Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Dil mihnet-i aşkın idemez terkini cânâ
Bu resm-i meveddet ana rûz-i ezelîdir
Mahsûl-i bekâ mâ-hasal-ı âlem-i fânî
Envâr-ı ruhun ehl-i safânın emelidir

In English

1. O beloved, the heart cannot give up the trial of your love; this custom of affection has been its own since the day of pre-eternity.

2. What is gained from the transient world is the harvest of permanence; the lights of your cheek are the wish of the people of purity. (The reading of the first line is not certain; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The idea on which the matla rests goes back to the day Sufi literature calls "rûz-ı elest" or "rûz-ı ezel". According to this belief, at the very beginning of creation the souls answered "Yes" to God's question "Am I not your Lord?", and love settled in the hearts on that day. The poet therefore says that the heart cannot give up the trial of love: the "resm-i meveddet", the custom of affection, was given to it from pre-eternity and is not a habit acquired later.

The first line of the second couplet carries an Arabic formula: "mâ-hasal", "what has been gained". The line seems to say that what is gained from the transient world is in truth the harvest of permanence, of eternity; but in Hüsameddin's text the syntax is obscure, and it can also be read the other way round, "the harvest of permanence is what the transient world yields". The second line turns again to the beloved: the lights on her cheek are the wish of the "ehl-i safâ", those whose hearts are purified. The beloved of divan poetry and the divine beauty of Sufism stand intertwined, unseparated, in this couplet.

The refrain is "-dir", and the rhyme rests on the sound -el in ezelî and emel. In Hüsameddin the two couplets stand apart from the others, marked "this too is his".

Bibliography

Online sources