Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Zülfüñe ber-dâr olup atdı semâya tâcını
Şimdi buldı işte göñlüm ey perî miʿrâcını

In English

1. O fairy, my heart, hanged from your curling hair, has thrown its crown up to the sky; now, see, it has found its ascension.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Within two lines a scene of execution turns into a scene of ascent. "Ber-dâr olmak" means to be hanged on the gallows, and in the Sufi tradition the first name that comes to mind is Hallâc-ı Mansûr, hanged for saying "I am the Truth". Ehlî's heart has been hanged from the beloved's curling hair; the long, twisting locks are here like a rope, a gallows. Yet the hanged heart does not fall to the ground; it rises and throws its crown to the sky. Throwing one's crown into the air is a sign of joy and of renunciation; the crown (tac) worn by dervishes also comes to mind.

The rise is named in the second line: "mi'rac". The word describing the Prophet's ascension to heaven is also used in the language of the Sufis for the soul's ascent towards God. To be hanged from the beloved's hair thus becomes both death and an ascent to heaven; for the lover, to die in love is to reach the highest station. "Tâc" rhymes with "mi'râc", and since both lines end on the same sound the couplet is the opening couplet of a ghazal. Kınalızâde writes that Ehlî took up Sufism in his later years; since this couplet is among the early poems Âşık Çelebi recorded in 1568, it cannot be counted a product of that turn, but it shows that Sufi conceits were present in the poet's language from the start.

Bibliography

Online sources