Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḥālini bilmek dilerseñ bendeñüñ gāh [u] gehī
Bir naẓar ḳıl çeşm-i gevher-bāra ey serv-i sehī

In English

1. O straight cypress (beloved), if you wish to know now and then how this servant of yours fares, cast a glance at his pearl-scattering (tear-shedding) eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The fifteenth 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 "gehī" and "sehī". The "[u]" in the first line is Ersoy's emendation for the sake of metre and sense. 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 "Ḥüsām"; Ersoy cites the name in his introduction as "Hüsam". Whose name it is is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Instead of a long speech, the lover shows his eyes to the beloved who wishes to know how he fares: his tears tell everything. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "gâh - geh" as sometimes, now and then, and records repeated uses such as "gâh gâh"; "gāh u gehī" likewise means now and then. The same dictionary explains "gevher" as gem, diamond, pearl, and "sehî" as straight, upright, like a sapling (said of stature). Likening tears to pearls and the beloved's stature to a cypress are familiar similes.

The edition does not show how the riddle is solved. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that words such as "hal, ben, dâğ, dâne, gevher" are used to remove the dots of letters or to move them; both "ḥāl" and "gevher" occur in the couplet. We cannot show how they yield the letters of the name Ḥüsām; we note this only as a clue.

Bibliography

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