Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Başdan aşdı başladı yaşum olup deryā Ḫıżır
Derd ile her dem anuñçün direm iriş yā Ḫıżır
Levḥ-i dilde bir elif ḥarfini gördüm dem-be-dem
Bellü bildüm ol elifdür bu ḳad-i bālā Ḫıżır
Mülk-i ḥüsn içre göñül cān virür iken teşne-leb
Nā-geh ire ġaybdan bu la‘l-i rūḥ-efzā Ḫıżır
Ben de sen ẕāt-ı şerīfüñ adın ögrendüm hemān
Ādeme cennetde ta‘līm olıcaḳ esmā Ḫıżır
Yoḳdur aġzuñ diyü ṭutmışdum ‘adem yolın tamām
Ḫıżr irişdi görinüp bu la‘l-i rūḥ-efzā Ḫıżır
Bir nihāl-i serv-i dil-cū görmedüm ḳaddüñ gibi
Göz yaşından neşv ü nem bulup çeker bālā Ḫıżır
Gūyiyā oldı ḫıżırlıḳ ḫāne-i çeşm-i Münīr
İdeli ḫayl-i ḫayālüñ menzil ü me’vā Ḫıżır

In English

1. My tears have become a sea and begun to rise over my head; so at every moment, in pain, I say "Help, O Hızır (Khidr)".

2. On the tablet of the heart I kept seeing a letter alif; I knew plainly that that alif is this lofty stature, O Hızır.

3. While the heart, with thirsting lips, is giving up its soul in the land of beauty, would that this soul-reviving ruby (lip) might suddenly arrive from the unseen like Hızır.

4. When the names were taught to Adam in paradise, I too at once learned the name of your noble person, O Hızır.

5. Saying "you have no mouth", I had wholly taken the road of non-existence; Hızır arrived: this soul-reviving ruby (lip), by appearing, became Hızır.

6. I have not seen a heart-winning cypress sapling like your stature; finding freshness and moisture from tears, (it) shoots up, O Hızır. The couplet can be read in two ways: the words "çeker bālā Ḫıżır" can also be understood as "Hızır makes it grow tall".

7. Ever since the troop of horsemen of your image made (it) its halting place and home, the house of Münîr's eye has as it were become a meadow (ḫıżırlıḳ: greenery, meadow), O Hızır.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a seven-couplet Turkish ghazal (gazel) and is the sixty-eighth of the Turkish ghazals in the edition (tg 68). The metre is "fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilâtün fâ‘ilün". According to Ersoy's list of refrains, this is the only ghazal in the divan with the refrain (redif) "Ḫıżır" (Khidr); the rhyme is the "-â" sound before it: deryā, yā, bālā, rūḥ-efzā, esmā, rūḥ-efzā, bālā, me'vā.

The poem is found in the Vatican (VT 113a) and Istanbul University (Ü 28b) manuscripts and is absent from the Vienna manuscript. According to the apparatus, couplets 2 and 5 are missing in Ü, and couplets 3 and 6 are missing in VT. In the fourth couplet too Ü has a different reading: instead of "Ben de sen ẕāt-ı şerīfüñ adın ögrendüm" it has "Dil de sen çābük-süvāruñ adın ögrenmiş" (the heart too has learned the name of you, the nimble rider). The seven-couplet text of the edition has been built by combining the two manuscripts; each manuscript on its own gives five couplets.

This distribution leads to a notable result. In the edition the rhyme "rūḥ-efzā" occurs twice, in couplets 3 and 5, and the rhyme "bālā" twice, in couplets 2 and 6. Yet since, of these four couplets, VT has only couplets 2 and 5 and Ü only couplets 3 and 6, in neither of the two manuscripts is the same rhyme word repeated. This is our own observation. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain of the ghazal is Hızır (Khidr), and every couplet calls on him or mentions him. In popular belief Hızır is a saint who comes to the aid of those in distress and who found the water of immortality (âb-ı hayat); he is also associated with greenery and abundance. These points rest on general knowledge, and all the images of the ghazal feed on these associations; this is an observation. In the opening couplet (matla) the tears have become a sea and risen over the lover's head; the lover, about to drown, says "Help, O Hızır". There is a play of sound between "baş" (head) and "başla-" (to begin).

In the second couplet the beloved's stature is likened to the letter alif. Alif is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, made of a single upright stroke; it is often used in classical poetry for a straight, tall stature. In the third and fifth couplets the beloved's lip, a "rūḥ-efzā" (soul-reviving) ruby, is likened to Hızır: like Hızır, who arrives from the unseen to the lover dying of thirst, the lip too gives life. In the fifth couplet this idea is tied to the beloved's mouth: because the mouth is so small as to be almost non-existent, the lover had entered the road of non-existence, but when the lip appeared he returned to life.

The fourth couplet recalls the Qur'anic account in which God taught Adam all the names; the lover too has learned the beloved's name with the same pre-eternal knowledge. This connection is our own observation. The reading "çābük-süvār" (nimble rider) in Ü may also fit the thought of the beloved as a horseman who, like Hızır, arrives swiftly; this is an inference.

The sixth and seventh couplets work the association of Hızır with greenery. The cypress watered by tears shoots up; the lover's eye too turns into a "ḫıżırlıḳ", that is, a green meadow where the horsemen of the beloved's image make their halt. The word "ḫıżırlıḳ" means, in its dictionary sense, "greenery, meadow", and forms a pun with the name Hızır in the refrain. That the halting place of horsemen should be a meadow sets up a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "ḫayl" (troop of horsemen) and "ḫıżırlıḳ".

Bibliography

Online sources