Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün

Hasret-i la'l-i lebüñle lâle-i nu'mânı gör
Baş açuk abdâl olup biline yaprak bağlanur

In English

1. In longing for the ruby of your lips, behold the poppy: it has become a bareheaded abdal, and a leaf is bound around its waist.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is the last couplet of the Dîvânçe, a müfred, a couplet standing on its own. The metre is the remel pattern Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün. The prayer in the heading is "Rahmetullâhü". The lines do not rhyme with each other ("gör" and "bağlanur"), so the couplet cannot be the opening couplet of a ghazal. After the couplet comes the colophon of the Dîvânçe: "Ahkarü'l-halk Hâşimü'l-Mekkî / 1324". Other sources state that the Dîvânçe was compiled by Ali Emîrî Efendi in 1334; the reason for the difference between this and the date 1324 in the text is not known. The poet's life, works and the state of the Dîvânçe are discussed in Şehzade Korkut (Harîmî): Literary Persona, Works and Poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Lâle-i nu'mân is the name of the red poppy in divan poetry. The poet likens the opened flower, standing with its top uncovered, to a wandering dervish, an abdal, who goes bareheaded and binds a leaf around his waist instead of a sash. Since the redness of the poppy recalls the ruby lips of the beloved, the flower seems to have renounced the world out of this longing. Explaining the poppy's appearance as a state of longing makes the couplet an example of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology). The abdal type appears elsewhere in Korkut's poems: in Ghazal 6 the abdal sleeps in the furnace room, and in Ghazal 27 the poet wishes to leave crown and robe and wander in exile.

Historical Context

Sehî Bey, in the entry on Sultan Korkud in his biographical anthology Heşt Bihişt, gives this couplet as the first example of the prince's poetry. In his text the first line reads "Ḥasret-i derd-i ruḫuñla lâle-i Nu'mânı gör", so the poppy's longing is tied not to the lips but to the pain of the cheek. In variant copies the second line also appears as "Baş açuḳ yalın ayaḳ biline yapraḳ baġlayan". That the couplet appears both in the anthology and in the Dîvânçe shows that it was among the pieces of the prince's poetry known from the earliest times.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Harîmî (Şehzade Korkut), Dîvânçe, Millet Library, Ali Emîrî, Manzum Eserler nr. 104.

Academic studies

  • Filiz Kılıç, "Osmanlı Hanedanında Bir Şair: Şehzade Korkut", Bilig (Ahmet Yesevi Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi), 2, Summer 1996, pp. 203–219 (Dîvânçe text pp. 209–218; single couplet 2 at the end of the Dîvânçe, p. 218). teis.yesevi.edu.tr

Official sources

Books

Online sources