Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ḳopar fitne ḳadem baṣṣa o ḳaddi serv bâġ üzre
Ḳıyâmet ḳâmetüñ görse cihân ḳalḳar ayaġ üzre

In English

1. If that cypress-statured one set foot in the garden, turmoil would break out; if the world saw your stature, which is the Resurrection, it would rise to its feet.

Literary and Historical Commentary

This is the most widely quoted of Ehlî's couplets: Âşık Çelebi, Kınalızâde and Hüsameddin all give it. The couplet gathers every member of a family of words into a single line. "Kıyâmet" is the end of the world, the day the dead rise; "kıyâm", from the same root, is standing up, and "kâmet" is stature. The beloved's stature is likened to the Resurrection, because everyone who sees it rises, as on the Day of Resurrection. The words "cihân kalkar ayaġ üzre", the world rises to its feet, describe both standing up in respect and the outbreak of a commotion, a revolt.

The first line carries the same idea into the garden. In divan poetry the beloved's stature is likened to the cypress; when the cypress-statured beauty steps into the garden, the garden's cypresses cannot compete and a "fitne", a turmoil, breaks out. Since the word fitne also recalls the disorders held to herald the Resurrection, the two lines become parts of the same picture.

Textual Differences

Âşık Çelebi's text is followed here. Kınalızâde has "Kıyâm-ı kâmetin" in the second line; this reading joins kıyâm and kâmet directly in a genitive construction. In Hüsameddin's text the first line reads "o kadd-i ser ü bâğ üzre"; the writing of "ser ü" for "serv" looks like an error of typesetting or reading. The article Ehlî (Tayyibzâde Mehmed Efendi) covers the poet's life and his other poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources