Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâʿilün feʿilâtün mefâʿilün feʿilün (identification of the metre is ours)

Uzatdı şem'-i şeb-i gam zebâna bencileyin
Ki diye sûz-ı dilin yana yana bencileyin
Bu bezm-i 'ışkda hûn-ı ciger tolularını
Kim içdi sâkî diye kana kana bencileyin
Yolunda râst-rev olmasa ey kemân ebrû
Atılmaz idi okun da yabâna bencileyin

The fourth couplet is not in Kınalızâde; it is found only in Hüsameddin's version:

Hadeng-i kavs-i kazâdan dilersen irmeye gam
Melâmet oklarına ol nişâne bencileyin

In English

1. The candle of the night of grief has stretched out its tongue like me, so that it may tell the burning of its heart, burning on and on like me.

2. In this banquet of love, who has drunk the cups full of the heart's blood to the full like me, O cupbearer, tell me. (The couplet can be read in two ways; see the commentary below.)

3. O you of the bow-shaped brows, had your arrow not flown straight on your path, it would not have been cast into the wilderness like me.

4. If you wish no grief to reach you from the arrow of fate's bow, become like me a target for the arrows of blame.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Refrain and Sound

What carries the ghazal is the refrain word (redif) repeated at the end of every couplet, "bencileyin": "like me". In each couplet the poet likens an object or a person to himself, and so the whole world of the ghazal becomes a mirror of his pain. The rhymes prolong the same sound: "zebâna", "yana", "kana", "yabâna", "nişâne". In the first two couplets this sound is accompanied by doubled words: "yana yana" and "kana kana". In the three couplets quoted by Kınalızâde this sound pattern is the most carefully worked of all the pieces that remain of Rahîmî's poetry.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet the candle, on the night of grief, stretches out its flame, that is, its "tongue". The likening of a candle flame to a tongue is a well-known comparison; Rahîmî draws from it the conclusion that the candle, like himself, wants to tell its pain as it burns. To burn is both the candle's flaring and the lover's suffering.

The second couplet sets up the banquet of love like a drinking party, but in the cups there is "hûn-ı ciger", the heart's blood, instead of wine. The readings "diye" in Kınalızâde and "dime" in Hüsameddin pull the couplet in two directions. In the first reading the poet asks the cupbearer to name someone who has drunk these bloody cups to the full as he has, implying that there is no one. In the second reading he is saying "do not say who has drunk, O cupbearer": the cupbearer need not look for anyone else, for the one who has drunk those cups is the poet himself. It is not possible to tell from the editions which is original.

In the third couplet the beloved's brow is likened to a bow and the glance to an arrow. "Râst-rev" means "going straight" and describes both the straight flight of the arrow and a person who does not stray from the right path. The couplet says that the arrow, like the poet, has been cast "yabana", into empty and desolate ground, because of its straightness. This reading has been drawn from the text, and the tezkires give no explanation of the couplet.

The fourth couplet, given by Hüsameddin, rests on a paradox: whoever wishes to be safe from the arrow of fate and destiny should make himself a target for the arrows of melâmet, that is, of public blame. Melâmet is the name, in Sufism, of an attitude that flees the praise of people and accepts being blamed. That Rahîmî, who gave up teaching and attached himself to a sheikh, should have spoken this couplet fits his life; but its attribution to him rests only on Hüsameddin's version.

Sources

Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi gives the first three couplets of the ghazal with the word "velehû", after the couplet "Sıma mir'ât-ı kalbüm". Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar quotes the ghazal in Amasya Tarihi as four couplets and reads the text differently in a few places: "zebâne", "yâne yâne", "Bu bezm-i aşkda hûn çeker tolularını", "Kim içdi sâki dime", "yabâne". He does not give the source of the fourth couplet. The other problems in Hüsameddin's account are discussed in the article Rahîmî Abdurrahîm Efendi.

Bibliography

Online sources