Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Yâre añmışlar beni ol mâh-rû çıḳmış biliş
Saña ʿâşıḳdur dimişler bilmezem anı dimiş

In English

1. They mentioned me to the beloved; that moon-faced one turned out to know me. When they said "He is in love with you", she said "I do not know him".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Ehlî turns a piece of gossip into verse; the wit lies in the contradiction between the two lines. Someone spoke to the beloved about the lover; the beloved showed that she knew him, turned out to be a "biliş", an acquaintance. But when they said "He is in love with you", the beloved suddenly said "Bilmezem anı", I do not know him. This passage from knowing to not knowing conveys the beloved's coquetry and denial: the lover exists in her memory, but his being a lover is not acknowledged.

The delivery of the couplet is woven with the reportative suffix "-mış": anmışlar, çıkmış, dimişler, dimiş. The lover did not witness the event but heard of it from others, which heightens the scene's tone, at once comic and bitter. Âşık Çelebi, Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin all give the couplet, each with small differences. Kınalızâde has "sormışlar" and "bilmiş", while Hüsameddin and Kınalızâde call the beloved "bî-vefâ", faithless, instead of "mâh-rû". Âşık Çelebi's text is followed here; Hüsameddin's form "bilmezin" looks like a later reading of the older Turkish ending "bilmezem". The broad lines of Ehlî's poetry are described in the article Ehlî (Tayyibzâde Mehmed Efendi).

Bibliography

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