Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). The edition does not write down the metre of the Galata ghazal; that it is remel was determined by us.

Bağlamaz firdevse göñlini Kalâtâyı gören
Servi añmaz anda ol serv-i dil-ârâyı gören
Bir Firengî şîvelü ‘Îsâyî gördüm anda kim
Lebleri dirisidür dir idi ‘Îsâyı gören
‘Akl ü fehmin dîn ü îmânın nice zabt eylesün
Kâfir olur hey müselmânlar o tersâyı gören
Kevseri añmaz ol içdügi mey-i nâbı içen
Mescide varmaz o varduğı kilîsâyı gören
Bir Firengî kâfir olduğuñ bilürdi ‘Avnîyâ
Belüñ ü boynuñda zünnâr ü çelîpâyı gören

In English

1. Whoever sees Galata sets no heart on Paradise (Firdevs); whoever sees that heart-adorning cypress there does not remember the cypress (of Paradise).

2. There I saw a Christian with Frankish ways, of whom anyone who saw Jesus would say "his lips revived Jesus".

3. How is he to keep his reason and understanding, his religion and faith? Hey Muslims, whoever sees that Christian becomes an infidel.

4. Whoever drinks the pure wine he drinks does not remember Kevser; whoever sees the church he goes to does not go to the mosque.

5. O Avnî, whoever saw the girdle (zünnar) at your waist and the cross at your neck would have taken you for a Frankish infidel.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Together with the fourteenth ghazal, this is one of the two poems of the divan that name Galata. The redif is "gören" (whoever sees), and each of the five couplets states the result of seeing something: whoever sees Galata forgets Paradise, whoever sees the beloved forgets the cypress, whoever sees the Christian beauty becomes an infidel, whoever sees the church does not go to the mosque, whoever sees the girdle and the cross takes Avnî for a Frank. The rhyme falls on "-â" in "Kalâtâ, dil-ârâ, 'Îsâ, tersâ, kilîsâ, çelîpâ"; the entry of words connected with Christianity into the rhyme gathers the ghazal around a single theme. The metre is remel, built on fâilâtün feet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet Galata is set against Paradise, Firdevs. Whoever sees Galata, where beauties like houris move about, sets no heart on Paradise; because of the cypress-tall beloved he sees there, he does not remember even the cypress of Paradise. The second couplet is a hyperbole and a hüsnütalil: the Christian beauty with Frankish ways seen in Galata is so life-giving that those who see Jesus think he can only have been revived by this beloved's lips. The prophet who raised the dead falls into the background before the beloved's lip.

The third and fourth couplets continue this daring. Addressing the Muslims, the poet says that whoever sees the Christian beauty cannot keep reason, religion or faith and will become an infidel; whoever drinks the wine he drinks forgets Kevser, the river of Paradise, and whoever sees the church he goes to forgets the mosque. In the last couplet Avnî himself takes on Christian guise: at his waist is the zünnar girdle, at his neck the cross, and whoever sees him takes him for a Frankish infidel.

Historical Context

Doğan admits that this ghazal, which uses elements connected with Christianity from beginning to end, seems at first sight contrary to Islamic belief, but he reads it through the figurative language of Sufism. Drawing on Süleyman Uludağ's dictionary, he recalls that in Sufism the zünnar stands for the resolve to serve and obey the beloved or the sheikh, for setting one's heart on the world or for the self; "çelîpâ" (cross, idol) for the self, for unity or for the beloved; and "kâfir" (infidel) for the person who dwells in the world of separation (tefrika); and he says that Mehmed II, like many Sufi poets, expressed his ardent mystical feelings through these veiled and startling expressions.

In the Istanbul in which the ghazal was written, Galata was, even after the conquest, a quarter where Genoese and other Latin merchants lived, known for its churches and taverns. The poem's drawing of this quarter as a land of beauty ties the conceit of divan poetry's tersâ-beçe, the Christian beauty, to a real place in Istanbul. There is no record of the occasion on which the ghazal was written; it gives neither a date nor the name of a beloved.

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 61, pp. 446-448 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 19b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources