Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Bilmez sırr-ı miyânını hayâlât Ehlî
Açmaz râz-ı lebin keşf ü kerâmât ehlî

In English

1. The people of fancy do not know the secret of her waist; the people of mystical vision and miracles cannot open the mystery of her lip. (In Kınalızâde's reading the first line runs: "Ehlî, with fancies, does not know the secret of that waist.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

In divan poetry the beloved's waist is so slender that it cannot be seen, and so it counts as a "secret"; her mouth is so small that it resembles nothingness and is spoken of as a "râz", a mystery. Ehlî unites these two conceits in a single couplet and sets them against two groups. The "hayâlât ehli", those who weave fancies, the poets, do not know the secret of the waist; even the "keşf ü kerâmât ehli", the saints who see hidden things, cannot open the mystery of the lip. The couplet says that even the deepest knowledge of poetry and of Sufism falls short before the beloved's beauty.

Pen Name or Refrain

The two sources of the couplet diverge at one point. In the edition of Kınalızâde the end of the first line is written "hayâlât Ehlî" with a capital; in this reading the word is the poet's pen name, and the couplet becomes the last couplet (makta) of a ghazal. In Beyânî's text, however, both lines end with "ehli": "hayâlât ehli" and "kerâmet ehli". In this reading "ehli" is a refrain, and the couplet is a symmetrical matla setting two groups against each other. Beyânî's forms "Bilemez" and "Açamaz" strengthen this symmetry. That the word means both the pen name and "the people of" suggests that the poet may have built the ambiguity on purpose; such a double reading of the pen name is also seen in the words "Ehlî dururken" in the Gelibolu kıta. Kınalızâde's text is followed here.

Bibliography

Online sources