Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Müdde'îde n'ola sakınsam ol âdem cânını
Mü'min olan sakınur şeytândan îmânını
Gün tutuldı diye hükm ide yaza takvimine
Görse yüzinde müneccim zülf-i müşg-efşânı
Halka 'arz eyler bahâr âlâtını bir hâcedür
Çârsüy-ı bâgda açup sabâ dükkânını
Karşuña aṣılmasun zülfün hayâliyle rakîb
Gamzenüñ tîğiyle çal 'ömrüm anuñ urgânını
Kâsesinde serverâ zerrîn-kadeh altûn ezer
Bu Harîmî kulunun tezhîb içün dîvânını

In English

1. What if I guard that person's life from the rival; the believer guards his faith from Satan.

2. If the astrologer saw the musk-scattering locks on that face, he would write the judgement "the sun is eclipsed" in his almanac.

3. Spring is a merchant who, opening the shop of the morning breeze in the bazaar of the garden, displays its wares to the people.

4. Let the rival not hang on before you with the fancy of your locks; O my life, cut his rope with the sword of your glance.

5. O noble beloved, to illuminate the divan of this servant Harîmî, the beloved grinds gold in the bowl of the golden cup.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a ghazal of five couplets. The metre is the remel pattern Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilâtün Fâ'ilün. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-ını", and the rhyme is the "-ân" of "cân, îmân, efşân, dükkân, urgân, dîvân". The prayer in the heading is "Rahmetullâhi 'aleyhi" (God's mercy be upon him). The last word of the second couplet stands in the text as "müşg-efşânı"; since the other rhymes end in "-ânını", a syllable may be missing here, but it has not been emended. According to Kılıç's note the second line of the last couplet reads "dükkânını" instead of "dîvânını" in Pervâne Bey's anthology (fol. 589b). Since that reading repeats the rhyme of the third couplet, the form in the Dîvânçe seems more fitting. 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

In the first couplet the rival is likened to Satan and the beloved to faith: as the believer guards his faith from Satan, so the lover guards the beloved from the rival. The second couplet is an example of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology). The beloved's face is the sun and the black locks the shadow covering it; if the astrologer saw this, he would record an eclipse in his almanac. The astrologers' practice of preparing yearly almanacs that recorded celestial events is the ground of the comparison. In the third couplet spring is personified as a merchant who has made the morning breeze its shop; this is a teşhis (personification). In the fourth couplet the words "to hang" and "rope" call up a scene of execution: the rival should not hang about before the beloved, and the sword of the glance is expected to cut his rope. The last couplet names tezhip, the illumination of books with gold. In illumination gold is ground in a bowl and turned into paint; the beloved's golden cup becomes the bowl for this work, and the poet's divan is adorned with gold.

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 43, p. 216). teis.yesevi.edu.tr

Books