Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilâtün Fâilün

Ẕevḳ-i ṣahbâyı muḥabbet dilde güyâyım size
Dehrde pinhân degil ẓâhir hüveydâyım size
Keşf-i râz etmem velî esrârımı ‘alemlere
Neyleyem ma‘ẕûr olup me’mûr-ı mevlâyım size
Kim ki mecnûndur bilir ‘âlemde taḥḳīḳ raġbetim
Daġ-ı Mecnûn’a devâ erbâb bileyim size
Fehm-i idrâkden müberrâ genc-i esrârım nihân
Ey Amasya ehli bir müşkil mu‘ammâyım size
Ger beni ‘âḳil gerek mecnûn ṭutañ Mir’at-nümâ
Muḳteżâyı bir gedâ ednâyı ferdâyım size

In English

1. I am the one who speaks to you in the heart of the delight of the wine of love; I am not hidden in the world, I am plainly visible to you.

2. I do not reveal my secret, nor do I reveal my secrets to the worlds; what can I do, I am excused, I am the Lord's appointee to you.

3. Whoever is a Mecnun knows in the world the truth of my longing; let me make known to you those who are the cure for Mecnun's wound.

4. My treasury of hidden secrets is beyond understanding and comprehension; O people of Amasya, I am a hard riddle to you.

5. Mir'ât-nümâ, hold me wise or mad as you will; tomorrow (at the resurrection) I am to you a beggar, the lowliest, the one you will need.

Literary and Historical Commentary

“O People of Amasya”

One of the places in the work where Amasya is named is this five-couplet ghazal. In the fourth couplet the poet addresses the people of the city directly: “Ey Amasya ehli bir müşkil mu‘ammâyım size”, O people of Amasya, I am a hard riddle to you. Şensöz infers from this couplet and from the other ghazal addressed to the city that Süleyman Efendi lived in Amasya. Built on the refrain “-ım size”, I am to you, every couplet reads like the poet introducing himself to the city in the first person; the metre is the four-foot remel.

Two opposing wishes are interwoven in the ghazal. On the one hand the poet says he is “dehrde pinhân degil”, not hidden in the world but plainly visible; on the other he says he does not reveal his secret to the world and carries a “genc-i esrâr”, a treasury of secrets beyond the reach of understanding. The expression “me'mûr-ı mevlâ”, the Lord's appointee, in the second couplet can be thought of together with the account that the sheikh came to Amasya on a spiritual sign from his own master; the poem does not say so explicitly.

The ambivalence in the city's view of the sheikh comes out in the pen-name couplet: whether the people of Amasya count him wise or mad, he is a beggar they will need at the resurrection. In the book's other Amasya ghazal, and in the section devoted to the “sürh-ser” of the city, the same feeling is heard, the voice of a stranger who is misunderstood.

Bibliography

Online sources