Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün

Yâ Rab bu hüsn-i hulk ile ol yâr-ı pür-cefâ
Ben mübtelâya mihr kılup eylemez vefâ
Leyli ṣaçına göñlümi meftün idüp bu dem
Mecnûn eyledi beni ol yâr-ı mehlikâ
Canımı 'ışkun odına yakmağa her (bir) nefes
Derd ü belâ ile deli eyledi mübtelâ
'Uşşâk-ı ṣad niyâz ile şehsâr idüp müdâm
Ben bi-nevâya derd ü gamın eyledi nevâ
İzi tozını gözlerüme armağan getür
Yüz sürivir işigine varırsan ey ṣabâ
Câdü gözi gelürse n'ola kanum içmege
Dilden Harîmî vir ana ehlen ü merhaba

In English

1. O Lord, that beloved so full of cruelty, with this fine nature, shows no love to me, the afflicted one, and keeps no faith.

2. That moon-faced beloved has made my heart captive to hair as black as Leylâ's and at this moment has turned me into Mecnun.

3. To burn my soul in the fire of love with every (single) breath, the beloved has driven me mad and captive with pain and affliction.

4. Making the lovers who come with a hundred pleas "şehsâr" all the time, the beloved has granted to me, the destitute one, pain and sorrow as my portion. The reading of "şehsâr" is doubtful; read as "şermsâr" (ashamed), the line means "putting the lovers to shame".

5. O morning breeze, if you reach the beloved's threshold, rub your face upon it and bring the dust of the footprints to my eyes as a gift.

6. What if the sorcerer eye comes to drink my blood; Harîmî, say to it from the heart, "welcome, most welcome".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a ghazal of six couplets as far as the digital text allows. The couplet numbers in Kılıç's edition run to seven, and it appears that one couplet, most probably the second, was lost at the turn from page 209 to page 210. That couplet has not been invented. The metre is the muzâri pattern Mef'ûlü Fâ'ilâtü Mefâ'îlü Fâ'ilün. There is no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the "-â" of "vefâ, mehlikâ, mübtelâ, nevâ, sabâ, merhabâ". At the head of the poem, as with most poems in the Dîvânçe, stand the words "Velehü" (also his) and the prayer "Tayyeballâhü s̱erâhü" (may God make his earth fragrant). These appear to be headings added by whoever collected the poems. 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 a complaint about the beloved's faithlessness. The phrase "hüsn-i hulk" (fine nature) in the first couplet turns into bitter irony, since the beloved is in fact cruel. The second couplet alludes to the story of Leylâ and Mecnun. "Leylî saç" means both Leylâ's hair and, through the word "leyl" (night), hair as black as night; this tevriye (double entendre) ties the image to the lover who becomes Mecnun. In the fourth couplet there is a pun between "bî-nevâ" (destitute, voiceless) and "nevâ" (portion, and also sound and the name of a musical mode). In the fifth couplet the morning breeze, as always in divan poetry, is the messenger between beloved and lover. The gift of the beloved's foot-dust to the eye rests on the belief that such dust heals like the collyrium applied to the eyes. In the last couplet the motif of the sorcerer eye that drinks blood meets the lover's acceptance of his own death with an Arabic word of welcome.

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 2, pp. 209-210). teis.yesevi.edu.tr

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