Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (our identification)

In Kınalızâde's Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ the couplet reads:

O meh dün hâtır-ı ‘uşşâkı lutf itdi ele aldı
Dil-i mahzûnumı anmadugına hâtırum kaldı

Beyânî gives it under the heading "Matla" as follows:

O meh dün hâtır-ı âşıkı lutf itdi ele aldı
Dil-i mahzûnumı anmadugına hâtırum kaldı

In English

1. Yesterday that moon-faced one graciously won the hearts of the lovers; because she did not once remember my sorrowful heart, I took offence. (In Beyânî's reading it is "the lover's heart" rather than "the lovers' hearts".)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The whole wit of the couplet lies in the word "hâtır" being used twice, inside two different idioms. "Hâtırını ele almak" means to please someone, to show them attention; "hâtırı kalmak" means to take offence, to feel hurt. Yesterday the beloved took the lovers' "hâtır" in hand and smiled on them. Niyâzî was not remembered in that crowd, and so his "hâtır" was left behind. The same word carries affection in the first line and resentment in the second. This is a play that stands between repetition (tekrîr) and pun (cinas) in divan poetry, sliding the meaning of a word from one idiom to another.

The couplet has the air of a scene actually lived: the word "dün", yesterday, fixes the time, and the beloved hands out favours among a company. In divan poetry "meh", the moon, is a stock epithet for the brightness of the beloved's face; the moon too gives light to all and belongs to no one. The comparison is not drawn openly, but the likeness between the moon shedding light on everyone and the beloved favouring all the lovers is felt of itself. Jealousy and reproach are not spoken to the beloved directly; the poet records only his own hurt.

Kınalızâde gives the couplet after Niyâzî's ghazal under the heading "Diğer" (another), while Beyânî places it at the head of his three-couplet selection and calls it "Matla", an opening couplet; that both lines end in "-dı" on the same rhyme bears the name out. The rest of the ghazal it opened is not known today. The only difference between the two tezkires is the words "‘uşşâkı" and "âşıkı": one is plural, the other singular. The plural reading sets up a scene in which the beloved shows attention to a company of lovers; in the singular reading the one favoured is a single rival, and the reproach becomes sharper. Since Kınalızâde's text is the first and earlier record, it has been taken as the basis of the translation. The poet's life and his entries in the two tezkires are told in the biography of Niyâzî Abdürrahîm Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources