Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Âh dirdim bir zamân sevdâ ile cân aglasun
Kalmadı cânımda tâkat şimdi cânân aglasun
Dehr bir sâkî gibi sundu bana gam bâdesin
Hâlime baksın değil hüşyâr mestân aglasun
Zevk-i vuslatdan cüdâ mahzûn esîr-i mihnetim
Derdile bî-çâre gönlüm itsün efgân aglasun
Kerbelâ-yı gamda medhûş eyledi hayret beni
Âh mâtem-zâre düştüm gözlerim kan aglasun
Âteş-i hasretle yandım kurtuluş yok Nelmiyâ
Hâlime âgâh olan her ârif insan aglasun

In English

1. Once I used to say, "Ah, let the soul weep with love"; now no strength is left in my soul, let the beloved weep now.

2. Fate, like a cupbearer, offered me the wine of grief; let not the sober but the drunken look upon my state and weep.

3. Parted from the joy of union, sorrowful, I am a captive of affliction; let my helpless heart cry out with its pain and weep.

4. In the Karbala of grief, bewilderment has left me stunned; ah, I have fallen into a house of mourning, let my eyes weep blood.

5. O Nelmî, I have burned in the fire of longing, there is no escape; let every discerning person who knows my state weep.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It is a ghazal of five couplets. The redif (refrain word) is "aglasun" ("let ... weep"), and the rhyme is the sound "-ân / -an" in "cân, cânân, mestân, efgân, kan, insan". Both lines of the opening couplet end with the same rhyme and refrain; the pen name appears in the last couplet in the vocative "Nelmiyâ" (O Nelmî). Hüsameddin does not state the metre. In the tahmis Hüsameddin quotes, some lines are spelled slightly differently: there the second line of the second couplet reads "hüşyâru mestân", the second line of the fourth couplet "düşdüm", and the last line "Nelmiya". Here the text of the ghazal itself is followed.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

With the word "let ... weep" repeated at the end of every couplet, the ghazal has the air of a lament. In the first couplet the poet compares past and present: once it was his own soul that wept; now, since no strength is left, it is the beloved's turn to weep. The second couplet reverses the tavern imagery of divan poetry: fate is a cupbearer, but the wine it offers is grief; so those who will weep over the poet's state are not the sober but the drunken. There is a contrast between "hüşyâr" (sober) and "mest" (drunk), and a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "sâkî" (cupbearer) and "bâde" (wine).

The phrase "Kerbelâ-yı gam" (the Karbala of grief) in the fourth couplet is an allusion (telmih) to the martyrdom of Hüseyin (Husayn) at Karbala; in divan poetry Karbala is the symbol of the greatest suffering and mourning. "Mâtem-zâr" (house of mourning) and "weeping blood" complete the allusion. In the last couplet there is a congruence of images between "âteş-i hasret" (the fire of longing) and "yandım" (I burned). The ghazal is written less in the ornate similes seen in Nelmî's other poems than in a language of direct complaint.

Historical Context

Hüsameddin relates that in Nelmî's last days his ghazals with the refrain "aglasun" multiplied, and that he gave him this ghazal at their last meeting. He read the ghazal aloud beside the poet, chanting it; Nelmî's sorrow and distraught state affected him deeply, and they wept together. This meeting took place in 1317 (1899-1900), in the months when Hüsameddin had come to Amasya from Istanbul. In Zilhicce of the same year Nelmî took his own life by throwing himself into the Yeşilırmak. Hüsameddin writes that he wept on hearing of his death and composed a tahmis (five-line expansion) of the ghazal "in his voice"; the five stanzas of this tahmis, signed with his pen name Asrî, follow the ghazal in Amasya Tarihi. For the poet's life see Nelmî (Tahsîn Hasan Efendi).

Bibliography

Online sources