Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Yaşım doksan
Yüzden on noksan
Onu da verir
Hazret-i Sübhan

In English

1. My age is ninety, that is, ten short of a hundred. Those missing ten, too, God the Glorified will grant.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The piece is a rhymed answer that Hilmî gave in his last years to those who asked his age. It consists of four short lines of four and five syllables, which rhyme on the words "doksan, noksan, Sübhan", while the third line is left free. This is a pattern close to the folk diction of mânis and jingles. The form and syllable count are not stated in the source, and the identification is ours. The text is quoted in Mehtap Erdoğan's entry in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü in the account of the poet's life; the source on which Erdoğan draws in this section is Vehbi Cem Aşkun's Merzifon Şairleri.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The saying turns the question of age into a witticism and a prayer. Instead of stating his age directly, the poet reckons it against a hundred: ninety is ten short of a hundred. The third and fourth lines interpret this shortfall as ten years that God will grant, so that the wish to reach a hundred is uttered with humble trust in God. "Hazret-i Sübhan" means God, who is free of every deficiency; a contrast of meaning can also be sensed between "noksan" (lacking) and "Sübhan": what is lacking is man's life, and what is without lack is God. This observation is ours.

Historical Context

Erdoğan writes that according to the population register the poet was born in 1244 (1828) and that he died in May 1329 (1913) at the age of eighty-five, and he cites this saying to explain the difference between the age the poet himself gave and the register: he thinks that the poet's birth may have been entered in the register a few years late. The saying is also an example of the trait Aşkun describes in Hilmî, that he spoke all his life in rhymed and cadenced phrases. Hüsameddin likewise says that his words were "ekseriyâ mevzûn", often in metre. For the poet's life see the article Dedezâde Mehmed Hilmî Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources