Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḳaṭreler kim göz yaşından dökilür
Dürdür ammā ḳadrini kim ne bilür

In English

1. The drops that fall from the tears of the eye are pearls; but who knows their worth?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The sixteenth muamma (name riddle) of the edition is a single couplet in the metre "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the lines rhyme on "dökilür" and "bilür". 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 "İskender"; the name appears in the same form in the list in Ersoy's introduction. Whose name it is is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet ties the familiar simile of tears as pearls to a plain judgement: the drops the lover sheds are as precious as pearls, but no one knows their worth. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "katre" as drop. The question "who knows" in the second line can be read as a reproach addressed to surroundings that do not value what they have.

The edition does not show how the riddle is solved. The entry "Tarih Düşürme" in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that poets likened the dots of letters to stars, precious stones and things resembling a dot, among them the words "dür" (pearl), "eşk" (tear) and "katre" (drop). In this couplet tear, drop and pearl occur together; a game with the dots of letters may have been played. But we cannot show how the letters of the name İskender are drawn from the couplet (our reading).

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