Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefʿûlü mefâʿîlü mefâʿîlü feʿûlün (metre identified by us)

Mihr ile meh öykünse yüzüñe ʿaceb olmaz
Hercâyî güzellerde bilürsin edeb olmaz

In English

1. It is no wonder if the sun and moon try to rival your face; you know there are no manners in fickle beauties who go everywhere.

Literary and Historical Commentary

"Hercâyî" means one who goes everywhere and stays nowhere, and in divan poetry it is the epithet of the fickle beauty whose heart never settles. Rûhî gives the word to the sun and moon. Both travel the whole sky every day and carry their light to every door; they are "hercâyî" in the literal sense. No manners are to be expected of such beauties, so it is no wonder that they try to rival the beloved's face. The couplet turns an accusation into indulgence: the effrontery of sun and moon comes from their nature. The praise is hidden inside this indulgence, for a face that even the two brightest lights of the sky envy must be brighter than they.

The refrain of the opening couplet is "olmaz", there is not, and its rhyme "ʿaceb" and "edeb", wonder and manners. The metre is the ahreb form of hezec, common in ghazals, and the "bilürsin", you know, of the second line carries the familiar tone of speech. The same motif appears in Rûhî's couplet "Bilmeyüp dâyîresin"; there the moon is punished with spots for overstepping its bounds, here it is excused along with the sun. Latîfî records the couplet only with "velehû"; of the ghazal's other couplets there is no trace. On his father Zenbilli Ali Efendi and his family see Rûhî Fâzıl Çelebi (Zenbillizâde).

Bibliography

Online sources