Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün (hezec; the first line fits the pattern only approximately. The commentary records no pattern, so the identification is ours)

Mûsâ-yı müjeñ olursa cânuma kâtil
Kâfir olayın olur isem ‘Îsîye kâ’il
Âteşde karâr eyledi gerçi ki semender
Sûz-i dil ü cân ruk‘asına olmaya hâmil
Vaslum dileyen cevrümi çeksün dir imiş yâr
Bu va‘desi gûya ki degül cevrine dâhil
Deryâlar akıtduğum odına iki gözden
Mümkin ola mı sîneden ol od ola zâ’il
‘Avnî ne kadar maksada erişmedi lîkin
Maksûdını yâd eylemeden olmadı gâfil

In English

1. If the Moses of your eyelash becomes the slayer of my soul, may I be an infidel if I consent to Jesus (to be revived).

2. The salamander took up its abode in fire, though only so as not to carry the cloak (the burden) of love that burns heart and soul.

3. The beloved says, it seems, "whoever wishes union with me must endure my cruelty"; as if this promise were not part of her cruelty.

4. I have poured seas from my two eyes on the fire you lit; is it possible for that fire to leave my breast?

5. However much Avnî has failed to reach his goal, he has never for a moment been heedless of remembering the one he seeks.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Every rhyme word, "kâtil, kâ'il, hâmil, dâhil, zâ'il, gâfil", follows the pattern of the Arabic active participle, and they meet in the sound "-il"; the ghazal has no redif. Its five couplets are in the ahreb branch of hezec: the second and later couplets fit the pattern "mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün" exactly, while the first line of the opening couplet fits it only approximately.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet reuses the allusions to the prophets of the divan's first ghazal. The beloved's eyelash is Moses, who killed an Egyptian (a Copt) with his fist; the lover counts dying by this eyelash as happiness and would not consent even if Jesus, who raised the dead, should come, for to be revived would be to escape this death. Doğan also sees a play of sound and suggestion in the couplet: "müje" (eyelash), the Arabic "mavsâ" (razor) and the name "Mûsâ" are called up at the same time. The couplets he gives from Sun'î and Necâtî are examples of the same play.

According to Doğan, the second couplet is one of the strongest in the ghazal and indeed in the divan; he counts it "berceste", a couplet beautiful enough to be memorised on its own and passed from mouth to mouth, and says that it shows clearly Mehmed II's power in poetry. The salamander was believed to live in fire. Avnî finds a reason for this: the salamander does not come out of the fire, because outside something more burning awaits it, the cloak of love that burns heart and soul. Love, an abstract concept, turns into a shirt of fire, and the salamander's fire becomes a refuge beside this shirt. The word "ruk'a" means both a patch, a piece of a cloak, and a short letter; to carry the burning burden of love also resembles, in this second sense, carrying a message.

The third couplet mocks the beloved's words. The beloved has said "whoever wants me must endure my cruelty"; but these words are themselves a part of the cruelty, and the beloved says them as if she did not count them so. The seas that flow from the eyes in the fourth couplet cannot put out the fire in the breast; the contrast of fire and water seen in the twelfth and forty-first ghazals ends here with a question. The last word belongs to faithfulness: Avnî has not reached his goal, union, but he has not forgotten for a moment the one he seeks, the beloved. "Maksad" (goal) and "maksûd" (the one sought) are two words from the same root, and the couplet ends by setting them against each other.

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 47, pp. 358-360 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 15a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources