Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Kondı dil mülkine 'ışkuñ ey peri cânum gibi
Oturup tahtına hükm itdi Süleymânum gibi
Bağrımuñ başına gamzen şöyle neşter urdı kim
'Ayn-ı çeşmümden bu dem hûnâb akar kanum gibi
'Işkuñuñ derdine dil ol hadde mûnis oldı kim
Almak içün cân virür derdini dermânum gibi
Bâğ-ı hüsnünde bu dem reyhân hatun sevdâsına
Beni hayrân iden ol serv-i hırâmânum gibi
Göñlini târâca virüp bu Harîmînüñ şehâ
Tağıdan 'aklını ol zülf-i perîşânum gibi

In English

1. O fairy, your love settled in the realm of the heart like my soul; sitting on its throne, it ruled like my Solomon.

2. Your glance struck such a lancet into the top of my breast that bloody water now flows from the spring of my eye like my blood.

3. The heart has grown so used to the pain of your love that it gives its life to receive that pain like my cure.

4. What now makes me wonder in the garden of your beauty, through passion for your basil-like down, is that swaying cypress of mine.

5. O king, what has given this Harîmî's heart over to plunder and scattered his mind is that dishevelled lock of mine.

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 "-um gibi" (like my ...), and the rhyme is the "-ân, -an" of "cân, Süleymân, kan, dermân, hırâmân, perîşân". The prayer in the heading is "Nevverallâhü kabrehû". The ghazal is in the same metre, rhyme and redif as Ghazal 45 just before it. The second lines of the opening couplets ("hükm itdi Süleymânum gibi") and of the closing couplets ("zülf-i perîşânum gibi") are almost identical, and the rhymes "kanum gibi" and "serv-i hırâmânum gibi" are shared by both poems. Whether these are two workings of one ghazal or the result of the poet returning twice to the same ground 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

The first couplet repeats the opening of Ghazal 45: love settles in the realm of the heart and rules like Solomon. In the second couplet the glance is likened to a surgeon. The lancet was the small blade once used for bleeding; the glance striking a lancet into the breast makes bloody tears flow from the eye. Since "'ayn" means both eye and spring, the couplet forms a tevriye (double entendre). In the third couplet the contrast between pain and cure is reversed: the heart is so used to pain that it seeks it like a cure, an example of the pain of love being counted a remedy in divan poetry. In the fourth the down is likened to basil and the beloved's stature to a swaying cypress. In the last couplet the mind is plundered and the dishevelled lock scatters it. Standing side by side, the two ghazals let the reader of the Dîvânçe see different arrangements of the same material.

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 46, p. 217). teis.yesevi.edu.tr

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