Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Şekkerîn leblerinüñ yâdına inmiş ḥasenâ
Âyet-i enbetehallâhu nebâten ḥasenâ

In English

1. In memory of your sugary lips the verse "God made her grow a goodly growth" was beautifully sent down (revealed).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Nebât: Both Plant and Sugar

All the wit of the couplet is gathered in the two meanings of the word "nebât". In Arabic nebât means plant; in Turkish it is the name of the crystallised sugar known as "nebat şekeri" (rock sugar). The phrase "enbetehallâhu nebâten hasenâ" in the second line rests on the words said of Mary in the thirty-seventh verse of the sura Âl 'Imran, "ve enbetehâ nebâten hasenâ", "and He made her grow a goodly growth". The poet says that this verse was sent down in memory of the beloved's sugary lips: the "nebât" of the verse reminds him of sugar, and sugar of the beloved's lip. Making the familiar and the unexpected meanings of a word work together is called tevriye (double entendre); here the tevriye is combined with a fragment taken from a Qur'anic verse, that is, with iktibas.

The verb "inmek" (to come down) is also chosen deliberately; the "coming down" of verses means their revelation. The word "hasenâ" (beautifully) is repeated at the end of both lines, so that the couplet becomes an opening couplet that opens and closes with the same word. Latîfî gives this couplet in his entry on Remzî Çelebi with "Velehû" after the opening couplet "Şekkeristândur bu meclis". In the verse the pronoun is feminine and refers to Mary, while in the couplet the name of God is stated explicitly; whether this difference comes from the edition or from the poet's own adaptation is not known.

Latîfî's Remzî Çelebi

Latîfî presents Remzî Çelebi as a man of Bursa and one of the judges' profession and calls him a contemporary of Sultan Selim I. Attaching the couplet to Amasya is an identification made through his son İlmî and resting on Hüsameddin's Müeyyedzâde record; Latîfî's text contains no reference to Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources