîb ol yâra gayri san‘at irşâd eylegil
Âteş-i gamla gubâruñ yele virse ol sanem
Seyl-i eşküñle revân ol hâki âbâd eylegil
Çün felekden ‘Avnîyâ gamdur irişen âh ile
Bu perîşân-hatt olan evrâkı ber-bâd eylegil

In English

1. I do not say "gladden me with the hope of union"; remember me even to do cruelty and torment, and I am content.

2. If the pine has failed in service to your stature, for the sake of your cypress stature circle it over your head and set it free.

3. My wish is in any case to give up my life in cruelty; O rival, teach that beloved some other way.

4. If that idol (the beloved) gives your dust to the wind with the fire of grief, flow with the flood of your tears and make that earth flourish.

5. O Avnî, what reaches you from fate through your sighs is grief; scatter these pages of tangled writing to the wind.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The redif "eylegil" is the emphatic imperative of the verb "eyle" (do, make) in Old Turkish; every couplet tells someone to do something. The person addressed changes from couplet to couplet: first the beloved, then the beloved again, then the rival, then the lover himself. The rhyme words, "şâd, yâd, âzâd, irşâd, âbâd, ber-bâd", share the sound "-âd", and the couplets move in the long four-foot pattern of remel.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is the divan lover's humblest wish: he does not ask for union, and is content if the beloved remembers him even in order to torment him. The second couplet rests on an idiom and a custom that Doğan explains at length. "Başından çevirmek" (to circle over one's head) comes from the old Turkish custom of turning a thing several times above a person's head when birds were set free or alms were given, and it carries the sense of turning the good deed and its merit towards oneself. If the pine (sanevber) has failed in serving the beloved's stature, the beloved should, for the sake of her cypress stature, circle it over her head and set it free. Doğan also gives as examples couplets by Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi, Mesîhî and Sun'î that use the same idiom.

The third couplet gives the rival an unexpected piece of advice. The lover already wants to give up his life in torment on the beloved's path; if the beloved truly wants to destroy him, the rival should teach her another way. Doğan explains the thought behind the couplet thus: what really destroys the lover is not cruelty but the beloved's indifference and the favours she shows to others.

The lover's body in the fourth couplet is earth scorched by the fire of grief; the flood of tears gives this earth new life. Doğan sees in the couplet, through the words "sanem" (idol), "revân" (flowing, also soul) and the reviving of the earth, an allusion to the Qur'anic verses that tell of dead earth brought to life by water and to the miracle of Jesus, who made a bird from clay and gave it life. In Avnî's closing couplet the sigh rising to the sky becomes a letter. All that comes to the lover from fate is grief; and the lover sends to fate his sigh, rising from his breast in coils of black smoke, like pages filled with tangled writing fluttering in the wind.

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 44, pp. 342-345 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 14a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources