Original Arabic Text

Metre: not stated in the source (first line: Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün)

ابتلى قلبى بداى الحب لا يبغى طبيبا
او دوا الحب وصل و هوان كان نصيبا

İbtelā ḳalbī bi-dā’i’l-ḥubbi lā yebġī ṭabībā
Ev devā’ü’l-ḥubbi vaṣlun ve hve in kāne naṣībā

ذاب من نار الهوى قلبى هو جارى وما […]
[…]ر يبغى الخدود قد اتاك سايلا فاهم غ[…]

Ẕābe min nāri’l-hevā ḳalbī hve cārī ve mā […]
[…]r yebġi’l-ḫudūde ḳad etāke sā’ilen fe-[rḥam] ġa[rībā]

In English

1. My heart has been struck by the sickness of love; it wants no physician. Or else the cure of love is union, if that should be its lot. (The Turkish translation in the edition understands the second line differently: "This trouble is its lot, its fate." Because "و هوان" is printed as one word in the Arabic text, the line can also be read as "the cure of love is union and abasement".)

2. My heart has melted in the fire of passion; it flows away and [the end of the first line and the beginning of the second could not be read] seeks the cheeks (the melted heart runs down the cheeks as tears). It has come to you begging; have mercy on this stranger. (The edition's translation: "The fire of my heart, melted by the pain of love, strikes my cheeks. Help this stranger who has come to you.")

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets are the only piece in Harîmî's small divan (Dîvânçe) that is not in Turkish. The only known manuscript of the Dîvânçe is in the Millet Library in Istanbul, in the verse section of the Ali Emîrî collection, no. 104. Filiz Kılıç, who introduced it, records that it was copied in ta'lik script by a scribe named Hâşim-i Mekkî in the hijri year 1324. On the last page of her article, which gives the ghazals and two Turkish couplets in transcription, Kılıç heads this poem "Velehü Şi'r-i 'Arabî" (An Arabic poem of his); she prints the Arabic-script text as a small image with a Turkish translation in brackets beneath it, but gives no Latin-script reading.

The printed image is of very low resolution, and both ends of the second couplet are cropped. The first line breaks off at "وما". The second line begins with a single letter "ر", and at its end only the letter "غ" is visible. This last word has been completed as "ġarībā", in view of the rhyme scheme (ṭabībā, naṣībā) and the edition's translation "help this stranger"; the completed letters are shown in square brackets. The word "فاهم" in the same line makes no sense either. The translation's "help" suggests the reading "فارحم" (fe-rḥam, have mercy). That reading is not certain, and the Arabic-script text has been left as printed in the edition.

The Latin-script reading beneath the Arabic text and the couplet-by-couplet rendering are ours. Kılıç's translation gives the general sense of the text but does not follow it word by word. Where the two translations differ, the difference is noted in the rendering.

Three of the four lines end in the sound "-ībā". With its two rhyming lines the first couplet is a matla', an opening couplet, which suggests that the piece began a ghazal or a longer poem. The edition gives no metre. The first line fits exactly the four-foot "fâ'ilâtün" pattern of the remel metre: ib-te-lā ḳal / bī bi-dā’il / ḥub-bi lā yeb / ġī ṭa-bī-bā. For the other lines no firm scansion could be made because of the uncertain reading.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Love is a sickness, yet the lover does not look for a physician to cure it; the only remedy for this pain is union with the beloved. This contrast, much loved in Ottoman divan poetry as well, underlies the first couplet. The Arabic words "dā'" (pain, sickness) and "devā'" (cure) face each other in the same couplet. Together with "ṭabīb" (physician) they form a group of images from medicine (tenasüp). The verb "ibtelā" likewise means to be struck by an illness or affliction.

The second couplet turns the image of sickness into fire and water. The heart, melted in the fire of love, flows like a liquid. In the edition's translation this fire strikes the lover's cheeks, that is, his face flushes. Another sense the text allows is that the melted heart turns into tears and runs down the cheeks. The last line turns the poem into a petition. The lover has come to the beloved as a "sā'il", one who begs or asks for something. He calls himself "ġarīb": a stranger far from home, with no one to turn to. The lover who refused the physician ends the poem hoping only for the beloved's mercy.

Historical Context

There is no record of when or on what occasion the poem was written. All of Prince Korkut's known works other than the Dîvânçe are in Arabic. These works on law, hadith and Sufism show that he used Arabic with ease as a written language. His Kitâb fi't-tasavvuf, described by Kılıç, also contains poems of his own. That he wrote poetry in Arabic is therefore no surprise; what has reached us of it, however, is limited to these two couplets.

In 1509, as the struggle for the throne among his brothers grew sharper, Korkut decided to withdraw from public life and went to Egypt. Kılıç connects this decision with the couplet in the Dîvânçe "Tâc u kabâyı terk idüp uryân olayum bir zemân / Gurbetde seyrân eyleyüp püyân olayum bir zemân" (Let me leave crown and robe and go bare for a while; let me roam and wander in foreign lands for a while). That the Arabic poem ends with the word "ġarīb" brings these years abroad to mind. This is only a possibility; neither the edition nor the other sources connect the poem with the journey to Egypt.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Harîmî (Şehzade Korkut), Dîvânçe, Millet Kütüphanesi, Ali Emîrî, Manzum Eserler no. 104 (copied by Hâşim-i Mekkî, AH 1324).

Academic studies

Books

Online sources