Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Dil revān olmışdı çoḳdan kūy-ı cānāndan yaña
Şimdi ‘azm idüp giderse n’ola cān andan yaña
Cān ki vardı la‘lüñe meyl itmedüñ bir ẕerre hīc
Ḫüsrevā ‘ādet degül mi meyl mihmāndan yaña
Her ḫaber kim senden irgürür ṣabā ‘uşşāḳuña
Müjde-i Yūsufdur irer ṣan ki Ken‘āndan yaña
‘Ārıżuñ şevḳıyla rengīn olduġ’ol sīb-i ẕeḳan
Mīve rengīn olur olsa māh-ı tābāndan yaña
Çeşm-i ḫūn-rīzüñe ‘arż itdüm dil-i pür-sūzumı
Baḳmadı mest olmaġın ġāyetde bir yandan yaña
Ol çerāġ-ı çeşm-i cān ḳılsa naẓar bir kez Münīr
Yoḳsa biñ biñ bendenüñ ḫod gözi sulṭāndan yaña

In English

1. The heart had long since set out toward the beloved's quarter; what wonder if now the soul too resolves and goes that way.

2. O Khosrow, the soul came toward your lips (at the moment of death), and you did not incline to it in the least; is it not the custom to turn toward a guest?

3. Every message that the morning breeze brings from you to your lovers is like the good news of Joseph reaching toward Canaan.

4. That apple of the chin has taken its colour from longing for your cheek; fruit takes on colour when it faces the shining moon.

5. I offered my heart, full of burning, to your blood-shedding eye; being utterly drunk, it did not look to any side.

6. O Münîr, if that lamp of the soul's eye would look but once (how blessed); otherwise the eyes of thousands upon thousands of servants are turned toward the sultan anyway.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the eleventh of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 11). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". The refrain (redif) is the phrase "-dan yaña" (toward); in the list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction tg 11 is cited with the refrain "yana". The rhyme is the sound "-ān": cānān, cān, mihmān, Ken‘ān, tābān, yan, sulṭān. In the fifth couplet, in the phrase "yandan yaña", the rhyme word is "yan" (side), which carries almost the same sound as the refrain. The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 101a), Vienna (VY 81b) and Istanbul University (Ü 19a) manuscripts. According to the apparatus, VY and Ü read "zeneḫ" with the same meaning instead of "ẕeḳan" (chin) in the fourth couplet; in the last couplet VT and VY give "bende ḫod göz" instead of "bendenüñ ḫod gözi". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The theme of the ghazal is the turning of the heart and the soul toward the beloved; the refrain "-dan yaña" repeats this turning in every couplet. In the opening couplet (matla) the heart first went to the beloved's quarter, and then the soul too set out after it. "Revān olmak" in its dictionary sense means to set out; since the word "revān" also means "soul", a closeness of sound and meaning is set up between heart and soul. This double entendre (tevriye) is our own observation.

In the second couplet the soul is thought of as a guest who has come to the lips. "The soul coming to the lips" means being about to die; the soul, about to leave the body, has turned toward the beloved's lips. The beloved, though knowing that it is the custom to show attention to a guest, does not favour it. Thus the moment of death and the custom of hospitality meet in a single couplet. In the third couplet there is an allusion (telmih) to the story of Joseph: news of Joseph reaches Jacob waiting in the land of Canaan. Every message brought by the morning breeze is as precious to the lovers as that good news.

In the fourth couplet "sīb-i ẕeḳan" (the apple of the chin) is a figure used in divan poetry for the beloved's round chin. The chin's taking colour is ascribed to its longing for the cheek, and the second line explains this by the idea that the moon gives colour to fruit. The cheek here is the shining moon; this explanation is our own inference. In the fifth couplet the beloved's eye is called "mest" (drunk) and "ḫūn-rīz" (blood-shedding). The drunken eye does not look at the burning heart offered to it; the phrase "yandan yaña" suggests both "to any side" and a sidelong glance.

In the pen-name couplet the beloved is called "çerāġ-ı çeşm-i cān", the lamp of the soul's eye. In the last line the lover sees himself as one of a sultan's thousands of servants: the servants' eyes are on the sultan anyway, and the real wish is that the sultan should look once. This correspondence between beloved and sultan ties the ghazal back to the address "Ḫüsrev" in the second couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources