Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Seri kodum yoluna almadı cânân eline
Gideyin başım alıp ben dahî hicrân eline
Gözedür sâ'id-i sîmînini cümle uşşâk
Fukarâ cümle bakarsın şeh-i hûbân eline

In English

1. I laid my head on her path; the beloved did not take it in hand. Let me too take my head and go off into the land of separation.

2. All the lovers watch her silver wrist; you see all the poor looking to the hand of the king of beauties.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The refrain of the ghazal is "eline", to the hand of, and the two couplets move among three different uses of this word. In the matla the lover lays his head on the beloved's path, and the beloved does not "take it in hand". In the second line the idiom "başını alıp gitmek", to take one's head and go, comes into play: the lover whose head has not been accepted will take that same head and go off "hicrân eline", into the land of separation. That the word "el" means both hand and country, homeland, binds the two halves of the line together.

In the second couplet the scene resembles a palace gate. The lovers are looking at the beloved's silver wrist; the poet likens them to the poor awaiting alms and the beloved to the "şeh-i hûbân", the king of beauties. The poor looking to the sultan's hand is a familiar expression for waiting for charity and gifts. The gift awaited here is a favour from the beloved. The rhyme is the sound -ân in cânân, hicrân and hûbân.

Hüsameddin gives the two couplets as one piece; whether there were other couplets between them is not known. The rest of the ghazal and its metre are not in the source. The image of the head in the matla belongs to the same family as the gallows in Ehlî's couplet "Zülfüñe ber-dâr olup", preserved by Âşık Çelebi: in both the lover offers his own head or heart like a sacrifice devoted to the beloved.

Bibliography

Online sources