Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün (müctes). Nothing in the edition records the metre of this ghazal about writing; reading it as müctes is ours.

Göñül gamını niçe safha-i beyâna yazam
Kalemden od çıkuban korkaram ki yanayazam
Yüzüñle zülfüñi giceyle güne nisbet idüp
Kaşuñla kirpigüñi tîr ile kemâna yazam
Gözüñ ki kasd ide kan dökmege hüsâm okuyam
Müjeñ ki sîneleri çâk ide sinâna yazam
Sirişk seylini deryâlara idem teslîm
Güneş yüzüñ gamını levh-i âsmâna yazam
Cefâñı dûzaha teşbîh eylemiş ‘Avnî
Boyuñla ruhlerüñi Sidr[e] vü cinâna yazam

In English

1. How am I to write the grief of my heart on the page of explanation? I fear fire will come from the pen and I will almost burn (or will err).

2. Likening your face and your locks to day and night, let me write of your brow and your lashes as bow and arrow.

3. If your eye means to shed blood, let me read the sword prayer (hüsâm) over it (that it may be sharp); when your lash cleaves breasts, let me write a charm on its spearhead (sinan) (that it may be effective).

4. Let me hand over the flood of my tears to the seas; let me write the grief of your sun-like face on the tablet of the sky.

5. Avnî has likened your cruelty to Hell; let me write of your stature and your cheeks as the Lote Tree and the gardens of Paradise.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The redif "yazam" (let me write) and the rhyme in "-âna" in the words "beyâna, yana, kemâna, sinâna, âsmâna, cinâna" turn the ghazal into a task of writing: the lover tries to put into writing his grief, the beloved's beauty, his tears and his prayers. In the first of the five couplets, whose metre is müctes, redif and rhyme merge in "yanayazam" to build a new word.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet begins with a fear: if the fiery grief in the heart is written on paper, sparks will come from the tip of the pen and everything will burn. Doğan draws attention to the two senses of "yana yazmak": "almost to burn" and, in use since Old Turkish, "to be confused and err". The lover fears both burning and telling his grief wrongly. The second couplet lists the comparisons the poet will write: the face will be day, the locks night, the brow a bow, the lash an arrow; the couplet is like a list of the well-known comparisons of divan poetry.

The third couplet rests on an old belief. Doğan understands the word "hüsâm" here not as sword but as a talismanic prayer, the "du'â-yı seyf" (sword prayer) or "hırz-ı yemânî", read over weapons such as sword, dagger and spear, or written on them, to increase their sharpness or to protect against them. The examples he gives from Nev'î, Lâmiî, Karamanlı Nizâmî and Ahmed Paşa show that this prayer was recited every day at certain hours and was believed to work on the enemy and to protect. The lover will read this prayer over the eye that means to shed his blood and write a spell on the spearhead of the lash that cleaves breasts; that is, he will make his own death easier. Doğan also recalls that "Hüsâm" and "Sinan" were at the same time names of handsome youths.

The fourth couplet is writing on its largest scale. The flood of tears is handed over by the rivers to the sea, and the grief is written on the tablet of the sky. Doğan sees in the couplet an allusion to the verse of the Sura of the Cave, "If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted"; the likening of tears to ink is also frequent in divan poetry. In the last couplet the name Avnî appears in the third person: Avnî has likened the beloved's cruelty to Hell, and now the speaking "I" will liken the stature to the Lote Tree (Sidre) and the cheeks to the gardens of Paradise. The Sidre is the boundary tree mentioned in the Sura of the Star, beyond which the angels cannot pass; thus the beloved's cruelty becomes Hell and her beauty Paradise, and the ghazal sets the two faces of the next world side by side.

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 52, pp. 388-392 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 17a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources