Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). Doğan records no metre for this garden piece; the remel pattern was found by our scansion.

Şâhid-i gül bâğda çün geydi gül-gûn pîrehen
Tügmeler takındı aña zînet içün goncadan
Gerçi kim ağız bir itdi güller ile goncalar
Ol şeker-leb söze gelse anlara değmez sühan
Salını seyr-i gülistân eyleseñ yüz nâz ile
Şâhlarda salını kalur göricek yâsemen
Göricek güller yoluña dökilüp saçılduğın
Varını ol dem nisâr itdi öñüñde nesteren
Tâ ki ol gül-ruh gelüp seyr-i gülistân eyleye
‘Avnîyâ dâim ter olsun eşk-i çeşmüñle çemen

In English

1. When the rose-beauty put on her rose-coloured shirt in the garden, she fastened buttons of buds on it for adornment.

2. Though the roses and buds have put their mouths together, should that sugar-lipped one begin to speak, no word would be left to them.

3. If you stroll through the rose garden swaying with a hundred airs, the jasmine, on seeing you, is left dangling on its branches (stands stock-still).

4. On seeing the roses poured out and scattered on your path, the wild rose at that moment scattered all it had before you.

5. O Avnî, until that rose-cheeked one comes and strolls in the rose garden, let the grass be always wet (fresh) with the tears of your eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal is from beginning to end a picture of a garden, and in each of the five couplets a flower comes on stage: rose, bud, jasmine, wild rose, grass. There is no redif; the rhyme rests on the "-en" sound of the words "pîrehen, goncadan, sühan, yâsemen, nesteren, çemen", and the entry of flower names into the rhyme strengthens the picture. Its metre is remel.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet dresses the rose like a beauty. "Şâhid" means both beauty or beloved and witness; here it is the rose itself. This beauty in a rose-coloured shirt has fastened on the unopened buds of her stem and branches as buttons. Doğan notes that in Old Turkish the word "dügme" (button) also meant a bud; button and bud thus meet in the same word. In the second couplet rose and bud are, in divan poetry, the counterparts of the small mouth and the rose-coloured lip. They have "put their mouths together" and are whispering; but when the sugar-lipped beloved begins to speak, no word is left to them.

In the third couplet the beloved strolls through the garden swaying with a hundred airs, and the jasmine, seeing her, is left hanging motionless on its branches. The word "salını" occurs twice in the couplet: in the first line it is the beloved's swaying, in the second the jasmine's hanging and dangling on its branches; the same word expresses two different movements. The fourth couplet alludes to the custom of scattering gifts. As Doğan explains, gold, silver and jewels were scattered on the path of sultans and high persons; the rose with its red and yellow petals is likened to the gold coin, and white-petalled flowers such as jasmine and wild rose to the silver akçe. The nesteren, also called wild rose or August rose, is a wild rose with small white flowers that sheds its petals profusely; seeing the roses scattered on the path, it too scatters all it has before the beloved.

Another custom gives rise to the last couplet. The roads along which important persons were to pass were watered so that no dust would rise; Avnî too asks that the grass be kept wet with tears until the beloved comes to stroll in the garden. Doğan notes that the word "ter" builds a congruence of suggested images through its senses of fresh and green as well as wet: the tears both water the grass and keep it fresh.

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 59, pp. 434-436 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 19a). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources