Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ol ḳadüñe üykündügiyçün serv ü çenâr
Olmadı bunlara güftâr ne reftâr ne yâr
Begüm bâd-ı ṣabâ zülfüñe ṭûş oldı meger
Ki dil ü cân iline misk ü ʿabîr itdi nis̱âr
Temennâ iden ancaḳ ṭapuñı ben degülem
Bu hevâyile geçer şeyḫ ü fetâ mîr-i kibâr
S̱erâdan çekerüm âhı S̱üreyyâya irer
Yıllar ile saña bir gün ne ʿaceb itmedi kâr
Cân gözi görür nûr-ı cemâlüñi senüñ
Levḥ-i dilde yed-i ḳudret yazalı naḳş-ı nigâr
Ḥayât-ı ebedî buldı viṣâlüñe iren
Firḳatüñ zehrin içer ey niceler leyl ü nehâr
Ḫayâtuñdan utanır nuṣḥ ile reyḥân s̱ülüs̱
Tâ muḥaḳḳaḳ saña mânend olalı ḫaṭ-ı ġubâr

In English

1. Because the cypress and the plane tree tried to imitate that stature of yours, they were given neither speech, nor gait, nor a beloved. (As if punished for imitating the beloved's stature, the trees are mute, motionless and alone.)

2. My lord, the morning breeze must have met your locks, for it scattered musk and ambergris over the land of heart and soul.

3. I am not the only one who longs to come into your presence; sheikh and youth and great lords alike spend their lives in this desire.

4. The sigh I draw from the earth reaches the Pleiades; how strange that in all these years it has not once moved you.

5. Ever since the hand of Divine Power wrote the image of that beauty on the tablet of the heart, the eye of the soul has seen the light of your face.

6. Whoever attains union with you has found eternal life; O beloved, how many drink the poison of separation from you night and day.

7. In the edition's reading: Sülüs, reyhânî and "nuṣḥ" are ashamed before your life, for the gubâr script has surely come to resemble you. (For the meaning of the couplet based on the styles of calligraphy, see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Latîfî gives these seven couplets with the words "Ḥurûf-ı teheccî üzre bu ebyât anuñ ḳaṣîdesindendür", that is, they come from a kaside (qasida) of his arranged in the order of the letters of the alphabet, and writes the name of a letter at the head of each couplet: Elif, Be, Te, S̱e, Cim, Ḥa, Hı. The first words of the couplets begin with these letters: "Ol", "Begüm", "Temennâ", "S̱erâdan", "Cân", "Ḥayât", "Ḫayâtuñdan". The poem thus follows the first seven letters of the Arabic alphabet in order. Whether the whole kaside covered all the letters of the alphabet is unknown. The rhyme is the sound "-âr" in "çenâr, yâr, nis̱âr, kibâr, kâr, nigâr, nehâr, ġubâr"; since both lines of the first couplet rhyme, it is the opening couplet (matla) of the kaside. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre. To whom the kaside was presented is unknown; the address "Begüm" (my lord) in the second couplet may be directed to a patron or to the beloved.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Most of the couplets work with familiar conceits of divan poetry. In the first couplet the cypress and the plane tree are shown as if left mute, unable to walk and alone because they tried to imitate the beloved's stature; a poetic cause is found for the fact that trees do not speak or walk anyway. This is a fine example of hüsn-i talil (poetic aetiology). The fourth couplet sets side by side "s̱erâ" (earth) and "S̱üreyyâ" (the Pleiades), creating a distance stretching from earth to sky; as both words begin with the same letter, the pairing also fits the alphabetical scheme. In the fifth couplet the heart is likened to a tablet, and the image of the beloved to a picture written on that tablet by the hand of Divine Power.

The last couplet is woven from words taken from the art of calligraphy. Nesih, reyhânî, sülüs, muhakkak and gubâr are names of styles of script in Ottoman calligraphy; the word "ḫaṭ" means both script and the fine down newly appearing on the beloved's face. The real sense of the couplet is that the down on the beloved's face resembles gubâr, the finest of scripts, and that the other styles of script are put to shame by this beauty. The edition reads the beginning of the line as "Ḫayâtuñdan" and the second word as "nuṣḥ". Given the congruence of images (tenasüp) built on calligraphic terms, one would expect the first word to be "Ḫaṭṭuñdan" (before your script, or down) and the second to be "nesḫ", the name of a script; this reading also fits the letter Hı. This suggestion is ours; the edition's reading has been kept unchanged. The word "muḥaḳḳaḳ" is used as a double entendre (tevriye), both as the adverb "surely" and as the name of a style of script.

Historical Context

Latîfî gives the kaside after describing Melîhî's mastery of the science of poetry and his rhetorical debates in gatherings, following the example of his ghazal. The alphabetical arrangement must have been chosen as an example displaying the poet's verbal skill. Kınalızâde and the other biographers quote no couplets from the kaside. For the poet's life, see the article Melîhî of Tokat.

Bibliography

Online sources