Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec). The edition records no metre for the murabba; the hezec reading belongs to us.

Düşelden dil cemâlüñ şem‘ine ey ruhleri âlüm
Yanardum nâr-ı ‘ışkuñla n’olısar bilmezin hâlüm
Bırakduñ beni [sen] pervâne-veş odlara âh zâlim
Benüm ârâm-ı cânum sevdügüm ‘ömrüm Hasan Bâlüm
Bu gün takyacılık sen dil-rübâya olalı san‘at
Olupdur ‘Avnî gibi yerüm ey meh âteş-i hasret
Seni terk itmezem bağrum [evini] sısa [da] fürkat
Benüm ârâm-ı cânum sevdügüm ‘ömrüm Hasan Bâlüm

In English

1. O you with crimson cheeks, since the heart fell into the candle of your beauty I have been burning in the fire of your love; I do not know what will become of me. You left me in the flames like a moth, ah, cruel one. My soul's repose, my beloved, my life, my Hasan Bâlî.

2. Since cap-making (takyecilik) became the craft of a heart-stealer like you, O moon, my place, like Avnî's, has become the fire of longing. Though separation should tear down the house of my breast, I will not leave you. My soul's repose, my beloved, my life, my Hasan Bâlî.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Like the divan's fiftieth ghazal, these two quatrains come from the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası and are not found in the Millet manuscript. Doğan takes them from this anthology, kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library under Bağdat Köşkü no. 406. The folio of the source is given in the book in two different ways: the footnote says 408a, while the caption of the illustrations at the end of the book says 399b.

The piece is a murabba: it consists of stanzas of four lines, the first three lines of each stanza rhyme with one another, and the fourth line, "Benüm ârâm-ı cânum sevdügüm 'ömrüm Hasan Bâlüm" (my soul's repose, my beloved, my life, my Hasan Bâlî), is a refrain repeated unchanged in both stanzas. The rhyme of the first stanza is "âlüm, hâlüm, zâlim", that of the second "san'at, hasret, fürkat". The lines are measured in hezec, four "mefâîlün" each. The poet's name is mentioned in the second stanza in the third person: "like Avnî". The edition has added the words "[sen]" in the first stanza and "[evini]" and "[da]" in the second in square brackets; at these places the source text is defective.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

What sets the murabba apart from the rest of the divan is that it names the beloved openly. In the divan's ghazals the beloved is mostly nameless or called by symbolic names such as "Veyis", "Mahmud" or "Sinan"; here, however, the refrain addresses a person: "my life, my Hasan Bâlî". The second stanza presents this person as a craftsman: cap-making, sewing the takye or skullcap, has become the beloved's craft. Whether these details point to a real person, or are the customary address of this genre suited to singing, is not known; the sources give no information about a cap-maker called Hasan Bâlî.

The first stanza rests on the conceit of candle and moth. The heart has fallen into the candle of the crimson-cheeked beloved's beauty and is burning in the fire of love; the beloved has abandoned it to the flames like a moth. In the second stanza the lover's place is the fire of longing, and even if separation tears down the house of his breast, he will not leave the beloved. The language of the murabba is plainer and closer to speech than that of the ghazals; phrases such as "n'olısar bilmezin hâlüm" (I do not know what will become of me) recall the voice of folk poetry. The repetition of the refrain suggests that the piece may have been composed for a musical setting or for recitation in gatherings; this is only a possibility drawn from its form.

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 76, pp. 543-544 (not in Millet 305; Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat 406, Pervâne Bey Mecmuası (fol. 408a in the footnote, fol. 399b in the illustration caption)). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources