Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Kākülüñ mātem ḫo ṭutmaz ‘āşıḳunuñ yasına
Bilmezem böyle siyeh-pūş olduġınuñ yası ne
Günde biñ kerre helāk ider beni zehr-i firāḳ
Bu belādan ya ḫalāṣ it bini gönder ya sine
Fürḳat ile öldügümden ṣoñra ben n’olur göñül
Hecr-i dil-ber ya sene olmış mükemmel ya sine?
Görüben ‘uşşāḳuñı n’ola oḳursam fātiḥa
Bilürem tīr-i ḫadengüñ yiyen irmez Yāsīne
‘Āḳıbet tīr-i murādını nişānına Münīr
İrgürür ḳurbān olursam ḳaşlaruñuñ yāsına

In English

1. Your forelock does not, in any case, mourn for its lover; so I do not know whose mourning it is that it has dressed itself thus in black.

2. The poison of separation destroys me a thousand times a day; either save me from this calamity or send me to your breast (the end of the line, "bini gönder ya sine", is not clear; the rendering is our reading).

3. O heart, what becomes of me after I die of separation? Parting from the beloved will then be complete either in you or in me (Ersoy marks this couplet as one he could not interpret; the rendering gives only the plain sense of the words).

4. What wonder if, on seeing your lovers, I recite the Fâtiha? I know that whoever is struck by your arrow does not live to reach the Yâsîn (dies before there is time for the Yâsîn to be read).

5. Münîr, if I become a sacrifice to the bow (yā) of your brows, in the end it will carry the arrow of my desire to its mark.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and sixty-second of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 262). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The number of this ghazal does not appear in Ersoy's list of refrains. The words at the end of the couplets, "yasına", "yası ne", "ya sine", "ya sine", "Yāsīne" and "yāsına", form a punning rhyme scheme made by drawing the same cluster of sounds towards different meanings (our observation). The ghazal is found in the VT (160a) and VY (133b) manuscripts. In the edition a question mark, the sign Ersoy uses for couplets he could not interpret, is placed at the end of the third couplet; the mark may also be due to the line being a question. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is built on a play of sounds that begins with the word "yas" (mourning) and ends with the word "yay" (bow). In the opening couplet the beloved's black forelock is likened to the black clothing worn by mourners. The poet asks why the forelock has dressed itself in black when he knows it will not mourn for the lover; seeking a reason such as mourning for the natural blackness of the forelock is hüsn-i ta‘lîl (poetic aetiology). The "yası ne" of the second line can be understood both as "what is its mourning" and as "whose mourning".

The phrase "ya sine" in the rhyme position of the second and third couplets is the most difficult place in the text. In the second couplet, since the conjunction "ya ... ya" (either ... or) is clear, the lover is understood to be offering two choices: either deliverance or the beloved's breast. In the third couplet the pairing "ya sene ... ya sine" seems to set up a contrast between the second and the first person singular; since Ersoy marks this couplet as one he could not interpret, we give the rendering above as a suggestion. It has not been possible for us to render some of the lines with a certain meaning.

The fourth couplet rests on a religious congruence of images (tenasüp). The Kubbealtı Lugatı records that the Yâsîn is the thirty-sixth sura of the Qur'an, that its recitation for the souls of the dead is recommended, and that this has become a religious custom. According to the poet, the lover struck by the beloved's arrow dies so quickly that he cannot even reach the Yâsîn; so on seeing the lovers it is fitting to recite the Fâtiha. This congruence set up between the Fâtiha and the Yâsîn conveys the deadliness of the arrow through hyperbole.

In the pen-name couplet the rhyme word is "yā", that is, the bow. The Kubbealtı Lugatı states that the word "yay" had the form "yā" in Old Turkish and later took the form "yay" under the influence of the long a. The likeness between brow and bow is one of the most common similes of divan poetry. If the lover sacrifices himself to this bow, the bow will carry the arrow of his desire to its mark; a congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up between arrow, bow, target (nişān) and sacrifice. Thus Yâsîn, yas and yā meet in the same family of sounds.

Bibliography

Online sources