Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Seni seyr içün aġyâra eger bu vech ile vara
Ṣaḳın aldanma dünyâya iki yüzlü münâfıḳdur

In English

1. If (the world) goes to the rivals with this face (in this manner) in order to watch you, beware, do not be deceived by the world; it is a two-faced hypocrite. (The subject of the first line is not stated; the reading is ours.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

An Exchange in One Manuscript

This couplet is not found in all the manuscripts of Âşık Çelebi's tezkire. In Filiz Kılıç's edition, a footnote to a couplet in the entry on Ca'fer Çelebi records an addition found in the manuscript designated F. The addition first says "Hayâlî followed this meaning thus" and gives Hayâlî's couplet: "Ne mihrinden safâ kesb it ne mâhından sa'âdet um / Sakın bu çerha aldanma iki yüzlü münâfıkdur". Then it says "Remzî Çelebi answered thus", and this couplet follows. Hayâlî counts the heavens a two-faced hypocrite, because on one face of the sky there is the sun and on the other the moon, and no good is to be expected from either. Remzî keeps the same pattern for the second line but puts "dünyâ" (the world) in place of "çerh" (the sphere).

Vech and Two Faces

Remzî's answer rests on the two meanings of the word "vech": it means both face and manner. If the world goes to the rivals "bu vech ile", with this face, in this manner, in order to watch the beloved, its two-facedness is plain: one face is turned to the lover, the other to the rivals. In this way the image of two faces that Hayâlî drew from the heavenly bodies is turned into a worldly duplicity between lover and rival. The subject of the first line is not stated explicitly; imagining the world as a go-between that shows the beloved's beauty to the rivals is a reading drawn from the second line of the couplet.

Authorship

In the addition the poet is called only "Remzî Çelebi". Âşık Çelebi uses the same name in other entries for "the late Remzî Çelebi" who had been judge of Galata and was the father of the poet İlmî. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar presents this judge of Galata as Abdülhâdî Remzî Efendi, a Müeyyedzâde of Amasya; the other tezkires describe him as Mustafa Remzî of Bursa. Counting the couplet as the work of this judge-poet rests on two separate inferences: that the Remzî Çelebi of the addition is the judge of Galata, and that the judge of Galata is Hüsameddin's Remzî of Amasya.

Bibliography

Online sources