Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: eleven-syllable syllabic metre

İnsan kısım kısım yer damar damar
Kaşların lam elif yüzlerin kamer
İnce bel üstüne olaydım kemer
Yakışır bedene sar beni beni
Ben isterim nazlı yâre kul olam
Değmen bana yana yana kül olam
Sen bir bahçıvan ol ben de gül olam
Uzat ellerini der beni beni
Kul Hüseyn’im üstadımı bulayım
Değmen bana yana yana öleyim
Efendim kapında kölen olayım
Müşteri bulursan sat beni beni

In English

1. Man is part by part, the earth vein by vein; your brows are lam and elif, your face is the moon. Would that I were a belt upon your slender waist; it suits the body, wrap me, wrap me round.

2. I wish to be a servant to my coy beloved; do not touch me, let me burn and burn and turn to ash. You be a gardener and let me be a rose; stretch out your hands and pick me, pick me.

3. Let me, Kul Hüseyin, find my master; do not touch me, let me burn and burn and die. My lord, let me be your slave at your door; if you find a buyer, sell me, sell me.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

In Işık's words these three quatrains are a popular deyiş, made known through Erdal Erzincan, who collected it. Each quatrain closes on "beni beni" (me, me), preceded by the verbs "sar, der, sat" (wrap, pick, sell). The first three lines rhyme as "damar, kamer, kemer", "olam, olam, olam", "bulayım, öleyim, olayım". The metre is the eleven-syllable syllabic measure; Işık classes the text as a güzelleme. In the last stanza the poet says "Kul Hüseyn'im" (his pen name, or mahlas). The text rests on the account of Erdoğan Koç.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Işık writes that Kul Hüseyin gave great value to the human being and to beauty, counselled seeing the divine verses in the beautiful and remembering that beauty beautifully, and counted loving a beloved as part of loving God; he quotes the first quatrain of this deyiş to explain this view. According to the informants, Kul Hüseyin used to say "the divine shows itself in the lover's passion". The words of the first line, "man is part by part, the earth vein by vein", say that man and the earth are a whole woven of parts; likening the brows to the letters lam and elif is a familiar image of beauty built on the shapes of Arabic letters.

In the second quatrain the lover wishes to be a servant to the beloved, to burn and turn to ash, to be a rose that a gardener might pick. In the last quatrain this love turns into the search for a master and into being a servant at the lord's door; the line "if you find a buyer, sell me" expresses a surrender that gives itself wholly to the beloved. The short and memorable refrain of the deyiş must have helped it reach a wide audience; this is our conjecture.

Bibliography

Online sources