Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Mümkin olmaz kim nigâruñ ḫaṭṭ-ı merġûbın görem
Ola kim bir gün İlâhî ḫaṭṭ-ı mektûbın görem
Baḫt-ı bîdârumdan Allah aġlarum her ḳande kim
Her saʿâdet ehlinüñ yanında maḥbûbın görem

In English

1. It is not possible for me to see the beloved's charming down (hat); perhaps one day, my God, I may see the lines (hat) of a letter written by her.

2. Wherever I see each happy man with his beloved beside him, I weep to God over my "wakeful" fortune. (The two possible readings of the couplet are explained in the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The two couplets survive from the same ghazal (gazel): the first is an opening couplet (matla) with both lines rhymed, the second continues the same sound "-ûbın görem". The refrain (redif) "görem" closes each line, and the rhyme words are merġûb, mektûb and maḥbûb. Latîfî gives the couplets with the words "bu ebyât anuñ eş'ârındandur", these couplets are among his poems, immediately after saying that the pasha's learning and pure nature extended to poetry as well. Quoting Latîfî, Hüsameddin changes the text slightly: in the first line he reads "kat-ı mergûb" for "ḫaṭṭ-ı merġûb", in the second "o yârin" for "İlâhî". The text printed here is that of Rıdvan Canım's critical edition; the other couplets of the ghazal are lost.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The whole play of the opening couplet rests on the two meanings of the word "hat". In divan poetry hat is the down newly appearing on the beloved's face; the same word means writing, a line, handwriting. The poet accepts that he will never see the hat in the first sense, that is, never come near the beloved's face, and wishes to be content with it in the second: let at least a letter come from her. The likeness of sound between "merġûb" and "mektûb" eases this passage. A statesman who lived by the pen counting a letter as the only way to reach the beloved gives the couplet a flavour of its own; this is offered only as a reading.

The second couplet is more tangled. "Baḫt-ı bîdâr", wakeful fortune, means in poetry that luck is on one's side; the poet uses the phrase the other way round and complains of his fortune. The words "maḥbûbın görem" can be understood in two ways. In the first reading the poet sees beside each happy man that man's beloved and weeps over his own loneliness. In the second, "maḥbûb" is the poet's own beloved; he sees her each time beside someone else whose fortune is bright, and the words "my wakeful fortune" turn into bitter mockery. The anthology does not explain which is meant; both readings agree with the ghazal's theme of the rival.

Historical Context

Latîfî presents these couplets as the first example in the pasha's entry; Sehî, Beyânî and Kınalızâde do not quote them. Nothing hints at when they were written. Remzî's other poems and his life can be reached from the article Remzî (Pîrî Mehmed Pasha).

Bibliography

Online sources