Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

Bir derdimi bin dermana değişmem
Çünkü ol derdimin derman içinde
Yarem açıp Eflâtun’a danışmam
Yareme em veren lokman içimde
Tabibe ne minnet Habib var iken
Nutku Kâm’urunca şifa verirken
Bi hicab miratı hakkı görürken
Esrarı var ehli bürhan içinde
Gel tabib Habibi hakka varalım
El bağlayıp divanına duralım
Cism-i cân derdine derman soralım
Habib tarif etti irfan içinde
Mârifet bağının meyvesin devşür
Akıl ile matun et fikre karıştır
Aşkın küresinde halledip pişir
Bu cismi cân eder cânan içinde
FEDAYİ derdine derman aradı
Ne Eflâtun buldu ne Lokman sordu
Derdim Şah Hüseyin Kerbelâ derdi
Şehit olmuş yatar al kan içinde

In English

1. I would not exchange one pain of mine for a thousand remedies, because the remedy of that pain lies within it. I do not open my wound and consult Plato; the Lokman who gives balm to my wound is within me.

2. What need of a physician when there is the Beloved (the Prophet Muhammad); while his word heals as he wills, while one sees unveiled the mirror of the Truth... His secrets lie among the people of proof and truth.

3. Come, physician, let us go to the Beloved of God; let us stand at his court with folded hands. Let us ask for the remedy for the pain of body and soul; the Beloved described it in wisdom.

4. Gather the fruit of the garden of gnosis; make it into a paste with reason, mix it into thought. Dissolve and cook it in the furnace of love; it turns the body into soul within the beloved.

5. Fedâî looked for a remedy for his pain; neither Plato could find it nor Lokman ask after it. My pain is the Karbala pain of Shah Hüseyin; martyred, he lies in red blood.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a koşma of five quatrains in the eleven-syllable metre. The last line of every quatrain ends with the redif "içinde" (within); the rhymes are built on the sound "-an" in the words "derman, lokman, bürhan, irfan, cânan, kan". In the first quatrain "değişmem, danışmam" rhyme with each other, and in the following ones the first three lines rhyme together. The pen name appears at the beginning of the last quatrain. The phrase "Nutku Kâm'urunca" in the second line of the second quatrain appears corrupted in the transmission; in the modern Turkish rendering it has been interpreted from the context.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is built from beginning to end on images of medicine and the preparation of remedies. Plato and Lokman are symbols of medicine and wisdom in Eastern literature; the poet turns both away, because the remedy of his pain lies within that pain itself. This is a concise expression of the mystical attitude that does not complain of the pain of love but counts it a blessing. Cafer Özdemir notes that Fedâî restates in his own verse the meaning of Fuzûlî's couplet "Aşk derdiyle hoşem el çek ilâcumdan tabîb" (I am content with the pain of love, physician, keep your cure away); the first quatrain of this poem shares the same attitude of telling the physician to "take his hand away".

In the fourth quatrain the poet adapts the language of old pharmacy to mysticism: gathering fruit from the garden of gnosis, making it into a paste with reason, mixing it into thought and cooking it in the furnace of love. At the end of this prescription the body turns into soul within the beloved; that is, man transcends his own self in divine love. In the last quatrain the poem turns in an unexpected direction and names the pain: it is the pain of Hüseyin, martyred at Karbala. Presenting the pain of love and the grief of Karbala as one and the same pain is a typical example of the way Fedâî treats Alevi-Bektashi faith and Sufism together.

Bibliography

Online sources