Şâhî, Single Couplet 5: Nice benzer kadüne serv ki reftâr

Single Couplet (Müfred) 5 — Nice benzer kadüne serv ki reftâr idemez

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 13 October 2026 • 3 min reading

Prince Bayezid's single couplet: the cypress that cannot walk and the rosebud that cannot speak fail to match the beloved. A couplet whose lines answer word for word.

Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilün

Nice benzer kadüne serv ki reftâr idemez
Öykünür mi femüne gonce ki güftâr idemez

In English

1. How could the cypress resemble your stature, when it cannot walk; can the rosebud imitate your mouth, when it cannot speak?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This single couplet, fifth in the edition, is written in the "fe'ilâtün fe'ilâtün fe'ilâtün fe'ilün" pattern. In Kılıç's survey of metres there are two Turkish single couplets in this pattern; the other is the fourteenth. The end of the first line is on page 147 of the PDF and the second line is at the top of page 148. The couplet is musarra' (both lines rhyme): "reftâr" and "güftâr" form the rhyme, and "idemez" is the redif (refrain word). The single couplet thus has all the features of a ghazal's opening couplet. It is often supposed that some müfreds are unfinished beginnings of ghazals or couplets the poet liked and recorded separately. The edition offers no such information for this couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the couplet two beauties of the beloved compete with the two natural things to which they are compared, and both are defeated. The cypress, for its tall and straight trunk, is the symbol of the beloved's stature in classical poetry; but the cypress cannot stir from its place, while the beloved walks with a swaying gait. The rosebud is compared to the mouth for its smallness and closed shape; but the rosebud cannot speak. This way of speaking, in which the thing compared is held superior to what it is compared with, is known as teşbih-i tafdil (simile of preference). The most striking feature of the couplet is that the two lines answer each other word for word: "Nice benzer" and "Öykünür mi", "kadüne" and "femüne", "serv" and "gonce", "reftâr" and "güftâr", "idemez" and "idemez". "Kadüne" and "femüne" also echo each other in sound. This parallel correspondence of the lines comes very close to the figure called tarsi'; whether it can be counted a full tarsi' is our own judgement. The pairing of stature with walking and mouth with speech also works like an ordered leff ü neşr (enumeration and distribution). Casting both lines as questions presents the beloved's superiority as a verdict beyond dispute. The link between "serv" and walking appears in Şâhî's other poems as well: in his fifth Persian ghazal he addresses the beloved as "ey serv-i revân" (O walking cypress). This single couplet brings out the contradiction contained in that phrase: the real cypress cannot walk, and the only walking cypress is the beloved. The couplet contains no historical indication.

Bibliography

Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 147-148, single couplet no. 5 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also p. 29 (survey of metres), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources