Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Didüm āḫir yandı mihrüñden Münīr ey bī-vefā
İşidüp sözümi geldi kūhdan da bu ṣadā

In English

1. "O faithless one, in the end Münîr has burned from your love (your sun)", I said; hearing my words, the same sound (echo) came back from the mountain too.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The fourteenth 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 "bī-vefā" and "ṣadā". The muammas stand in the same order in VT and VY (VT 179b-180b, VY 151a-152b); since Ü breaks off after the 11th muamma, this couplet is absent from that manuscript.

The edition's heading gives the solution as "‘Īsā"; Ersoy cites the name in his introduction as "Îsâ". Whose name it is is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet sets a small scene: the lover tells the beloved that he is burning, and the mountain echoes his words back. The Kubbealtı Lugatı gives the word "mihr" the meanings sun and love; "burning from your mihr" means both burning from love for the beloved and from the beloved's sun-like face. The entry "sedâ - sadâ" also notes that the word means echo in Arabic and acquired the meaning sound in Persian; in the couplet the two meanings work together.

The mountain's repetition of the words shows that the lover's complaint finds an answer even in nature, while the faithless beloved gives none. The edition does not show the letter calculation of the riddle. Although an echo returning the end of a word suggests a letter operation, we cannot show how the name ‘Īsā is drawn from the couplet.

Bibliography

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