Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Baña cennet serāyından ser-i kūy-ı vefā yegdür
Yarınki ḥūr u ġılmāndan bugünki dil-rubā yegdür

In English

1. To me the head of the street of faithfulness is better than the palace of paradise; today's heart-stealer is better than tomorrow's houris and heavenly youths.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The couplet is given in Âşık Çelebi's entry on Hazînedârzâde Mustafa Çelebi after the two preceding couplets, introduced by "Ve lehu", this too is his. Both lines carry the rhyme "-â" and the refrain (redif) "yegdür", so it can be recognised as the opening couplet (matla) of a separate ghazal (gazel). The rest of the ghazal is unknown. According to a note by the editor, Filiz Kılıç, the couplet is missing from one of the manuscripts used in the critical text (P). The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre; like Şikârî's other couplets, the lines fit four repetitions of the foot mefâîlün, an observation that is ours. When and for whom it was composed is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet is a short and clear example of the outlook known in divan poetry as the stance of the rind, the libertine. The rind is one who, against the ascetic's promise of the hereafter, puts love and beauty in this world first and values the heart rather than outward show. The poet twice sets paradise, the greatest reward in the language of the Sufi and the preacher, on the scales, and twice finds the earthly beloved superior. In the first line the head of the street where the beloved lives is set against the palace of paradise; "kûy-ı vefâ", the street of faithfulness, denotes the place where the beloved is faithful or where the lover keeps his fidelity. In the second line today's heart-stealer is set against the houris and youths (hûr u gılmân) who serve in paradise.

The force of the couplet comes from the contrast between "yarınki" (tomorrow's) and "bugünki" (today's). The hereafter is the "tomorrow" that is promised but has not yet come; the beloved is what is here and now. This antithesis sums up in two words a view of life that prefers what is at hand to what is awaited. There is a sound echo between "ser" (head) and "serây" (palace), and a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "cennet" and "hûr u gılmân". The same preference is often treated in divan poetry; Şikârî's couplet presents it without ornament, within a two-line comparison.

The biographer makes no comment on the couplet, and the information he gives about the poet's life cannot be linked directly to it. The poet's identity, his posts at the side of Prince Mustafa and his confusion with other poets of the same pen name are described separately in the biography in this category.

Bibliography

Online sources