Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün
Zi-sāḳī ḳaṭre’ī mī-ḫᵛāhem āḫir
Ser-encāmeş ki mā-rā būd ẓāhir
In English
1. In the end I ask the saki (cupbearer) for a drop; its outcome was already plain to us. (The couplet is in Persian; since the edition gives no meaning for it, the translation is ours.)
Literary and Historical Commentary
Structure of the Poem
The ninth muamma (name riddle) of the edition is a single couplet in the metre "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün". The rhyme words are "āḫir" and "ẓāhir"; they are the same as the rhyme words of the 1st muamma, only in reverse order. 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.
In language the couplet is Persian: "zi" (from), "mī-ḫᵛāhem" (I want), "mā-rā" (to us) and "būd" (was) are Persian words and suffixes (our observation). Ersoy writes in his introduction that all the muammas but one are in Turkish, and the edition gives no meaning for this couplet; the language of the couplet does not agree with this count. The edition's heading gives the solution as "Ḥamza".
Meaning and Figures of Speech
On its surface the couplet is the word of a rind (libertine drinker) who asks the saki for a drop of wine and knows its outcome in advance. The Kubbealtı Lugatı explains "katre" as drop, and "serencam" as a compound of Persian "ser" (head) and Arabic "encām" (end), meaning a good or bad end, an outcome.
The edition does not show how the riddle is solved. The couplet contains words that resemble the signal words of the muamma tradition: according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "âhir" points to a final letter, and the entry "Tarih Düşürme" notes that the word "katre" (drop) is used as a name for the dots of letters. The word "ser-encām" also means, in its dictionary sense, head and end. We cannot show how these words yield the letters of the name Ḥamza.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Ersen Ersoy (ed.), II. Bayezit Devri Şairlerinden Münîrî ve Dîvânı (İnceleme-Metin), Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Publications, 2017 (e-book), p. 387, Muamma 9 (introduction p. 6). https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/56095,muniri-divanipdf.pdf (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20220803084052/https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/56095,muniri-divanipdf.pdf?0)
Academic studies
- M. A. Yekta Saraç, "Muamma" (Türk Edebiyatı), TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 30, Ankara 2020, pp. 320-321. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/muamma
- Turgut Karabey, "Tarih Düşürme", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 40, İstanbul 2011, pp. 80-82. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/tarih-dusurme
Books
- Kubbealtı Lugatı (Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük), entries "serencam" and "katre". https://lugatim.com/s/serencam
Online sources
