Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0

Couplet 2 — Sûz-i dildir âşıka sermâye-i kayd-ı necât

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 13 October 2026 • 2 min reading

The conceit of candle and moth tied to Sufism: in Bahâeddîn Mehmed Efendi's couplet the heart's fire is capital for salvation, and the word tut reads two ways.

Contents 4

1Original Ottoman Turkish Text
2In English
3Literary and Historical Commentary
4Bibliography

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sûz-i dildir âşıka sermâye-i kayd-ı necât
Şem-i ruhsârın hevâsıyla yanan pervâne tut

In English

1. The burning of the heart is the lover's capital for binding himself to salvation; count him a moth burning with desire for the candle of your cheek. (The reading of the second line is not certain.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The divan conceit of the candle and the moth is tied here to a Sufi idea. The moth is in love with the candle's light and burns as it draws near; its burning is the proof of its love. The poet sees this burning as "sermâye", capital: the lover's binding himself to salvation is possible through this fire in his heart. What looks like loss is in truth the beginning of gain. A paradox also hides in the phrase "kayd-ı necât": kayd is a bond, a fetter, and necat salvation; the lover does not seek salvation in having no bond; he finds it in being bound to the right one.

The word "tut" at the end of the second line gives the couplet the air of a command and can be understood in two ways: "take the burning moth as your example" or "count the lover a moth burning with the candle of the cheek". In both readings an equation is drawn between the lover and the moth. Hüsameddin's text writes the word "Şem-i ruhsârın", without marking the letter ayn of şem', candle; the text is kept here as it is. The couplet is the second of the pieces Hüsameddin gives one after another with "this too is his"; there is no other witness to it.