Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün (hezec). No metre is shown for this kıt'a in the edition; we identify it as ahreb hezec.

Kurtarmasun Allâh beni bu derd-i hevâdan
Derdüñ ile dil dağlamayan zevkini bilmez
Dindirmesün Allâh gözümüñ yaşını zîrâ
‘Işkuñ ile kan ağlamayan zevkini bilmez

In English

1. May God not save me from this pain of love; whoever has not branded his heart with your pain does not know its pleasure.

2. May God not stop the tears of my eyes; for whoever has not wept blood with love for you does not know its pleasure.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The source Doğan gives is a late history book: the second volume of Mehmed Şâkir Paşa's Yeni Osmanlı Tarihi (New Ottoman History), page 230. The four lines are not in the Millet manuscript. Şâkir Paşa was a historian writing at the end of the nineteenth century, and Doğan does not say from which older source the piece was taken; the attribution therefore does not rest on as firm a record as the poems in the divan's main manuscript.

The piece is a kıt'a of two couplets: the first and third lines stand free, while the second and fourth rhyme together with the words "-mayan zevkini bilmez" (does not know its pleasure), which carry the redif. It is in the ahreb branch of hezec, in the pattern "mef'ûlü mefâîlü mefâîlü feûlün". The two couplets are built in the same way: each opens with a negative prayer beginning "Allah ... -masun / -mesün" (may God not...) and closes with the verdict "... zevkini bilmez". This parallelism gives the kıt'a a sound that works like a repeated prayer.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The strength of the kıt'a comes from its inversion of prayer. To be saved from a pain and to have one's tears stop are things one prays for; the lover asks for the very opposite: may God not save him from this pain nor stop his tears. The reason lies in the second line of each couplet: whoever has not branded his heart with the pain of love, whoever has not wept blood for love, cannot know the pleasure of this pain and this weeping. The divan lover who takes pleasure in pain speaks here in his simplest form. "Dağlamak" (to brand), with its senses of both burning and leaving a mark, expresses the wound of love that remains in the heart, and "kan ağlamak" (weeping blood) the depth of the pain.

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 75, p. 542 (not in Millet 305; Mehmed Şâkir Paşa, Yeni Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. II, p. 230). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources