Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Bulmadı eflâki dokuz dolaşup âhım seni
Hangi burcun kevkebisin bilsem ey mâhım seni

In English

1. My sigh circled the nine heavens and did not find you; O my moon, if only I knew which constellation's star you are.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Whether this opening couplet belongs to Edâyî Receb Bey is disputed. Hüsameddin gives the couplet in the entry on Edâyî Receb Bey, among the poems he quotes from the biographical anthologies (tezkire) and the Matla'ü'n-Nezâ'ir. Kınalızâde, however, attributes the same couplet to another Edâyî, whom he describes in an entry separate from Receb Bey: a tradesman poet of Istanbul known as "Kazzâz Bekir" (Bekir the silk merchant). According to Kınalızâde this Edâyî died between 950 and 960 (1543-1553); Edâyî Beg of Amasya is treated separately in the entry that immediately follows. Kınalızâde's reading is "Bulmadı eflâkı tokuz tolınup âhum seni / Kangı burcun kevkebisin bilsen ey mâhum seni". It is easy for the poems of two contemporary poets bearing the same pen name (mahlas) to become mixed in later compilations. Kınalızâde, who treats the two poets in separate entries and wrote close to their time, appears to be the stronger witness; this assessment is our own.

The couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal; the redif (refrain word) is "-ım seni", and the rhyme is the sound "-âh" in the words "âh" and "mâh". The rest of the ghazal is unknown. The sources do not indicate the metre.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet rests on the old astronomical order of the nine heavenly spheres. In divan poetry the lover's sigh, the burning breath torn from within, is imagined as smoke or fire rising to the sky. Edâyî turns this sigh into a traveller roaming the heavens in search of the beloved: the sigh has toured the nine spheres but has not found the beloved on any of them. In the second line the beloved is addressed as "my moon" and asked which constellation's star he is. The words moon, constellation and star (kevkeb) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) drawn from the sky.

The question implies that the beloved is superior to all the stars in the sky and fits into no constellation; such beauty has no place within the known order. Kınalızâde's reading "bilsen", however, gives the line another turn: "if only you knew which constellation's star you are", that is, the beloved is said to be unaware of the height of his own rank. This distinction is our own observation.

Bibliography

Online sources