Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec). No pattern appears in Doğan's commentary; we have scanned it as hezec.

Gözüm yaşı-y-ıla kûy-i nigârı lâle-zâr itdüm
Figân u nâleden ol lâle-zârı murg-zâr itdüm
Gözüñ âhûsınuñ şevkı-y-ile sahrâlara düşdüm
Saçuñ sevdâsı-y-ıla nâfe-veş terk-i diyâr itdüm
Kadüñ servi firâkında yaşumı cûy-bâr itdüm
Yüzüñ gülzârı yâdına gözüm ebr-i behâr itdüm
Cünûn sahrâsı içinde felekde[n] başuma yağan
Cefâ taşlarını cem‘ eyledüm seng-i mezâr itdüm
Sanemler hüsni tasvîrinde bir büt-şekl ile ‘Avnî
Göñül deyrini ser-tâ-ser kamu nakş u nigâr itdüm

In English

1. With the tears of my eye I made the beloved's street a tulip bed; with lament and moaning I made that tulip bed a garden of birds.

2. With longing for the gazelle of your eye I fell into the deserts; with passion for your hair, like a musk pod, I left my homeland.

3. In separation from your cypress stature I made my tears a stream; remembering the rose garden of your face I made my eye a spring cloud.

4. In the desert of madness I gathered the stones of cruelty that rained on my head from fate and made them my gravestone.

5. O Avnî, with an idol-faced one who paints the beauty of idols, I made the church of my heart all patterns and pictures from end to end.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

In every couplet the lover turns one thing into another: the street into a tulip bed, the tulip bed into a garden of birds, tears into a stream, the eye into a spring cloud, the stones of cruelty into a gravestone, the heart into a painted church. Through the five couplets these transformations are carried by the redif "itdüm" (I made). The rhyme is in "-âr" in the words "lâle-zâr, murg-zâr, diyâr, cûy-bâr, behâr, mezâr, nigâr"; the third couplet is built like an opening couplet, with both its lines rhyming. The lines sit in the four-"mefâîlün" pattern of hezec.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet two transformations follow each other. Bloody tears fill the beloved's street with red tulips; then the lover's moans turn that tulip bed into a garden full of birds. Doğan draws attention to the likeness between the lover's lament and the nightingales' singing to the rose. In the second couplet the word "nâfe" literally means navel; the dark, fragrant substance from the gland in the navel of the musk deer, which lives in the high mountains of Asia, is also called by this name. The musk pod separating from the deer and falling to the ground is interpreted as leaving one's homeland and falling into exile; the lover too has left his homeland through passion for the hair. Doğan also notes the congruence of images built through the colour black among eye, gazelle, hair, passion and musk.

The third couplet sets up the pairs of cypress and stream, rose garden and spring cloud: the cypress grows by the stream, and the rose garden is revived by spring rain; the lover's tears feed both. The fourth couplet alludes to the story of Leylâ and Mecnun. As Mecnun roamed the deserts he became the target of children's stones; the lover too has gathered the stones of cruelty raining from fate in the desert of madness and made his own gravestone from them.

Doğan reads the last couplet in Sufi terms. "Sanem" (idol) in Sufism is anything that keeps one from God, and the greatest idol is one's own self; but the same word is also used for the spiritual master, the guide, the perfect man and the beloved. "Deyr" (church) represents the world of meaning and contemplation, and "nakş u nigâr" (patterns and pictures) the truths of existence. On this reading the poet has filled his heart, cleansed of the world, only with spiritual truths and divine love. On the surface, however, the couplet is the daring confession of a lover who has adorned his heart like a church with the images of an idol-faced beauty.

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 55, pp. 410-412 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 17b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources