Eşref, Couplets 1: Ne dest-âvîzini gördük

Couplets 1 — Ne dest-âvîzini gördük bu dehrin bağbânından

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 13 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Two couplets by Eşref Abdurrahman Efendi likening the world to a garden: a gardener of time whose spring and autumn please no one and an arrow that startles the heart's bird.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Ne dest-âvîzini gördük bu dehrin bağbânından
Bahârından ne memnûnuz, ne efsürde hazânından

Hadeng-i nâvek-i âzarı lütf it der kemân etme
Meded dil murgunu eyler remîde âşiyânından

In English

1. We have seen no keepsake to hold on to from the gardener of this world; we are pleased neither with its spring nor with its faded autumn.

2. Be kind and do not set the arrow of torment to the bow; help, it startles the bird of the heart and drives it from its nest.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The thought of the world as a garden, and of time as its gardener, is the starting point of these two couplets. In the first the poet says he has seen nothing to hold on to from that gardener, no "dest-âvîz"; neither spring nor autumn pleases him. To be content with none of the seasons is the voice of a heart that has given up its hopes of the world, and the couplet therefore has a sententious flavour. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar gives the two couplets as "from his graceful poems"; the same two couplets appear in İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak's article in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü. The only differences between the two texts are in spelling ("dehrin / dehrün", "etme / itme", "âşiyânından / âşyânından").

The second couplet turns to the beloved and carries the image from the garden to the hunt. "Hadeng" is an arrow, "nâvek" a small arrow or the groove from which it is shot; "der-kemân etmek" is to set the arrow to the bow. The lover begs the beloved not to set the arrow of torment to the bow, for even before it is shot it startles the bird of the heart from its nest. Garden and bird make a quiet link between the gardener of the first couplet and the nest of the second. Since the two couplets share the same rhyme ("-ânından"), they must be the opening couplet and one other couplet of the same ghazal; the couplets in between are unknown. The couplets scan in the mefâîlün pattern; the sources do not give the metre. The life of the mufti of Merzifon, and his judgeship of Cyprus, are followed in Eşref Abdurrahman Efendi of Merzifon.