Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün
Ḥuṣūl-i būse o leblerle ol iki ruḫdan
Marīż-i ‘aşḳa şifā-yı gül beñzer imiş
In English
1. To gain kisses from those lips and from those two cheeks, it seems, is like the healing of the rose for one sick with love.
Literary and Historical Commentary
In this couplet a kiss resembles a remedy of old medicine. In Ottoman medicine the rose was counted a source of healing that refreshed the heart; gülbeşeker, rose petals mixed with sugar, was a well-known medicine. The couplet speaks of two sources: lips and cheeks. In divan poetry the lip is sugar and the cheek a rose; the kiss taken from both comes to the lover's sickness like the healing of the rose.
The thesis notes a fault of metre in the second line. The words "gül beñzer" at the end of the line seem, for both rhyme and metre, open to the reading "gül-be-şeker" as well: the sugar of the lip and the rose of the cheek would supply the two ingredients of this remedy. The reading is offered by us; the original text has not been altered. Nor can the faulty line be tested against another copy, since the couplet is found only in T. 738; the problem therefore stays open.
Bibliography
- Meral Topal, Pîrî-zâde Mehmed Sâhib Hayatı, Edebî Kişiliği, Eserleri ve Divanı'nın Tenkitli Metni, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2004, p. 227, matla 13 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 4a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
