Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Öldügümden soñra dikmezlerse sînem çâkini
Yaḳıser sûz-ı derûnum nârı ḳabrüm ḫâkini

In English

1. If after my death they do not sew up the rent in my breast, the fire of my inner burning will scorch the earth of my grave.

Literary and Historical Commentary

A Fire That Goes On in the Grave

The lover's breast is torn by the pain of love; in divan poetry "sîne-çâk", torn-breasted, is the epithet of the lover whose wound lies open. Rûhî carries this familiar image beyond death: if those who wash and shroud the dead do not sew up the rent, the fire within will spill out and scorch even the earth of the grave. The fire of love does not die with the body; it can be kept under the earth only if the rent is closed. The single sentence of exaggeration, coming down to the most concrete detail of the grave, its earth, gives the couplet the confident voice of a young poet. According to Latîfî, Rûhî did indeed die young; but the sources do not say whether the couplet was recalled before or after that death, or read as a premonition.

Two Texts

Hüsameddin gives the same opening couplet slightly differently: "dil dökmezse sîne-çâkini" and "nâr-ı derûnum sûzı". In the first difference the verb "dikmezlerse", if they do not sew, has become "dil dökmezse"; in that reading the image of stitching is lost and the line does not make a coherent sense, so a misprint or misreading is likely. In the second, "sûz" and "nâr", burning and fire, change places; the sense is unchanged. Latîfî's text has been followed here. The conflicting information of the sources on the poet is brought together on the page Rûhî Fâzıl Çelebi (Zenbillizâde).

Bibliography

Online sources