Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Kalma havf ile recâ ile edâ-yı haktan
Ecre tebdîl olunur kalbe eğer gelse recâ

In English

1. Do not hold back, out of fear and hope, from paying what is due to God, that is, from fulfilling the duty of worship; if hope (recâ) comes to the heart, or is turned backwards, it is changed into reward (ecr).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Hüsameddin gives this couplet too with the words "Bu da onundur" (this too is his) and explains the second line in a footnote. Since the two lines do not rhyme, the couplet is not an opening couplet (matla); it is a couplet taken from inside a poem or composed on its own. The rhyme lies in the word "recâ" at the end of the second line. It is not known to whom or on what occasion it was addressed. The source does not indicate the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on the Sufi counsel of "havf and recâ", that is, of standing between fear and hope. Man fears God's punishment and hopes for His mercy; but neither should fear drive him to despair nor hope to laxity, nor should either keep him from paying the debt of worship. The second line crowns this counsel with a play on letters. According to Hüsameddin's footnote, the "kalb", that is, the backward reading of the word "recâ" is "ecr": when the word رجا is read in Arabic letters from end to beginning, it gives اجر, ecr, reward.

The word "kalb" works here in two senses: both heart and the transposing, reversing of letters. When hope comes to the heart, that is, settles in it, it turns into reward; when the same hope passes through "kalb", that is, is reversed, it again becomes "ecr". Finding a new meaning by reading words backwards is a familiar game in divan literature. It is also striking that the word "edâ" (payment, fulfilment) in the first line recalls the poet's pen name "Edâyî"; this observation is our own.

Bibliography

Online sources