Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gerçi vehm-i ġamzeñ ile eyledi göñlüm sefer
Ḳanda varursa sözi budur yine k’eynel mefer
Her ne deñlü cehd iderse göñlüme girmez raḳīb
Maḫzen-i Ḥaḳdur belī Şeyṭān aña bulmaz ẓafer
Secde ider dil ḳaşuñ miḥrābına terk eylemez
Bes bilür terk-i ṣalāt içün dinildi ḳad kefer
Düşürem dirdi beni çāh-ı zeneḫdānuña dil
Kendü düşdi vāḳi‘ oldı bes ḥadīs̱-i men ḥafer
Ben de anlardan birisi olayum ḳo dōstum
Her ṭarafda ḫod ḳuluñ var bende-veş biñ biñ nefer
Ṭurmasun ḳanlu yaşuña di revān olsun Münīr
Şāyed ire vaṣl-ı yāra kim mübārekdür sefer

In English

1. Through fear of your glance my heart did set out on a journey (fled away); yet wherever it goes, its word is still: "Where is the place of escape?" ("Eyne'l-meferr" is the phrase that occurs in the Qur'an, in verse 10 of the sura al-Qiyama.)

2. However hard the rival strives, he cannot enter my heart; yes, the heart is the treasury of God (Hakk), and Satan finds no victory over it.

3. The heart prostrates itself at the prayer niche (mihrab) of your brow and does not abandon it; for it knows that of the one who abandons the ritual prayer it has been said, "he has disbelieved". (The arched brow is likened to a mihrab.)

4. The heart used to say, "I will make him fall into the well of your chin"; it fell in itself, and the saying "he who digs" came true. (We take this to refer to the saying that begins "men ḥafera", "whoever digs", which says that he who digs a well for another falls into it himself; this is an inference.)

5. My friend, let me too be one of them; after all, on every side you have thousands upon thousands of servants like slaves.

6. Münîr, tell your bloody tears "let them not stand still, let them set out on the road"; perhaps they will reach union with the beloved, for travel is blessed.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the hundred and eighteenth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 118). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The ghazal has no refrain (redif) and does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains; the rhyme is the "-fer" and "-er" sound: sefer, mefer, ẓafer, kefer, ḥafer, nefer and sefer again. The first line of the opening couplet and the last line of the pen-name couplet both end with the same word "sefer"; this repetition of the rhyme is our own observation. The ghazal is found in two manuscripts of the divan (VT 125a, VY 91a); the apparatus records no variant readings. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The most striking feature of the ghazal is that most of its rhymes are taken from Arabic religious sayings. The phrase "k'eynel mefer" in the opening couplet (matla) is "Where is the place of escape?", the words that man will speak on the Day of Resurrection according to verse 10 of the Qur'anic sura al-Qiyama. The poet puts them in the mouth of the heart fleeing from the glance: the heart has set out, but wherever it goes it finds no place to escape. The terror of the Resurrection in the verse has been carried over to the fear inspired by the glance.

In the second couplet the heart is called "maḫzen-i Ḥaḳ", the treasury of God. Here the rival is put on a level with Satan; just as Satan cannot enter the treasury God protects, the rival cannot enter the lover's heart. The likening of the rival to Satan is not stated openly in this ghazal but is suggested by setting the two lines side by side; this reading is our own inference.

In the third couplet the brow is likened to a mihrab. The likeness between the arched form of the mihrab and the curve of the brow is common in divan poetry. The heart does not leave off prostrating itself at the mihrab of the brow, for it has been said that he who abandons the ritual prayer falls into unbelief. We take the words "terk-i ṣalāt" and "ḳad kefer" in the line to refer to a saying known as a hadith; we could not verify the source of this saying.

In the fourth couplet the heart, wishing to make the beloved or someone else fall into the well of the chin, falls in itself. The phrase "ḥadīs̱-i men ḥafer" must point to the Arabic saying that he who digs a well for another falls into it himself; this too is an inference. The idiom "kuyusunu kazmak" (to dig someone's well, to plot someone's downfall) is recorded in the dictionary of the Turkish Language Association.

The fifth couplet rests on the image of servitude and number: "biñ biñ nefer" means thousands upon thousands of persons. The pen-name couplet returns to the opening couplet. The fearful journey on which the heart set out in the opening couplet becomes here the blessed journey of the bloody tears towards union. The repetition of the rhyme "sefer" at the beginning and the end frames the ghazal. We could not establish whether the phrase "mübārek sefer" (travel is blessed) rests on a particular hadith or proverb.

Bibliography

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