Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün

Ṭurma var bâd-ı ṣabâ ‘arż ede gör yâre beni
Ḥasret-i dâġ-ı nigâr eyledi bîmâra beni
Tîġ-ı ebrûları sînemde açıp yaralar âh
Merhem urmazsa eger öldürür ol yara beni
Ben anıñ emrine dil-beste faḳīr bende ḳulum
Dönmezem çekse ṣatup bir pûla bâzâra beni
Gülşen-i ḥüsnüne ḥayrân idip ol rûz-ı ezel
Ne revâdır ki girif-târ ede ol ḫâre beni
Yaḳup ‘aşḳ odlarına teşne göñül ravżasını
‘Âḳıbet döndürüp ol bir ṣusuz eşcâra beni
Reh-i ‘aşḳın yolu evvel baña âsân görünüp
Ṣoñradan ṣaldı beter derd-i-le düş-vâra beni
Etme Mecnûn ile Ferhâd’a ḳıyâs derd-i dilim
Ṣanma bî-hûde emek ‘aşḳ ede âvâre beni
Yâr için herkes ‘aduv olduġu Mir’âtde Nümâ
Dönmezem bi’llâh eger çekse ‘adüv dâra beni

In English

1. Do not delay, go, O morning breeze, and present me to the beloved; longing for the beloved's wound has made me ill.

2. The sword of his brows has opened wounds in my breast, ah; if he does not apply a salve, that wound will kill me.

3. I am a poor servant, a slave whose heart is bound to his command; even if he dragged me to market and sold me for a stamp, I would not turn back.

4. Is it right that on that day of eternity he made me wonder at the rose garden of his beauty and then made me captive to that thorn?

5. Burning the thirsty garden of the heart in the fires of love, at last he turned me into a waterless tree.

6. At first the road of love seemed easy to me; later it cast me with pain into a worse hardship.

7. Do not compare the pain of my heart with Mecnun and Ferhad; do not think love has made me labour in vain and wander.

8. Mir'ât-nümâ, in this mirror where everyone is an enemy for the beloved's sake, by God I will not turn back even if the enemy hangs me on the gallows.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Ghazal to the Morning Breeze

In the prose section on the contemplations, after the account of the station of the highest sainthood, comes a ghazal to which the edition gives the heading “Bu maḳāma münâsib ġazel”, a ghazal suited to this station. The eight couplets are measured in remel, four feet a line, with the refrain “-âre beni”, me: yâre beni, bîmâra beni, yara beni, bâzâra beni, ḫâre beni, eşcâra beni, düş-vâra beni, âvâre beni, dâra beni.

The opening of the ghazal is a classical scene: the lover calls on the morning breeze to carry news to the beloved. Then come all the stages of love's pain: the wound opened by the sword of the brows, the servant content to be sold for a stamp in the market, the lover made to wonder at the rose garden on the day of eternity and then made captive to the thorn, the garden of the heart burned in the fire of love and turned into a waterless tree. The sixth couplet says that the road of love first seemed easy and then grew hard; this can be read as a poetic expression of the difference in Sufism between the rapture at the start of the journey and the ordeal that follows.

In the seventh couplet the poet asks that his pain not be compared with that of Mecnun and Ferhad; in another ghazal of the book the love of these two lovers was called “bî-ḥâṣıl”, fruitless. In the makta the pen name is split in two as “Mir'âtde Nümâ”: in the mirror where everyone is an enemy for the beloved's sake, the poet says he will not turn back even if the enemy hangs him on the gallows. The image of the gallows recalls the couplet on Hallâc-ı Mansûr in the book's kaside to the saints.

Bibliography

Online sources