Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Heading: ‘ĀKİF-ZĀDE MERḤŪMUÑ ḪĀNE-İ SA‘ĀDETLERİ AMASYA’DA İÇERİ ŞEH[İ]RDE OLUP AMASYA IRMAĠI ĠĀYET ṬAŞĠUN OLMAĠLA ZİYĀRETLERİNDEN MAḤRŪMİYYETİM OLDUḲDA BU BEYT İLE MA‘ẔERET OLUNMUŞDUR

Metre: fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilün

Bu eşk-i ḥasreti ‘arż eylemek olurdı varup
Nigāra gitmege lākin ṣular geçit mi virir

In English

1. I ought to go and present this tear of longing; but do the waters give a crossing to go to the beloved?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Although this single couplet stands in the chronogram section of the Dîvânçe, it is not a chronogram; Babaarslan notes that he treats it, and the couplet that follows, in this section only because they are found among the chronograms. The couplet is in the remel pattern "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". Its long heading in the manuscript gives the reason it was written: "Since the blessed house of the late Âkif-zâde was in İçeri Şehir in Amasya, and the river of Amasya was in heavy flood, when I was deprived of visiting him I apologised with this couplet." The edition does not give the folio number of this couplet in a footnote. Two words of the heading came out with gaps in the PDF text, and their reading is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet puts an everyday apology in the language of love. The poet calls the friend he cannot visit "nigār" (beloved), and what he would bring is "the tear of longing". The flooded river that gives no crossing is both a real obstacle and the usual poetic figure for whatever keeps the lover from the beloved. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "eşk" (tear) and "ṣular" (waters): the poet's tears are as many as the river's flood waters.

In the Dîvânçe this couplet is followed by Âkif-zâde's reply: "Semt-i aḥbāba geçit virmese ırmaġ ne ġam / Gözlerin sevdigim ol köpri hemān var olsun" (If the river gives no crossing to the friends' side, no matter; long live that bridge whose eyes I love). The wordplay in the reply is striking: in Turkish the arches of a bridge are called its "eyes"; "the bridge whose eyes I love" means both the bridge with its sound arches and the tears of the friend. Âkif-zâde's reply couplet is given on a separate page, Chronogram 29. This analysis is ours.

Historical Context

İçeri Şehir is the old part of Amasya on the citadel side of the river. Hüsameddin writes that Îdîzâde Âkif Mustafa Efendi, in his house in İçerişehir opposite the Great Mosque (Câmi-i Kebîr), gathered men of learning and letters one night every week for conversation. Âkif-zâde means a member of this family. The Âkif-zâde left unnamed in the heading was very probably es-Seyyid Abdürrahîm Efendi, grandson of Âkif Mustafa Efendi, Vâzıh's teacher and his partner in a joint ghazal; this is an inference. Hüsameddin writes that Abdürrahîm Efendi died in 1231 (1816). The word "late" in the heading shows that the heading was written after his death, when the Dîvânçe was being compiled. For the poem on the flooding of Amasya's rivers see Mukatta‘ât 15.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Online sources