Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ne cevlân ider idim arsa-i nazm içre ey Sıdkî
Semend-i hâtıra vasl-ı dilârâsına bend olsa

In English

1. O Sıdkî, what a gallop I would make in the arena of verse, were the steed of my mind tied to union with the heart-adorning beloved. (The line can also be understood otherwise; this is explained in the commentary.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

This couplet is the only piece that bears the poet's pen name, and it is the last couplet of a ghazal, its makta. The whole couplet is built on an image of horsemanship. "Arsa" is an arena, "cevlân" galloping and riding about, "semend" a horse. Poetry is likened to an arena, and the poet's mind and memory to a horse that will run in it. "Bend olmak" means to be tied, and the meaning of the couplet changes with how this tying is understood. In one reading, if the steed of the mind reached union with the beloved and were tied to it, the poet would find peace and gallop as he pleased in the arena of poetry. In the other reading, if the horse were tied to union and stayed there, that is, if the poet attained the beloved, he would have no reason left to run in the arena of verse, and "ne cevlân" would express a mockery: what galloping. There is no context showing which is meant, since no other couplet of the ghazal survives.

The pen name appears as "Sıdkî", differing from the spelling "Sıdkı" Hüsameddin uses in the heading; in the last stanza of the tercî-i bend too the poet addresses himself as "Sıdkıyâ". The couplet is the last of the short pieces Hüsameddin gives with the note "Ve lehû". Sıdkı's biography is given under Sıdkı Mustafa Pasha.

Bibliography

Online sources