Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Geldi gitdi bezmüñe gerçi raḳîb-i seg-nijâd
Dimedi bir kimse aña it misün âdem misün

In English

1. The dog-born rival came and went at your gathering; yet no one so much as said to him, "Are you a dog or a man?" (No one paid him any heed or noticed his presence; the phrase "are you a dog or a man" is used both as a rebuke and as a way of asking what the other really is.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is given in Latîfî's entry on Sâfî under the heading "Velehu" (also his). Since its two lines do not rhyme, it must come from the body of a ghazal; the rest of the ghazal is not known. The metre is from the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif (refrain word) appears to be "misün", but the rhyme scheme of the ghazal cannot be determined with certainty from a single couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In divan poetry the rival is the envied person who comes between lover and beloved and finds more room than the lover at the beloved's gathering, and he is usually abused by being likened to a dog. Sâfî combines this established type with a popular saying. The rival is "seg-nijâd", dog-born. He has come and gone at the beloved's gathering, but no one there paid him any attention or even asked him "are you a dog or a man?". In everyday speech this phrase is an expression of rebuke and contempt; in the couplet it conveys that the rival is so insignificant that he was not worth even an insult. In this way the lover soothes, with a mocking consolation, the jealousy he feels at the rival's admission to the beloved's gathering.

The words "seg" (dog) and "it" repeat the same notion in its Persian and Turkish forms; there is also a contrast between "it" and "âdem", dog and man. This arrangement of words sets the saying naturally within the couplet. Latîfî names Sâfî as the first among the poets of Rûm to bring proverbs into poetry and says that the manner reached maturity in Necâtî Bey. This couplet, chosen by the biographer as an example, shows how easily a phrase from everyday speech could merge with the rival figure of divan poetry.

Bibliography

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 321-322, entry on Sâfî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Kasım Paşa, Cezerî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, Istanbul 2001, pp. 545-546. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr