Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ciger ḳanını gözlerüñ yürek odıyla su ḳıldı
ʿAcāyib kār-ḫānedür niderler ḳarʿ u enbįḳi

In English

1. Your eyes, with the fire of my heart, have turned the blood of my liver into water; (this heart) is a marvellous workshop, what need have they of flask and alembic (the vessels of distilling).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is taken from Ahmet Kavaklıyazı's article; Kavaklıyazı cites it as the fourth couplet of ghazal 66 in Muharrem Ergin's edition and by folio 17r 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

Kavaklıyazı quotes the couplet for the expression "blood turning to water and water to blood" and gives it the sense "to suffer great anguish and pain". In classical literature the liver is believed to be the source of the body's blood, blood being formed as the liver melts; the blood of the liver leaves the body mingled with tears. The blood in the heart turning to water and the tears flowing bloody describe, according to Kavaklıyazı, a process that leads or brings one to death. The expression also recalls the Persian saying "Cigerem âb şod", meaning "my liver has turned to water". Kavaklıyazı shows that this expression occurs in fourteen more places in the divan.

The couplet describes this pain through the image of an alembic. The beloved's eyes burn the poet's heart, and the blood in his liver turns to water with this heat; all of this, in Kavaklıyazı's words, calls to mind a workshop where distilling is done with alembic and flask. "Kār-ḫāne" is a workshop, "ḳarʿ" the vessel used in distilling, and "enbįḳ" the alembic. The lover's heart, being the place where blood is separated from water, is a workshop that astonishes all who see it; while this workshop exists there is no need of alembic and vessel. The congruence of images (tenasüp) set up between the words liver, heart, eye, blood, water and fire and the instruments of distillation gives the couplet the air of a picture seen through the eyes of a physician or alchemist; this assessment is our own. As Özkan relates, in his youth Kadı Burhaneddin also took lessons in medicine from Seyyid Muhammed Nîlî in Damascus.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Ahmet Kavaklıyazı, "Kadı Burhaneddin'i Anlamak: Divanındaki Bazı Tabirlerin Çözümlenmesi", Selçuk Türkiyat, 56, 2022, p. 317, ghazal 66, couplet 4 (Ergin 1980), TDK 2020 facsimile fol. 17r. 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).

Academic studies

Online sources