Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün mefâʿilün feʿilün (metre identified by us)

Ol kişidür cihânda eyle ki
Bir yehûdî ḥekîmden umma nefʿ
Başına çâresi olaydı eger
Başdan ṣafrâsın iderdi defʿ

In English

1. The (wise) man in this world is he who expects no benefit from a Jewish physician. (The line can also be read: be such a man in the world that you expect none.)

2. Had he any cure for his own head, he would first have rid his own head of its bile.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Mocking the Physician

Latîfî gives this kıt'a under the heading "mutâyebe", a jest, and tells the occasion. When Rûhî fell ill a "yellow-headed" Jew in the guise of a physician was brought to him and, by way of treatment, caused him worse pain; the poet composed the kıt'a on this. Its point lies in the word "safra". In the old medicine safra, yellow bile, was one of the four humours of the body; some illnesses were attributed to its excess, and the physician tried to "def'" it, to expel it. Ottoman Jews wore yellow headgear, which led to their being called "yellow-headed". The poet joins the two yellows: had the physician a cure, he would first have rid his own head of its yellow, its bile.

The first line of the first couplet is somewhat obscure; "Ol kişidür cihânda eyle ki" can be read both as "the wise man in this world is he who" and as "be such a man in the world that". In either reading the advice is the same. The kıt'a plainly reflects the prejudice of the age against Jewish physicians; the contemptuous language of Latîfî's account is the product of the same outlook. As a bitter joke told from a sickbed, it is also the most personal detail Latîfî gives about Rûhî. What the anthologist wrote of the young poet is gathered on the page Rûhî Fâzıl Çelebi (Zenbillizâde).

Bibliography

Online sources