Original Ottoman Turkish Text

'İzz ise maksûd eger ey yüzi mısbâh alnı zav
Mantıkun hikmetden it itme 'avâm ile kelâm

In English

1. O you whose face is a lamp and whose brow is radiance: if dignity is your aim, build your speech on wisdom and do not talk with the common people. (The couplet can be read in two ways; see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

This couplet, given by Kınalızâde in his entry on Cevherî, begins as if addressing a beloved but ends with a piece of advice. The address is built from the familiar light imagery of divan poetry: someone whose face is a "mısbâh", a lamp, and whose brow is "zav", radiance. The second line, however, speaks like a madrasa lesson: if dignity and esteem are wanted, speech must be built on wisdom and one must not enter into argument with the commons, the ordinary people.

Two madrasa terms stand side by side in the line. "Mantık" is both speech and the name of the science that teaches the rules of thought, logic; "hikmet" is both wisdom and philosophy. The couplet can therefore be read in two ways: as moral advice, "build your speech on wisdom", or as a scholarly warning, "take logic from philosophy and do not discuss it with the commons". What Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin tell of some of the sheikh's words and states being criticized by the learned may come to mind in reading the couplet; but the source does not say when or to whom it was spoken.

The transcription of the couplet in Kınalızâde's edition does not use long-vowel or special letter marks; the text is given here as in the edition.

Bibliography

Online sources