Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Gerçek güzel durur senüñ ey meh-liḳā ḳaşuñ
Kendin eger gerer çeker ise revā ḳaşuñ
Degme kimesne çekmez anuñ yayı bekdür
Ḳatı baġırlıdur senüñ ey bī-vefā ḳaşuñ
Bildi yoluñda toġrulıġum çünki ḳāmetüñ
Taʿn oḳlarını niçün atar baña yā ḳaşuñ
Atdı oḳını yaṣdı yayın diller almada
Müjgānlaruñ ile senüñ ey dil-rübā ḳaşuñ
Seyfī gibi büküldi beli iki ḳat olup
Oldı meger ki bir göz ile mübtelā ḳaşuñ

In English

1. O moon-faced one, your eyebrow is truly beautiful; if it bends, draws and stretches itself, it has every right to. The eyebrow is likened to a bow being strung and drawn: its drawing itself up means both being stretched like a bow and preening itself on its beauty.

2. Not everyone can draw its bow, for it is a firm and stiff bow; O faithless one, your eyebrow is very hard-hearted. "Bağır" here can be read both as heart and as the grip of the bow.

3. Your stature has known how straight I am on your path; why then does your eyebrow, that bow, shoot arrows of reproach at me.

4. O heart-stealer, your eyebrow, together with your eyelashes, shot its arrow, lowered its bow and set about capturing hearts. The word "yaṣdı" has been understood as lowering or laying down the bow; the reading is not certain.

5. Your eyebrow has bent until its waist is doubled, like Seyfî's; it seems it too has fallen for an eye. Since the eyebrow always sits just above the eye, it is said to be "smitten" with an eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets; its refrain (redif) is "ḳaşuñ" (your eyebrow) and its rhyme the sound "-â" (meh-likâ, revâ, bî-vefâ, yâ, dil-rübâ, mübtelâ). The poet's pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The editions of the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) do not indicate the metre; the lines fit the pattern mef'ûlü fâilâtü mefâîlü fâilün, an observation that is ours. The text is given from Âşık Çelebi's tezkire. According to the edition's notes, the ghazal is missing from manuscript F; in manuscript P "dil-rübā" stands for "meh-liḳā" in the first line, "n'ola" for "revā" in the second line, and "meh-liḳā" for "dil-rübā" in the fourth couplet. Kınalızâde gives the ghazal on the authority of Âşık Çelebi, with a few different words: "berkdür" for "bekdür", "bagludur" for "baġırlıdur", and in the last line "bir güzele" for "bir göz ile". Gelibolulu Âlî quotes only the first three couplets; in his text the first line begins "Gerçi güzel durur", and the second line reads "Kendin egdirür kemān çekerse n'ola ḳaşun", a reading the editor Mustafa İsen marks with a question mark.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

All the couplets of the ghazal are built on a single image that thinks of the eyebrow as a bow. In divan poetry the eyebrow, because of its curve, is likened to a bow, the eyelashes to arrows, and the beloved's glance to a shot that wounds the lover. Seyfî expands this conceit (mazmun) step by step. In the first couplet the eyebrow's "bending, stretching and drawing" itself are the movements of stringing a bow; the same verbs also describe the coquetry and pride of a beloved confident in her beauty. In the second couplet the bow is so stiff that not everyone can draw it; "katı bağırlı" means both hard-hearted, merciless, and a bow with a stiff body. In the third couplet a link is drawn between the beloved's upright stature and the lover's "straightness", and the poet asks why the bow-shaped eyebrow shoots arrows of reproach at a lover who is straight; the word "yâ" at the end of the line carries a play on words, readable both as "bow" and as an interrogative particle.

In the fourth couplet eyebrow and eyelash act together: the arrow has been shot, the bow lowered and hearts captured. The last couplet is the wittiest point of the ghazal. The poet, whose pen name comes from seyf, "sword", presents himself as a lover bent double, and ties the curve of the eyebrow to the same love: the eyebrow too is bent because it has fallen for an eye. The fact that the eyebrow always sits above the eye is the basis of this hüsn-i talil, that is, of attributing a state to a beautiful but fanciful cause. Kınalızâde's reading "bir güzele", for a beauty, loses this fine relation between eye and eyebrow; Âşık Çelebi's text therefore seems more meaningful, but this judgement is ours.

Historical Context

Kınalızâde speaks of the ghazal as a "gazel-i meşhur", a famous ghazal, and notes that Âşık Çelebi said it belonged to Seyfî. When and to whom the ghazal was written is not known. Seyfî was a poet who had been at Bayezid II's side since his princehood in Amasya and later served as judge in Rumelia; there is no record showing to which of these periods the ghazal belongs. Although other poets bore the same pen name, the ghazal is given within the entry on Seyfî of Sinop in all three tezkires, so its attribution is firmer than that of this poet's other poems.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources