Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Desem hicrinde kan aglar gözüm ol mâh-ı âl anlar
Hilâle döndü ger cismim desem hod bir hayâl anlar

In English

1. If I say my eye weeps blood in your absence, that moon-faced one takes it for a trick; if I say my body has turned into a crescent, that too he takes for a fancy. ("Âl" means both red and trick; the phrase "mâh-ı âl" in the text can also be read "that red moon".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Neither of the lover's two complaints finds any response in the beloved, and the poet says so with two plays on words. In the first line the word "âl" does the work: the lover says that his eye weeps blood, while the beloved takes this for "âl", a trick, a ruse. Since the same word also means the colour red, a link of colour is formed as well between bloody tears and "âl". In the second line the lover says that his body has grown thin and turned into a crescent, and the beloved understands this as "hayâl". Hayal here means a fancy, an invention, and is also the word divan poetry uses for a body melted by love until only a shadow of it remains. The beloved's denial thus in a sense confirms the lover's claim.

Since both lines end with the refrain "anlar" and the rhyme "âl / hayâl", this is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal. The phrase "ol mâh-ı âl anlar" in Hüsameddin's text poses a difficulty of reading: read with the izafet it becomes "that red moon understands", read without it "that moon takes it for a trick". The sense is smoother in the second reading; this reading is not certain, because the couplet occurs only in Hüsameddin and there is no second text to compare. It is the second of the nine pieces Hüsameddin selected and stands among the couplets he lines up one after another with the words "Bu da onundur", this too is his.

Bibliography

Online sources