Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Hâl-i pinhânum sorar isen zebân şerh eylemez
Bir lisândur bu lisân kim tercemân şerh eylemez
Çün mübeyyendür beyâna hâcet olmadı velî
Bir ayândur bu ayân kim her nihân şerh eylemez
Cümleten bir kenz-i mahfîdür nihân-ender-nihân
Pes-nihâd olgıl ki bu remzi ayân şerh eylemez
Remz-i ma’nâdan gözet kim sana ma’nâ remz ider
Yoksa bu ahvâl ü etvârı lisân şerh eylemez
Ey Murâdî işbu elfâzun beyânı n’eyledür
Bir beyânsın kim seni bir zü’l-beyân şerh eylemez

In English

1. If you ask about my hidden state, the tongue cannot explain it; it is a language that no interpreter can unravel and expound.

2. Since it is plain to see, there was no need to tell it; yet it is a plainness of such a kind that not every hidden thing can explain it.

3. All of it is a concealed treasure, hidden within the hidden; so be prudent and prepared, for what is in the open cannot explain this sign (this veiled allusion).

4. Look to the sign of meaning, for meaning speaks to you through signs; otherwise the tongue cannot expound these states and ways.

5. O Murâdî, with what is the telling of these words done? You are such an utterance that no master of words can explain you.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Telling the Untellable

Every couplet of the ghazal runs up against the same limit in its redif (refrain word), "şerh eylemez" (cannot explain). The subject is the impossibility of putting an inner state into words. The tongue, the interpreter, the open, the master of words are tried in turn, and none is enough to tell that state. The poet thus declares the inadequacy of words while doing so in skilfully built words; the tension of the ghazal arises from this contradiction.

The choice of words follows this theme. "Zebân", "lisân", "tercemân", "beyân", "elfâz" and "zü'l-beyân" come from the field of speech and expression; "pinhân", "nihân", "mahfî" and "remz" from the field of concealment; "mübeyyen" and "ayân" from the field of openness. The tension between these three groups becomes the figure of antithesis (tezat), above all in the second and third couplets where "ayân" (open) and "nihân" (hidden) are set against each other. The use of "lisân" twice in the same line of the first couplet ("bir lisândur bu lisân") and the construction "bir ayândur bu ayân" in the second couplet echo each other.

The Commentary of Zavotçu and Ekşi

In 2023 Gencay Zavotçu and Melike Aslıhan Ekşi rendered this ghazal into prose couplet by couplet and wrote a commentary on it. In their view the "hidden state" of the first couplet is the love in the lover's heart, and the language that the interpreter cannot explain is the wordless expression that divan poetry calls "lisân-ı hâl" (the language of one's state): the lover's pale face, bloody tears and bent stature betray his love without a word being said. They compare the same figure with a couplet of the fourteenth-century poet Nesîmî rhyming on "bilmez"; there too the poet's word is the language of birds, and even Solomon does not know it.

They read the word "pes-nihâd" in the third couplet, on the authority of the Dehkhoda dictionary, in the senses of "prudence, savings, reserve", and open up the line as "be prudent, provident, far-sighted and prepared"; we have followed this reading in our rendering. They understand "zü'l-beyân" in the final couplet as "master of words, orator": for Murâdî the words that tell the heart's state belong to the inner (bâtın) realm, and a master of words who speaks with outward (zâhir) knowledge cannot expound them. The researchers also sense in the couplet the poet's admiration for his own words. The text in the article differs in a few places: "iseñ", "Pes nihâd", "Remzi ma'nâdan ... remz eder", "iş bu elfâzuñ beyânı neyledür", "beyânsun". The article does not show from which manuscript source the ghazal was taken.

Attribution and Form

The ghazal's link to Murad II hangs on a single thread: İsen's dictionary entry and its own source, Sultanların Şiirleri, Şiirlerin Sultanları of 2012. None of the old tezkire writers mentions this poem with the refrain "şerh eylemez". The address "Ey Murâdî" in the final couplet deepens the problem rather than solving it, since Murad III also signed his poems Murâdî; which Murad wrote the poem is therefore an open question. Nor can this ghazal be exempted from İsen's warning in the same entry that part of the material ascribed to Murad II lacks the marks of fifteenth-century Turkish.

The redif of the five-couplet ghazal is "şerh eylemez", and the rhyme falls on "-ân" in "zebân, tercemân, ayân, nihân, lisân, zü'l-beyân". The metre is written in no source; that the lines are in the pattern "fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün" of the remel metre is our scansion. The other pieces given to Murad II stand side by side in Murâdî (Sultan Murad II): Poet and Works.

Bibliography

Online sources