Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cânı bir düşnâmuña virdüm senüñ ey bî-vefâ
Gel ziyân görmezsin andan anı al da ṣuñ baña

In English

1. Faithless one, I have given my life for a single curse of yours; come, you will suffer no loss from it: take my life and hand me the curse.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Here love speaks the language of bargaining. The lover is willing to give his life for a "düşnâm", a curse or rebuke, from the beloved; in the second line he presents the trade to the beloved as a profitable affair: "Ziyân görmezsin", you will make no loss. She will take his life and give in return only a curse. "Al da sun", take and hand over, is an everyday market expression for taking one thing and holding out another in exchange.

In divan poetry even the beloved's curse is a favour to the lover, for every word from the beloved's mouth is attention directed at him. Ehlî turns this familiar idea into a scene of trade and so shows the inequality between the lover's whole being and the beloved's slightest attention. The couplet is given in Âşık Çelebi under the heading "Şi'r-i û" and in Kınalızâde with "Diger"; Kınalızâde has "görmezsen". The variants listed in the edition show that manuscript S omits it. The address "ey bî-vefâ", faithless one, is the same epithet Hüsameddin and Kınalızâde give the beloved in the couplet "Yâre añmışlar beni"; faithlessness is the most often mentioned trait of Ehlî's beloved.

Bibliography

Online sources