Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Cevrüñ ṭaşını göñülüme niçe atarsın
Bir sırça-durur āhen-i Şįrāzį degüldür

In English

1. How long will you throw the stone of cruelty at my heart; it (my heart) is glass, it is not Shiraz iron.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is taken from Ahmet Kavaklıyazı's article; Kavaklıyazı cites it as the third couplet of ghazal 34 in Muharrem Ergin's edition and by folio 10v in the TDK facsimile of 2020. Since its lines do not rhyme, it is not the opening couplet of the ghazal (gazel). The source does not give the whole ghazal, and Ergin's edition could not be consulted for this study; the source does not give the metre. The poet's divan, its editions and his other poems are discussed in Kadı Burhaneddin: Literary Persona, Divan and Poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

As Kavaklıyazı explains, in this couplet the poet likens the beloved's cruelty to a stone and his own heart to glass, and sets up an antithesis of strength and fragility between stone and glass. His heart is not made of Shiraz iron but is fragile like glass; so it can no longer bear the stones of cruelty and will be shattered. The phrase "cevrüñ ṭaşı" (the stone of cruelty) is a comparison built without a particle of comparison. The idea that the heart is fragile like glass or a bottle is frequent in divan poetry; Kadı Burhaneddin adds an unexpected opposite to this familiar image.

That opposite is "āhen-i Şįrāzį", Shiraz iron. Kavaklıyazı notes that no direct information has been found that Shiraz was known as a place where iron was worked, but, drawing on Ahmet Rıfat and Şemseddin Sami, records that the city once had workshops devoted to the making of weapons and was famous for its cutting and wounding arms; the expression must have arisen from this historical knowledge. In divan poetry Shiraz is most often named as the city of Sa'di and Hafiz, of poetry and elegance; in another couplet of Kadı Burhaneddin's, the wish to turn Sivas into Shiraz is spoken in this sense. Here, however, the city is the symbol of hardness and endurance. That the same city name is used with such different aspects in two couplets is our own observation.

Bibliography

  • Ahmet Kavaklıyazı, "Kadı Burhaneddin'i Anlamak: Divanındaki Bazı Tabirlerin Çözümlenmesi", Selçuk Türkiyat, 56, 2022, p. 315, ghazal 34, couplet 3 (Ergin 1980), TDK 2020 facsimile fol. 10v. https://acikerisim.selcuk.edu.tr/items/5207c1f3-aca0-43f1-9c9e-fef3350cf7bc
  • Muharrem Ergin (ed.), Kadı Burhanettin Divanı, İstanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1980 (not consulted directly; text cited through Kavaklıyazı 2022).

Online sources