Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). The remel rests on our scansion, not on the edition; Doğan does not write the pattern.

Gamzeler tîrini doldurmış kaşı kurbânına
Dil nişân olmak diler beñzer susadı kanına
Kıymet olmaz dilberüñ gerçi metâ‘-ı vaslına
Dil harîdâr olur anuñ bakmayup hicrânına
İşlesün kâfir gözüñ ne sığar ise dînine
Eylesün şîrîn lebüñ ne lâyık ise şânına
Âb-ı Kevserle hayât âbına kalmaz ihtiyâc
İrse ger la‘lüñ tabîbi haste-dil dermânına
Şöyle tenhâdur bu mihnet-hâne-i hecr içre kim
Gussa vü gamdur gelen her gice ‘Avnî yanına

In English

1. (The beloved) has loaded the arrows of the glance into the quiver of the brow; the heart wants to be the target, as if it thirsted for its own blood.

2. Though no price can be set on the heart-stealer's goods of union, the heart becomes a buyer without looking at its "hicrân" (separation, the tear in the cloth).

3. Let your infidel eye do whatever fits its religion; let your sweet lip do whatever befits its dignity.

4. If the physician of your ruby lip should come to cure the sick heart, there would be no need for the water of Kevser or the water of life.

5. This house of the hardship of separation is so lonely that every night the only ones who come to Avnî are sorrow and grief.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

One word in the first couplet is miswritten in the manuscript: the Ali Emîrî manuscript has "tîğını" (its sword), but Doğan, since it is an arrow and not a sword that is shot at a target, considers this wrong and reads "tîrini" (its arrow). The redif is the dative suffix "-ına / -ine", the rhyme rests loosely on the "-ân" sound across the words "kurbân, kan, hicrân, dîn, şân, dermân, yan", and the five couplets are in remel.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet rests on a sense of a word now forgotten. As Doğan explains, the "kurbân" that appears together with arrow, bow, sword, lash and brow in divan poetry is not the slaughtered sacrifice but the case of a bow, the quiver of arrows and the sheath of a sword; the word goes back to an Arabic root meaning "to draw near". Poets meant this sense while also building a congruence of suggested images with the sense of a slaughtered sacrifice. In Avnî's couplet the glance is the arrow, and the arched brow just above the eye is the quiver into which these arrows are loaded. The lover's heart wants to be the target, and the second sense of the word kurbân turns this wish into a wish to be a sacrifice.

The second couplet too is built on a forgotten sense. "Hicrân" means separation, but it was also used for cuts and tears in precious cloth; such flawed cloth was called "hicrânlı". Doğan also gives as an example a couplet by Zâtî that likens the lover's wounded body to a dervish cloak with such flaws. In Avnî the union with the beloved is a priceless cloth; because of the separation it makes lovers suffer, cuts have appeared in this cloth, but the heart buys it without regard to the flaw.

The third couplet likens the beloved's eye and lip to two different religions. The eye, because of its blackness, its drunkenness and its shedding of blood, is an "infidel"; the lip, speaking though it is almost too small to exist and reviving lovers with a word, resembles Jesus. The poet asks each to do what its own religion requires: let the eye kill, let the lip revive. The lip turns physician in the fourth couplet; beside this physician, the pool of Kevser in Paradise and the water of immortality found by Hızır become unnecessary. A scene of loneliness is set in the last couplet. Separation is a house of hardship, and it is so lonely that every night the only guests who come to Avnî are sorrow and grief; as Doğan notes, this couplet is also cited in the commentary on the twenty-first ghazal as an example of the same loneliness.

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 66, pp. 475-478 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 20b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources