Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḳāmetüñ servini bir kez göreli çeşm-i Münīr
Oldı şekl-i serv-i bālā ḳaddüñe göñlüm esīr

In English

1. Ever since Münîr's eye once saw the cypress of your stature, my heart has been captive to your tall, cypress-shaped form.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The tenth muamma (name riddle) of the edition is a single couplet in the metre "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the lines rhyme on "Münīr" and "esīr". The muammas are found in all three manuscripts (VT 179b-180b, VY 151a-152b, Ü 63b-65b). In Ü the 10th and 11th muammas are transposed and the manuscript contains nothing after the 11th muamma; this couplet is therefore the last couplet of Ü. Ersoy too, describing the manuscript, gives this muamma as its last couplet.

The edition's heading gives the solution as "Aḥmed Beg"; Ersoy cites the name in his introduction as "Ahmed Bey". Whose name it is is not stated; there is no record showing any link with Prince Ahmed, who is praised as "Sulṭān" in the poet's kasides.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is built on the familiar simile likening the beloved's stature to a cypress. In the first line "ḳāmet" (stature) stands beside "serv" (cypress), in the second "serv-i bālā" (tall cypress) beside "ḳadd" (stature); the same simile is said twice. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the first line in the phrase "çeşm-i Münīr" (Münîr's eye); seeing is the eye's work, captivity the heart's.

The edition does not show how the riddle is solved. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that in muammas the stature (kad) corresponds to the letter elif; the couplet contains two words meaning stature, and the name Aḥmed in the solution begins with elif. As we cannot reconstruct the whole name letter by letter, we record this only as a clue (our reading).

Bibliography

Online sources