Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫaṭt-ı reyḥānuñ gelüp gül-berg-i ḫandān üstine
Virdi zīnet sebz ile ser-çeşme-i cān üstine
Yoḳ yoḳ ol la‘l-i leb üzre bu ḫaṭ-ı reyḥān-ı sebz
Ḥıżrdur ṣankim yetişdi āb-ı ḥayvān üstine
Ey perī başuñda şol yüñler ki vardur zeyn içün
Ṣan hümādur kim ḳanat germiş Süleymān üstine
Çeşm-i mestüñ ḫışm ile ḫancer çeküp n’eyler ‘aceb
Enfeẕallāh ḥükm-i nāfiẕ ḫod ser ü cān üstine
Mihr-i ruḫsāruñda görüp zülfüñi didi Münīr
Sāye-i sünbül mi düşmiş māh-ı tābān üstine

In English

1. Your basil-like down, coming over the smiling rose petal (the cheek), has adorned the wellspring of the soul (the lip) with green.

2. No, no: this green basil down upon that ruby lip is as if Hızır (Khidr) had reached the water of life (the water of immortality).

3. O fairy, those feathers on your head worn for adornment are as if a hümâ bird had spread its wings over Solomon.

4. What, I wonder, will your languid eye do, drawing its dagger in anger? The decree, "may God put it into force", already holds over head and life.

5. Seeing your tress on the sun of your cheek, Münîr said: "Has the shadow of a hyacinth fallen upon the shining moon?"

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This is a five-couplet Turkish ghazal, the two hundred and sixty-ninth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 269). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The list of refrains in Ersoy's introduction gives the redif (refrain word) of this ghazal as "üstine" (upon); the rhyme rests on the sound "-ān" in the words "ḫandān, cān, ḥayvān, Süleymān, cān, tābān". The ghazal is found in all three divan manuscripts (VT 162a, VY 138a, Ü 55b) and in the Pervâne Bey Anthology (PB 545b); no variant readings are recorded in the edition. It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is the beloved's face, and each couplet, through the refrain "üstine", describes one thing coming upon another: the down upon the cheek, Hızır upon the water, the hümâ upon Solomon, the decree upon the head, the hyacinth's shadow upon the moon. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "reyhan" as basil, and the phrase "sünbül-i ter" figuratively as the fine down appearing on the cheek, the down of youth, or the beauty's tress. In the opening couplet the green down has spread like a basil plant over the rose petal, the cheek, and from there has become an ornament for the wellspring of the soul, the lip.

The second couplet deepens this image with an allusion. The Kubbealtı Lugatı presents Hızır (Khidr) as the figure believed to have attained immortality by drinking the water of life, and reports that he was given this name because when he sat on a piece of dry plant it turned green. The green down upon the lip is likened to Hızır arriving at the source of the water of immortality; a congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up between greenness, water and life. The first line, beginning "Yoḳ yoḳ" (no, no), shows the poet correcting the comparison of the opening couplet and moving to a higher one.

In the third couplet the hümâ is mentioned, which the Kubbealtı Lugatı presents as a legendary bird whose shadow, if it falls on someone, was believed to be a sign that the bird of fortune would alight on that person's head. The same entry quotes a couplet by Bâkî that likens the beloved's brow to the shadow of a hümâ's wing fallen over the eye. In Münîrî, the ornamental feathers on the fairy's head are likened to a hümâ spreading its wings over Solomon; the beloved is thus imagined both as a fairy and as a sovereign under the hümâ's shadow.

The fourth couplet rests on the language of law and sovereignty. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "nâfiz" as one whose word or decree prevails, and "nefâz" as the prevailing of a word or decree. The phrase "Enfeẕallāh" in the couplet comes from this root and is read as a formula wishing that a decree be put into force (our reading). Since the decree of the beloved's eye already holds over head and life, there is no need for it to draw a dagger in anger.

The pen-name couplet closes with a contrast between sun and moon. In its entry "sümbül" the Kubbealtı notes that the word figuratively means a curl of hair, a tress. The cheek is a sun, but the tress falling over it gives it the look of a moon; it is as if a hyacinth's shadow had fallen on the shining moon. This is a simile resting on a contrast of colour and light.

Bibliography

Online sources