Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Sînemdeki cerâḥati ey eşk tâze ṭut
Gül gibi ṣaḳla bir güzelüñ yâdgârıdur

In English

1. O tears, keep the wound in my breast fresh; keep it like a rose, for it is the keepsake of a beauty.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet appears at the end of the entry on the Tabriz painter Şahkulu, pen name Penâhî, in Âşık Çelebi's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire), under the heading "şiʿr-i û", his poem. It is the only Turkish couplet the biographer quotes from Penâhî. As its two lines do not rhyme, it is not the opening couplet (matla) of a ghazal (gazel); the rest of the poem, or the poem from which the couplet was taken, is unknown. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre. When and to whom it was addressed is also unknown.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

At the centre of the couplet lies a familiar conceit of divan poetry: the beloved's glances, lashes or cruelty open wounds in the lover's breast, and the lover keeps these wounds like a gift left by the beloved. Penâhî turns this conceit into a garden image. The bleeding wound is likened by its red colour to a rose; the tears are addressed like a gardener asked to water that rose and keep it fresh. The keeping fresh of a rose with water and the "keeping fresh" of a wound with tears, that is, not letting it close, are joined in the same verb. The phrase "tâze ṭutmak" is thus used in two senses at once. The words breast, wound, tears and rose form a web of mutually evoking images, the figure called tenasüp (congruence of images). The lover, who wishes to keep his wound fresh rather than heal it, values the pain because it is a keepsake of the beloved. That the image rests on a likeness of colour is all the more striking when one remembers that the poet was a painter; this connection is our own interpretation.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi devotes most of the entry to praising Penâhî's painting and passes no judgement on his poetry. The couplet follows immediately after the Persian couplet "Mânî ki bûd", which the biographer also quotes from him. It is also mentioned, together with couplets by the other poets of the circle, in the article Prince Ahmed's Amasya circle and its poets on this site. For the poet's life and his disputed connection with Amasya, see the article Penâhî (Nakkaş Şahkulu).

Bibliography

Online sources