Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Micmer görüben sûzumı içi oda yandı
Şemʿ aġladuġum gördi yaşı ḳana boyandı
Öpüp lebüñi zülfüñe el urup uzandı
Gûyâ ki ḥayât âbın içüp ʿömrüm uzandı

In English

1. The censer saw my burning and its insides were consumed by fire; the candle saw me weep and its tears were dyed with blood.

2. When I kissed your lip and reached out my hand to your locks, my life grew long, as if I had drunk the water of life.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets appear in Sehî Bey's Heşt Bihişt, in the entry on Melîhî, under the heading "şiʿr". The first couplet is the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal (gazel); the rhyme is the sound "-andı" in "yandı" and "boyandı". Both lines of the second couplet end with the word "uzandı". This couplet therefore rhymes like an opening couplet as well; in ghazals such a second rhyming couplet following the matla is called hüsn-i matla. The rest of the ghazal is unknown. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre.

The opening couplet also appears in the other biographical anthologies (tezkires), with a slightly different text in each. Latîfî gives it under the heading "Maṭlaʿ" in the form "Micmer görüben sûz-ı derûnum oda yandı / Şemʿ aġladuġum gördi vü ḳanlara boyandı". In Kınalızâde the second line reads "Şem' agladugum gördi yaşum kana boyandı", and in Gelibolulu Âlî "Şemʿ aġladuġum gördi yaşı ḳana boyandı"; both read "sûz-ı derûnum" (the burning within me) in the first line, as Latîfî does. Only Sehî quotes the second couplet. The text here follows Sehî, who gives both couplets together.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet the lover's suffering passes into two objects of the gathering. The censer (micmer) is a vessel holding live coals; the poet ascribes its burning to its seeing his inner fire and pitying him. The melting drops of the candle are likened to tears, and the candle that sees the lover weep has its own tears dyed with blood. Setting aside the real cause and finding a poetic cause for the event is the figure of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology). Censer, fire, candle and tears form a web of mutually evoking words, a congruence of images (tenasüp).

In the second couplet the mood changes and union is described. The beloved's lip is likened, as often in divan poetry, to the water of life that grants immortality; the lover who kisses it says his life grew long as if he had drunk that water. The art of the couplet lies in the use of the word "uzandı" with two different meanings in the two lines: in the first the hand "reaches out" to the locks, in the second life "grows long". The repetition of an identically written word with different meanings is the figure of cinas-ı tâm (perfect paronomasia). The familiar link between the length of the locks and the length of life also lies in the background of the couplet.

Historical Context

Sehî gives these couplets after the sentence in which he praises Melîhî as "Ahmed Paşa's master in poetry"; Latîfî quotes the opening couplet as the last poem in his entry. That all four biographers chose this opening couplet shows that in the sixteenth century it was one of Melîhî's best-known verses. For the poet's life, see the article Melîhî of Tokat.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Official sources

Online sources