Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün

Başa varmaz kimsenüñ işi dilâ tedbîr ile
Ol muvâfıḳ ola evvelde meger taḳdîr ile

In English

1. O heart, no one's affair is brought to its end by planning alone, unless that planning happens to agree, from the very beginning, with what was decreed in pre-eternity. ("Başa varmak" means for an undertaking to reach its end, to succeed. Tedbîr is the precaution a person takes and the plan he makes; taḳdîr is the judgement God has passed from pre-eternity.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal by Edip Tâcî (Tâcî Bey); both its lines rhyme with the words "tedbîr ile / taḳdîr ile". The refrain word (redif) is "ile" (with, by), and the rhyme falls on "-dîr". The rest of the ghazal is unknown. The biographical anthology (tezkire) gives no metre; the couplet scans in the remel metre of aruz (quantitative metre) as "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The opening couplet appears only in Latîfî's anthology, in the entry on Tâcî, directly after the Göz yaşlu göñül couplets. To whom and when it was written is not known.

When introducing the couplet, Latîfî adds a note of caution: "Bu mefhûmı müş‘ir bu maṭla‘ aña isnâd olunur", that is, this opening couplet expressing this idea is ascribed to him. Where elsewhere the anthologist gives couplets plainly as "his", here he chooses to say "ascribed". The phrase does not show that the couplet is not Tâcî's, but it suggests that Latîfî took it from a report passed from mouth to mouth rather than from a collection he had seen with his own eyes.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet fits into two lines one of the most debated questions of Islamic thought, the relation between human effort and divine decree. Latîfî too presents it in this frame and first quotes an Arabic saying: "The servant plans, God decrees." He then explains that the good planning of every wise man and of every weak one must correspond to the measure of the decree and agree with fate and destiny, so that the planning bears fruit and the judgement brings benefit. The anthologist sees the couplet as the poetic counterpart of this idea.

In terms of craft the couplet is simply built; it draws its strength less from wordplay than from the balanced placing of opposites. Between "tedbîr" and "taḳdîr" there is both a likeness of sound and an opposition of meaning, and since the two words are set against each other in rhyme position, they carry the whole weight of the couplet. A subtle link is also made between the idiom "başa varmak" (to reach the end, literally "to reach the head") and the word "evvelde" (at the beginning, in pre-eternity): the end of an affair comes only if its beginning was rightly set in pre-eternity. The address "dilâ" (O heart) in the first line turns the counsel not towards the reader but towards the poet's own heart, a device often used in divan couplets that voice wisdom.

The couplet may be the opening of a love ghazal, or the beginning of a poem that speaks wisdom from start to finish. Since the whole ghazal is unknown, the question cannot be answered. Latîfî's detaching the couplet from any context of love and linking it directly to the question of planning and decree shows that he too read it as an independent saying of wisdom.

Historical Context

Latîfî introduces Tâcî as the father of the chancellor (nişancı) Câfer Çelebi and as the treasurer of Sultan Bayezid when the latter was "çelebi sultan" in the Amasya province, and he adds a remark about his prose: Tâcî wrote plain prose better than ornate rhymed prose. Tâcî's life was full of the ups and downs of a statesman. According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, he saved his life during the events of 883 (1478) by fleeing to Baghdad, and returned to office after Bayezid's accession to the throne. The anthologies and other sources, however, do not connect this opening couplet with any particular event in Tâcî's life. Linking the subject of the couplet to the poet's own experience would therefore be no more than a guess.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-Şuarâ ve Tabsıratü'n-Nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2018 (e-book), pp. 158-159, entry on Tâcî.
  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 8, pp. 12-18, entry on Tâceddin İbrahim Paşa (Tâcî Bey).

Books

  • İsmail E. Erünsal, "Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 39, Istanbul 2010, pp. 353-356. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Online sources