Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün

Eyledi gül gülşene çünkim vedâ'
Bülbül ardunca çığırur el-vedâ'
Ey şeh-i ferhunde-ahter lâ-cerem
Mihr-i hüsnünden irer mihre şu'â'
Sordum ağzun yirini didi lebün
[okunamadı]
Ol rakîb-i bed-likâya ey ṣanem
Bunca halkıyle nedendür etbâ'
Ey Harîmî ṣakla nazmuñ dürrini
Kes̱ret oldukda kesâd ulu meta'

In English

1. When the rose bids farewell to the rose garden, the nightingale cries "farewell" after it.

2. O king of auspicious star, surely light reaches the sun from the sun of your beauty.

3. I asked where your mouth was; your lips said: [the line is missing from the digital text; according to the Turkish rendering given by Kılıç, "Every secret should stay between two people"].

4. O beauty, why do so many people follow that ugly-faced rival?

5. O Harîmî, keep the pearl of your verse hidden; when there is abundance, even precious goods fall in value.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a ghazal of five couplets and the only example among the poems ending in the letter 'ayn of the Arabic alphabet. The metre is the short remel pattern Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün. There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the "-â'" of "vedâ', el-vedâ', şu'â', etbâ', meta'". The second line of the third couplet is missing from the digital text. In its place stands only the Turkish rendering Kılıç gives in parentheses: "Every secret should stay between two people". This suggests that the line was in Arabic and did not come through because it was printed in Arabic script or special type. By the rhyme the line must also end in "-â'". Since it cannot be written without being seen, it has been marked as illegible. The letters ṣ (sad) and s̱ (se), which came out as ş in the digital text, have been restored according to the original spelling of the words. 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

The ghazal opens with the rose leaving the garden and the nightingale's farewell. Rose and nightingale are the best-known counterparts of beloved and lover in divan poetry. In the second couplet the word "mihr" means both sun and love; the beloved's beauty is a sun, and the sun in the sky takes its light from it. The third couplet rests on the motif of the smallness of the beloved's mouth. In divan poetry the beloved's mouth is so small as to be almost invisible, so it is spoken of as a secret, a kind of non-existence. When the lover asks where the mouth is, the lips answer that a secret must be kept. The last couplet is the one Kılıç quotes as an example of couplets in which Harîmî praises himself and his poetry. The saying "Kesret oldukda kesâd ulu meta'" (when there is abundance, precious goods lose value) is a judgement with the flavour of a proverb, a good example of the use of idioms and proverbs Kılıç notes in Harîmî.

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; ghazal 14, p. 212). teis.yesevi.edu.tr

Books