Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Didiler sakın seni tutar cefâsı taşına
Geldi hep didükleri ben mübtelânun başına

In English

1. They said, "Beware, (that beauty) will pelt you with the stones of cruelty"; everything they said has come down upon the head of me, the stricken one.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Warning Fulfilled

The couplet works an idiom out word for word. "Başına gelmek" (literally "to come upon one's head") means that something happens to someone; Remzî turns the stones mentioned in the warnings into stones that really fall on the head. The lover had been told in advance: the beloved "will pelt you with the stone of cruelty", that is, will rain her cruelty upon you like a shower of stones. The lover did not listen, and everything he was told came down upon his head. The closeness in sound and sense between taş (stone) and baş (head) carries the couplet, and the rhyme is built on these two words. "Mübtelâ" is a person seized by an affliction, fallen into love, and refers to the poet himself.

The language is plain and close to speech. The line opening with "Didiler" (they said) brings onto the stage a circle of people who advised the lover and were not heeded. The couplet is an opening couplet; the rest of the ghazal is unknown. Kınalızâde gives it with "Velehû" (and also by him) after the couplets of "Ölürüz içmeyince bir dem mey"; Beyânî follows the same order and only reads "bu mübtelânun" (this stricken one) instead of "ben mübtelânun" (me, the stricken one).

Authorship

The "Remzî" entries of Kınalızâde and Beyânî describe a judge from Bursa. The couplet can be given to the Müeyyedzâde Remzî of Amasya on one condition only: the judge of the tezkires and the man of Amasya recorded by Hüsameddin must be the same person, the judge of Galata counted as the father of the poet İlmî. The sources at hand do not show for certain that this condition is met.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources