Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Dehānuñla bir olmaz ġonca ey yār
Bir oldum dir ise disün ḳo tekrār

In English

1. O beloved, the rosebud cannot be one with your mouth (it cannot be as small and lovely); if it says "I have become one", let it say so once again. (The second line can be read as mocking the bud's claim; this is our reading.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Second in the edition, this muamma (name riddle) is a single couplet in the metre "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün"; the lines rhyme on "yār" and "tekrār". The muammas are found in all three manuscripts of the divan (VT 179b-180b, VY 151a-152b, Ü 63b-65b) in the same order; only in Ü are the 10th and 11th muammas transposed, and the 12th muamma and those after it are missing from Ü.

The edition's heading gives the solution simply as "Meḥemmed". Among the names Ersoy lists in his introduction, Mehemmed occurs twice; the same solution recurs in the 11th muamma. Whose name it is is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The surface subject of the couplet is a comparison between the beloved's mouth and the rosebud. In divan poetry the small mouth is likened to a bud; Münîrî reverses the simile and says that the bud cannot be one with this mouth. The phrase "to be one" is repeated in both lines: in the first it means to be equal, in the second it is a claim the bud might make. "Ḳo tekrār" (let it repeat) seems to allow the claim to be made a second time.

The edition does not show how the riddle is solved. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi notes that muammas exploit the likeness in shape between parts of the body and letters, the mouth (dehân), for example, corresponding to the letter mîm. The couplet opens with the word "dehān", and the name Meḥemmed in the solution contains two mîms; the word "tekrār" (repetition) may be connected with these two letters. Since we cannot derive all the letters of the name from the couplet step by step, we record this only as a clue (our reading).

Bibliography

Online sources