Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün (remel). The edition gives the pattern no name; we found the remel by measuring the lines.
Yime dilberler gamın ey dil ki zâr eyler seni
Ger ‘azîz-i ‘âlem iseñ dahi hâr eyler seni
Ger siyeh kâküllerüñ sevdâsın eylerseñ heves
‘Âlem içinde perîşân-rûzgâr eyler seni
Yüz sürem bir şehsüvâruñ atı izine dime
Dahi gerdine irişmedin gubâr eyler seni
Dir imişsüñ yoluma cân virene rahm eylerem
Bu söz ehl-i hüsn içinde şerm-sâr eyler seni
Eşk-i sîm ü rûy-i zerdin yoluña harc eyleyüp
‘Avnî bir gün dôstum kendüye yâr eyler seni
In English
1. O heart, do not consume yourself in grief for heart-stealers, it will make you moan; even if you are the most honoured in the world, it will make you despised.
2. If you long for the passion of black forelocks, it will make you wretched in the world.
3. Do not say, "let me rub my face in the track of a master rider's horse"; before you even reach his dust, he will make you dust.
4. You say, it seems, "I pity whoever gives his life on my path"; these words will make you ashamed among the people of beauty.
5. My friend, Avnî, spending his silver tears and his yellow (gold) face on your path, will one day make you his own.
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The redif "eyler seni" (will make you) carries the voice of a warning: the grief of heart-stealers will make you moan, passion will make you wretched, the master rider will make you dust, the words will make you ashamed; but in the final couplet the redif turns round, and Avnî says he will make the beloved his own. The rhyme sound "-âr" runs through "zâr, hâr, rûzgâr, gubâr, şerm-sâr, yâr". Of the five remel couplets, the first three are advice addressed to the heart; the last two turn to the beloved.
Meaning and Figures of Speech
The opening couplet carries a double meaning. "Dilberler gamı" (the grief of heart-stealers) in its near sense is the pain suffered because of the beloved; Doğan notes that in its distant sense it also denotes hashish. The words "zâr" (thin, moaning) and "hâr" (despised, worthless) form a congruence of images with this second sense: hashish addicts stop eating and drinking and waste away, and in the old view they lost their standing. Doğan had seen similar associations in the divan's twenty-ninth and thirty-second ghazals. In the second couplet passion for black forelocks makes the lover wretched; the sense of "wind" in the word "rûzgâr" (fortune, time) ties dishevelled hair to distress.
The third couplet is the one for which Doğan proposes a Sufi reading. In classical poetry God, the sun, the sultan and the beloved form a quartet; they are likened to one another and frequently used in each other's place. The "şehsüvâr", the master rider, is here the beloved, king of beauties, but through the relation of sun and mote he also calls up God and the sun. The ancients thought that the motes of dust rising in air warmed by the sun were rushing towards the sun, and Sufism likened this to the seeker drawn by divine attraction rising towards God. To rub one's face in the dust of the beloved's horse's hooves, in turn, is to count that dust as kohl for the eye; Doğan recalls that kohl was believed to strengthen sight and that some kinds were even thought to reveal extraordinary things. On this reading the couplet says that whoever lays down his head on the path of God will, as soon as he intends it, be raised towards Him like the mote drawn to the sun. On the surface, however, the warning is plain: whoever sets out to rub his face in the master rider's track becomes dust himself before he even reaches the dust.
The fourth couplet can be read in two ways, because "ehl-i hüsn" means both the beautiful and those who understand beauty, that is, lovers. In the first reading the beauties, whose glory lies in tormenting lovers, reproach the beloved who shows mercy, and she falls into shame. In the second, if the beloved cannot fulfil the mercy she has promised and does not let the lovers taste union, she will suffer the shame of breaking her word. In the last couplet Avnî's hope leans on a comparison often used in the divan: tears are silver, the yellowed face gold; by spending this wealth on the beloved's path Avnî will one day make her his own. The redif passes here from the threatening sense of the other couplets to a hope.
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 71, pp. 511-515 (manuscript: Millet, Ali Emîrî Manzum 305, fol. 21b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx
Online sources
