Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sehâb-ı ‘ışkdan yagduk cihâna katre-i âbuz
Sadefdür cism-i ‘âlem anda biz bir dürr-i nâ-yâbuz

In English

1. We are a drop of water that has rained upon the world from the cloud of love; the body of the universe is an oyster shell, and within it we are a peerless pearl.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal. The redif (refrain word) is the first person plural suffix "-uz" (we are), and the rhyme is the sound "-âb" in the words "âb" and "nâ-yâb". This opening couplet does not appear in Hüsameddin's entry; TEİS quotes it, together with Edâyî's other couplets, from Mustafa İsen's edition of Gelibolulu Âlî's Künhü'l-Ahbâr. The text is given here in the transliteration of TEİS. The rest of the ghazal is unknown. The source does not indicate the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet rests on a belief much loved in divan poetry: when a drop of the rain that falls in the month of April (nisan) drops into an oyster shell in the sea, it turns into a pearl. Edâyî applies this belief to human existence. "Sehâb-ı 'ışk" (the cloud of love) stands as a metaphor in the first line; man is a drop fallen from this cloud upon the world. In the second line "cism-i 'âlem" (the body of the universe) is likened to an oyster shell, and man within it becomes "dürr-i nâ-yâb", a pearl without equal. The words cloud, drop, oyster shell and pearl form a congruence of images (tenasüp) that complete one another.

The couplet is also open to a mystical reading: man's essence comes from divine love; the world is only a shell for him, and what is truly precious is the pearl inside this shell. By speaking as "we", the poet is able to extend his words beyond his own person to all lovers or to all mankind. This mystical reading is our own.

Historical Context

In the words quoted by Hüsameddin, Gelibolulu Âlî characterises Edâyî as "dürr-i meknûn nazmın mağzından gâfil", that is, one unaware of the essence of poetry with its hidden pearl. That Âlî gives this opening couplet as an example in the same entry creates a striking contradiction: the anthologist who considers the poet unaware of the pearl of poetry has quoted the very couplet in which he describes himself as "a peerless pearl". Hüsameddin's objection to Âlî also rests on the idea that these couplets bear witness to the poet's power. This comparison is our own. For the poet's life see Edâyî Receb Bey.

Bibliography

Online sources