Original Persian Text

Tecnîs tenâsüb-i dü-peyker …
Tâmm-est eger dü-lafẓ veyâ bîş
der-güft ü nüvişt şüd berâber
der-her-dü terekküb ü taḥarrük
mânend şeved çü der-dü-câ ḫar
Ger bâ-ḥareket-i muḫâlif âyend
nâḳıṣ şeved ism çün pür ve per
Zâyid ki müẕeyyel ism şüd nîz
ḥarf ve ḥareket be-her dü yekser
der âḫir yek ziyâde bâşed
çün çeşm ve çeşme ey hünerver
Ger zâyid yek der-âyed
çün âdem ve dem bi-gû mükerrer
Tecnîs-i mürekkeb ân-çünân-est
lîkin be-terekküb-est der-ḫûr
der her dü ve çü derdih-est der-dih
der-yek çü dilâver ve dil-âver
Tecnîs-i muṭarraf ân-çünân-est
gez her dü dü-ḥarf şüd muġayyer
Tecnîs-i ḫaṭṭ-est çün bi-keş şüd
mis̱l-i diger-eş be-şekl ü peyker …
Ender-beyân-ı ṣanʿat-ı teşbîh …

In English

1. Tecnîs (paronomasia, cinas) is the correspondence of two forms… (The edition does not give the rest of the line.)

2. If two or more words are equal in speech and in writing, it is "tâmm" (complete paronomasia).

3. In both, the structure and the vowels are alike; like the word "ḫar" in two places. (According to the example Halîmî gives in his commentary, "ḫar" is in one place a noun meaning "donkey" and in the other the Persian verb "buy".)

4. If the two words come with different vowels, its name becomes "nâkıs" (defective); like "pür" (full) and "per" (wing).

5. "Zâyid" (augmented), which has also been named "müzeyyel" (with a tail): in the two words the letters and vowels are the same from beginning to end,

6. but at the end one of them has a letter more; like "çeşm" (eye) and "çeşme" (fountain), O man of skill.

7. If the extra letter comes at the beginning of the word, like "âdem" (man) and "dem" (breath, moment), call it "mükerrer" (repeated). (The commentary explains that the excess is at the start of the word; the first line has come down short in the edition.)

8. "Mürekkeb" (compound) paronomasia is likewise, that is, like complete paronomasia; but it lends itself to being formed with a compound word.

9. If the compounding is on both sides it is like "derdih" and "der-dih"; if on one side, like "dilâver" (brave) and "dil-âver" (heart-bringing).

10. "Muṭarraf" (end-varied) paronomasia is thus: in each of the two words one letter differs. (According to the commentary this difference is at the end of the words: "ġâfir" and "ġâfil", "ḫûb" and "ḫûn", "balı" and "balık".)

11. "Ḫaṭṭ" (script) paronomasia is when one word is drawn in the shape and form of the other… (According to the commentary these are words with the same written form and different dots: "ʿâḳil" and "ġâfil", "per" and "ter".)

12. On explaining the art of simile… (The line stands at the head of the section on simile; the edition does not give the rest.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The reader these lines have in mind is the student. In the little treatise he wrote on paronomasia, simile and metaphor, Halîmî first sums up each rule in one or two lines of Persian verse, then opens it up in a Turkish commentary beginning "Yaʿnî" (that is) and gives examples. At the end of the treatise he says that the common and the less familiar rules have been "naẓm olınup beyân olındı", set out in verse, so that beginners may keep them in mind. Rules put into verse to be memorised are the method Halîmî followed in his dictionaries too: the Bahrü'l-garâib was likewise at first a plain dictionary and only later turned into verse.

The only known edition of the text is Muhittin Eliaçık's transcription from folios 67b-70a of the miscellany no. 430/7 in the Âşir Efendi collection of the Süleymaniye Library. The edition prints the Persian lines run on with the commentary as prose and shortens some of them with "ilh" (etc.). The division into lines above is ours: it was made from the commas in the edition and from the rhyme. The shortened places are marked with an ellipsis. The lines that stand as half-lines are the first and the twelfth; the edition gives the continuation of neither. That most of the lines end on the same sound, "berâber, per, yekser, hünerver, mükerrer, dil-âver, muġayyer, peyker", suggests that they are pieces of a single poem. The "der-ḫûr" at the end of the eighth couplet does not fit this rhyme; it may be a difference of reading or of copying, and the edition offers no explanation. The first line of the seventh couplet is also shorter than the others and gives the impression that a word has dropped out. Since the edition gives no information on metre, the aruz pattern in which the lines were written has not been determined here.

Halîmî announces "seven kinds" of paronomasia but names only six in his list: complete, defective, repeated, compound, end-varied and script paronomasia; the augmented or "tailed" kind is explained in a separate line without appearing in the list, and is probably the seventh. Eliaçık notes that the definitions and classifications in the treatise differ from those of the known books of rhetoric. Halîmî himself, for instance, notes separately in the commentary that other scholars used the name "nâkıs" more broadly and included in it an extra letter in the middle of the word. His example of complete paronomasia, taken from Mevlânâ (Rumi), rests on the word "ḫar" meaning both "donkey" and "buy". The compound example "dilâver" and "dil-âver" shows how a compound expression creates a shared sound with a single word written with the same letters. The examples of script paronomasia, "ʿâḳil" and "ġâfil", are words distinguished only by their dots in Arabic script, and this kind can be noticed only within that script.

When the treatise was written is unknown. In the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi Mustafa Erkan writes that Halîmî touched on these subjects briefly in the commentary on the Bahrü'l-garâib and treated them in detail in the treatise. Whether the lines were taken from the verse text of the dictionary or written for the treatise cannot be determined from the edition. For the poet's life and other works see the article Halîmî Lutfullah Çelebi.

Bibliography

Online sources