Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilün (metre identified by us)

İncelüp ḳaşuñ ḫayâliyle hilâl oldum yine
Yâduña nâgeh düşem diyü ḫayâl oldum yine

In English

1. Thinking of your brow I have grown thin and become a crescent once more; hoping to cross your mind of a sudden, I have become a phantom once more.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The lover's thinness is told in this opening couplet in two ways. In the first line the brow is like the crescent moon, and the lover who thinks of it has grown thin like it and become a crescent himself. The word "hayâl" in the second line has two senses: an image that appears in the mind, and a body wasted to a shadow. The lover has become a phantom so that he may cross the beloved's mind as an image. The refrain is "oldum yine", I have become once more, and the rhyme is "hilâl" and "ḫayâl", two words joined in sound as much as in sense. Brow, crescent, thinning and phantom make up a ring of congruent images squeezed into two lines.

Hüsameddin's text reads "helâk" for "hilâl" in the first line. In that reading the lover has perished at the thought of the brow; the rhyme still holds, but the link between brow and crescent is broken and "incelüp", growing thin, is left without purpose. Latîfî's text is therefore more coherent and has been followed here. Latîfî gives the couplet only with "velehû", "this too is his"; the couplets that followed this opening are lost. Like Latîfî's other selections from Refîkî, this opening couplet is among the pieces the anthologist thought worth quoting even though he found the poet's verse "middling". For Latîfî's verdict on the poet and the details of his life see Refîkî Ali Çelebi (İbrîzâde).

Bibliography

Online sources