Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). The edition records no metre for this newly found ghazal; we take it to be remel.
Ey ruhı gül gülşene gelsen kaçan kim sohbete
Servler ta‘zîm idüp bir bir tururlar hidmete
Gerçi kim hâk-i derüne kirpigüm cârûbdur
Geçmez illâ kıl kadar yanunda şâhum minnete
Baş göge irse eger sahn-ı çemende ‘ar‘arun
Öykünimez şîvede hergiz o serv-kâmete
Kıble hakkı ey halîlüm gördi çün bir kez seni
Kaldı deyr içre sanemler gelmez ayruk sûrete
Yasdanaydı ger işigün taşını ‘Avnî kulun
Onmaduk başı irerdi pâdişâhum devlete
In English
1. O rose-cheeked one, whenever you come to the rose garden for conversation, the cypresses rise one by one in respect to serve you.
2. Though my eyelash be a broom for the dust of your door, O my king, beside you it does not count as a hair's worth of favour.
3. Though the juniper (mountain cypress) in the midst of the meadow raise its head to the sky, it can never imitate that cypress-tall one in swaying.
4. O my friend (my Halil), by the qibla, the idols saw you once and were left stranded in the church; they will never take form again.
5. My sovereign, had your servant Avnî made the stone of your threshold his pillow, his ill-starred head would have reached fortune.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
Absent from the known manuscript of the divan, this ghazal came to light only recently. As the edition reports, it stands on folio 113b of a Mecmûa-i Eş'âr (anthology of poems) kept in the National Library in Ankara under 06 Mil Hk 110, and was first made known through the paper "Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Avnî)'nin Yayınlanmayan Şiirleri" (Unpublished Poems of Mehmed the Conqueror (Avnî)) presented by Dr. Müslüm Yılmaz at the 11th National Turcology Congress organised by Istanbul University in 2015. Doğan in turn added it to the divan's text in the 2023 printing. Since its attribution rests on a single anthology record, its certainty is not on the same level as that of the poems in the main manuscript; the English translation in the edition states that the ghazal is understood to belong to Mehmed II in every respect.
The redif is the dative suffix "-e"; the rhyme is in "-ete" in the words "sohbete, hidmete, minnete, kâmete, sûrete, devlete". The five couplets are in remel. The spelling of the text differs in places from the other ghazals ("yanunda", "işigün" and the like); this reflects the orthography of the anthology text itself.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The opening couplet is a hüsnütalil. The cypresses planted in rows along the edges of the garden are imagined as attendants who, when the beloved comes into the garden for conversation, rise to serve and show their respect. Like the box trees standing at attention in the seventeenth ghazal, here too the garden turns into a palace procession. The lover's eyelashes in the second couplet, because of their shape, are a broom sweeping the beloved's threshold; yet even this service does not count as "a hair's worth" of favour. Doğan draws attention to the suggested link between eyelash and hair.
In the third couplet the "'ar'ar", the mountain cypress or juniper, cannot imitate the beloved's swaying gait even if it raises its head to the sky; the swaying of the cypress in the wind is likened to the beloved's coy walk. The fourth couplet unites the words of two religions. The beloved is addressed as "halîlüm" (my Halil); "Halil" is the title "friend of God" given to Abraham in the Qur'an. Doğan says that naming "qibla" and "Halil" together refers to the knowledge that Abraham, with his son Ishmael, built the Kaaba, the first qibla. This reference to Abraham, the breaker of idols, finds its fulfilment in the idols that, on seeing the beloved, are left stranded in the church and never take form again: the beloved's beauty has eclipsed the idols.
The conceit of the threshold, familiar from other couplets of the divan, returns in the last couplet. Lovers rub their faces on the beloved's threshold and even make its stone their pillow. Had Avnî's "onmaduk baş", his ill-starred head, rested on that stone, it would have reached "devlet", that is, fortune. Doğan understands "devlet" here as the star of luck and happiness. That a ruler who was himself at the head of a state (devlet) should say he could reach "devlet" only by laying his head at the beloved's threshold follows the same path as the divan's couplets that exchange sovereignty and love.
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 69, pp. 494-496 (not in Millet 305; National Library (Ankara), 06 Mil Hk 110, Mecmûa-i Eş'âr, fol. 113b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx
Online sources
