Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün

Çekilmiş ḳudreti Ḥaḳdan cemâliň şevḳi bir perde
‘Aceb hem-tâ olur mı ḥüsniňe bir ġayri dilberde
Fedâ cân eylerim elbet yolunda sen gibi merde
Neler var pek naẓar ḳıl ‘âşıḳıň esrârına ebrde
Değil bir kimsede meylim faḳat sen şûḥ-ı gül-terde
Bana raḥm eyle sulṭânım perîşân ḥâlimi gör de

In English

1. A veil of power has been drawn from God over the radiance of your beauty; could there, I wonder, be beauty equal to yours in any other beloved? On the path of a gallant one like you I shall surely sacrifice my life; look closely at the secrets of the lover, what is in them. My inclination is toward no one else but you, O lively one with skin like a rose; have pity on me, my sultan, see my wretched state.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is recorded in the cönk as an aruz semai. The semais minstrels composed in aruz are usually written in the pattern of four "mefâîlün" feet and sung to the saz. Because Hakverdioğlu's article publishes only the first verse unit of each poem in the cönk, we know only the first stanza of this poem. All six lines rhyme on the "-erde / -ör de" sound in "perde / dilberde / merde / ebrde / gül-terde / gör de". The identification of the metre is ours; as is usual in the aruz poems of folk poets, some syllables may not fit the pattern exactly. To whom and on what occasion the poem was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This six-line stanza is recorded in the cönk as a "semâ‘î" and is built like a six-line (müseddes) stanza whose lines all end in the sound "-erde". The first two lines tie the beloved's beauty to God's power: a veil from God has been drawn over that beauty, and no beloved can be "hem-tâ", equal, to it. In the third line the beloved is called "merd", gallant, which shows that the beloved is imagined as a young man. The reading and meaning of the word "ebrde" at the end of the fourth line are uncertain; it is not rendered in our translation. The last two lines are the lover's declaration of fidelity and a plea: the expression "perîşân hâlimi gör de" (just see my wretched state) closes the stanza with a heartfelt request in the colloquial pattern "gör de".

Historical Context

The poem is recorded under the pen name "Himmetî" in the Merzifon Cönkü introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019. The cönk contains three of Himmetî's poems, one in syllabic metre and two in aruz. The article gives no information about the poet; the poet's identity and the century in which he lived have not been determined. Since the cönk is thought to have been compiled in Merzifon within the literary circle of Eyüb Sabrî, the poet may have been one read or living in that circle. For details, see the page on Himmetî. The poem is on page 94 of the cönk and page 550-551 of the article; its full text is in the cönk itself and has not been published to date.

Bibliography

Online sources