Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

İrişdi çün dem-i ‘īd āḫir oldı rūz-ı ṣıyām
Getürse sāḳī-i meh-rū ‘aceb mi bāde vü cām
Büküldi çün ḳaşuñuñ daḫı ḳaddi buncılayın
‘Aṣā-yı zülfüñe el ṣunsa n’ola ol da müdām
Ne deñlü sīnede peykānı kim var oḳlaruñuñ
Ser-ā-ser oldı göñül ḫānesine her biri cām
Yoluñda yine elif gibi ṭoġruyam ammā
Cefā vü cevrüñ eli bükdi ḳıldı ḳaddümi lām
Şarāb-ı puḫte içer gibi merdüm-i dīde
Ki ḳaynadur dün ü gün kāsesinde bāde-i ḫām
Nihāl-i ḳadd-i bülendüñi añdum idi Münīr
Revān didi daḫı ṭınma elifde ma‘nī tamām

In English

1. Since the moment of the feast has come and the days of fasting are over, what wonder if the moon-faced cupbearer brings wine and the cup.

2. Since the stature of your eyebrow too has bent like this (like mine), what of it if it too constantly stretches its hand toward the staff of your tresses (no wonder if, like a bent old man, it leans on a stick).

3. However many arrowheads of your arrows there are in my breast, each of them has become, through and through, a pane of glass (cām) for the house of the heart.

4. On your road I am still as straight as the letter elif; but the hand of your cruelty and oppression has bent my stature into the letter lām.

5. The pupil of my eye is as if drinking cooked (mellow) wine; for night and day it boils raw wine in its bowl (bloody tears seethe in the eye's socket).

6. Münîr, I had mentioned the sapling of your lofty stature; at once (revān) it was said, "Say no more; in the elif the meaning is complete."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a six-couplet Turkish ghazal, the hundred and ninety-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 199). The metre is "mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün". The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on "-ām": ṣıyām, cām, müdām, cām, lām, ḫām and tamām. The word "cām" enters the rhyme in the first and third couplets in two different senses. The ghazal is found only in the Vatican manuscript (VT 144b). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

The opening couplet ties the ghazal to a feast day: "dem-i ‘īd" (the moment of the feast) has come and "rūz-ı ṣıyām" (the days of fasting) are over. The feast that follows the fast is the Feast of Ramadan; the ghazal, however, does not connect the feast with any particular year or event.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet presents the cupbearer's bringing wine once the fast is over as a natural thing and sets the ghazal's tone of the libertine (rind). In the second couplet the eyebrow is likened to an old man with a bent back, and the tress that falls over the eyebrow is the staff he leans on. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "asâ" as a long stick, a staff. The word "daḫı" (too) implies that the stature of the eyebrow has bent like the lover's own; the lover's bent stature is stated openly in the fourth couplet. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the rhyme word "müdām" both as "continuous, constant" and as "wine"; in the couplet the sense of constancy comes first, but in a ghazal that opens with the feast and wine the second sense also comes to mind (our observation).

The third couplet contains a pun (cinas). The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "cam" both as a drinking cup and as the sheet of glass fitted in windows, doors and the like. The "cām" of the opening couplet is the wine cup; here the arrowheads lodged in the breast have become the panes of windows opened in the house of the heart. The fourth couplet rests on a comparison with letters. The Kubbealtı Lugatı records elif and lām as letters of the Arabic alphabet; the upright, straight elif is the emblem of an upright bearing, and the curved lām of a bent stature. In devotion to the beloved the lover is still as straight as an elif, but cruelty has turned his stature into a lām. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "elif" and "lām", and a contrast (tezat) between "ṭoġru" (straight) and "bükmek" (to bend).

In the fifth couplet "puḫte" and "ḫām" are set against each other. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "puhte" as cooked and, figuratively, mature, and "ham" as unripe. Because the pupil of the eye boils raw wine night and day in the bowl of the eye socket, it is as if it were drinking well-cooked wine; the boiling wine is the lover's bloody tears. The couplet bearing the pen name (mahlas) binds the ghazal with the letter elif. In its entry "elif" the Kubbealtı Lugatı records that in Sufism this letter points to the essence of God, and cites Yûnus Emre's line "Dört kitâbın ma'nîsi bellidir bir elifte" (the meaning of the four Books is plain in a single elif). When the poet mentions the beloved's lofty stature he is told, "Say no more; in the elif the meaning is complete"; the Kubbealtı Lugatı explains the verb "tınmak" as to make a sound, to say something. The elif here is both the beloved's upright stature and the letter that gathers all meaning within it. The sense "swiftly, at once" in the Kubbealtı Lugatı's entry "revan" fits the word "revān" at the head of the line; the same word also recalls the phrase "serv-i revān" (the swaying cypress).

Bibliography

Online sources