Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Beñzetme mihr ü mâhı felekde cemâline
Tâ ki kimesne işide yirüñ ḳulaġı var

In English

1. Do not liken the sun and the moon in the sky to her beauty; let no one hear it, for the ground has ears. (The sun and the moon are worthless beside the beloved's beauty; if such a comparison were overheard it would be a disgrace. "The ground has ears" is a proverb meaning that even words spoken in secret can be overheard.)

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 muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre), "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". Since the couplet ends with "ḳulaġı var", the redif (refrain word) of the ghazal may have been "var"; but this cannot be said 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 beloved's face is very often likened to the sun or the moon. Sâfî turns this habit around: to liken the sun and the moon to the beloved's beauty would be to belittle her, for her beauty surpasses theirs. The poet therefore warns his listener against such a comparison and ties his reason to a proverb: "the ground has ears". This proverb, used among the people to say that a word meant to be kept secret can be overheard even in the loneliest place, gains a new meaning in the couplet.

The subtlety of the couplet lies in the contrast between "felek", the sky, and "yer", the ground. The comparison concerns beings of the sky, the sun and the moon; the warning concerns the ears of the ground. A word about the sky, if heard on the earth, will bring reproach. Thus an antithesis (tezat) is drawn between sky and earth, and the proverb is placed within a unity of meaning with the other words of the couplet. Latîfî's judgement on Sâfî, that he was the first among the poets of Rûm to use proverbs in poetry and that the manner reached perfection in Necâtî, finds a concrete example in this couplet. Since the claim of the first line is supported with a proverb in the second, the couplet is a typical example of irsâl-i mesel (the use of a proverb as proof).

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