Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Oldum cihânda bir yüzi gül yâr ölümlüsi
Bîmâr-ı ‘ışk çün nice bin var ölümlüsi

In English

1. In this world I have become one ready to die for a rose-faced beloved; for there are many thousands who, sick with love of her, lie close to death. (The second line can be understood in two ways; this is explained in the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

The word "ölümlüsi", chosen as the refrain word (redif), carries the whole weight of the couplet. In old Turkish "ölümlü" means one doomed to die, one whose death is near; to be "someone's ölümlü" here means to be ready to die for that person, to lie dying because of them. The poet declares himself the "ölümlü" of a rose-faced beloved. The second line places this confession in a crowd: there are thousands who, sick with love, are preparing for death.

The line can be read in two ways. If the word "çün" is taken as "because", the poet makes the great number of those dying for the beloved the reason for his own decision; to be the lover of such a beauty is to join the thousands. "Çün" can also mean "like" here; then the poet counts himself, like many thousands of love-sick men, as the "ölümlü" of that beloved. In both readings the crowd is the measure of the beloved's beauty. The rhyme of "yâr" and "var" is built on a plain, everyday sound and suits the conversational air of the couplet.

Kınalızâde gives the couplet after the kaside pieces with the note "Velehû" (his also). Its two rhyming lines place it at the head of a ghazal, but no other couplet of that ghazal was recorded. The poet's family and the other pieces left in the anthology are in Şeyhî (Tayyibzâde).

Bibliography

Online sources