Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

‘Işḳ iline vireli talan göñül
Oldı key ma‘mūr u hem vīrān göñül
İşigüñe düşeli ben bendeñe
Vaḳthā bir kez olur mihmān göñül

In English

1. Ever since the heart was given over to plunder in the land of love, it has become a place both very prosperous and ruined. Ever since I, your servant, fell at your threshold, the heart comes to me as a guest only now and then, once in a long while. (We have understood the word "key" in the second line, from the context, as "very". For the last two lines see the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a four-line tuyugh; in the edition it is the fourth of the tuyughs (tyğ 4). The metre is "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün". The redif is "göñül" (heart) and the rhyme is the sound "-ān": talan, vīrān, mihmān; the third line ("bendeñe") is unrhymed. The quatrain is found in all three manuscripts (VT 177a, VY 148b, Ü 61b). According to Ersoy's apparatus, the Vatican manuscript reads "hem" in place of the word "key" in the second line; with this reading the line becomes "hem ma‘mūr u hem vīrān" (both prosperous and ruined). It is not known for whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first half of the tuyugh rests on an image of war. The Kubbealtı explains "talan" as plunder, pillage, and connects it with the Old Turkish verb "talamak" (to plunder). The heart has been given over to plunder in the land of love; yet it becomes both prosperous and ruined. There is a plain antithesis between "ma‘mūr" (prosperous, flourishing) and "vīrān" (ruined). That the plundered heart is at the same time called prosperous says that the ruin brought by love is a wealth for the lover (our reading).

We understand the last two lines as follows: the lover has fallen at the beloved's threshold, and his heart now lives there; it visits its owner, the lover who calls himself "ben bendeñe", I your servant, only once in a long while as a guest. The Kubbealtı gives "mihman" the sense of guest, visitor. The Persian plural "vaḳthā" carries the sense "from time to time, at long intervals". The heart's coming to its own house as a guest is a fine conceit that shows the degree of devotion to the threshold. The syntax of the line is not certain; "bendeñe" can also be read as "to your servant", and the meaning hardly changes.

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