Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ḥasret-i ḫâlüñle yaḳdum tende biñ bir ḳara dâġ
Ḫalḳ-ı ʿâlem gördi taḥsîn itdi didi yüzüñ aġ

In English

1. Longing for your beauty spot, I burned a thousand and one black brands on my body; all the people of the world saw it, praised it and said "may your face be white".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Black and white are the whole game of this matla. The beloved's "hâl", the black beauty spot on the face, has caused the lover's longing; with this longing the lover burns "biñ bir kara dâġ", a thousand and one black brands, on his body. A dâġ is a scar opened on the skin with red-hot iron or something burning; lovers of old would burn such marks on their arms and breasts for their beloveds. The black brands are like a thousand and one copies on the lover's body of the beloved's black beauty spot.

In the second line these black marks lead to an unexpected outcome. Everyone who saw them praised the lover and said to him "yüzün ak olsun", may your face be white. "To have a white face" is the idiom for doing a thing properly, for an achievement that brings no shame. The contrast between black brand and white face is the wit of the couplet: the blacks on his body have made the lover's face come out white. "Dâġ" rhymes with "aġ", and since both lines end on the same sound the couplet is a matla.

The footnotes of the edition of Âşık Çelebi record two variant readings: in one manuscript "taze dağ", fresh brand, appears instead of "kara dağ", in another "tağ" instead of "dağ". Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin do not give it.

Bibliography

Online sources