Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Dürişdüm dil-berā ʿışḳuñda yavlaḳ
Velī ʿışḳuñ kitābı ḳatı muġlaḳ
Kimi vaṣluña dil virür kimi ser
Benüm cānuma yiter gücüm ancaḳ
Ne eşşek başıdur her yirde aġyār
Dikilür dil-berüñ bāġında andaḳ

In English

1. O heart-stealer, I laboured hard in your love; but the book of your love is very difficult, hard to understand.

2. Some give their heart for union with you, some their head; as for me, my strength is barely enough for my own life.

3. What a donkey's skull the rival is, standing planted everywhere, even in the beloved's garden, just like that. The allusion is to the custom of setting up a donkey's skull in gardens to ward off birds and the evil eye.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The three couplets we have are part of a ghazal (gazel); the rhyme is the sound "-aḳ" in the words "yavlaḳ, muġlaḳ, ancaḳ, andaḳ". The pen name (mahlas) does not appear, so the last couplet of the ghazal may not have been taken into the tezkire. The edition of the tezkire does not indicate the metre; the lines fit the pattern mefâîlün mefâîlün feûlün, an observation that is ours. The text is given from Âşık Çelebi. According to the notes of the editor Filiz Kılıç, in manuscript F the ghazal appears under the heading "Cevâb-ı Makâmî", Makâmî's reply, and in this manuscript the phrase "bu gazel dahı anuñdur" before the ghazal is missing. The word "ḳatı" in the first couplet reads "dersi" in manuscripts B, A, S and F; with this reading the line means "the textbook of your love is difficult". "Her yirde" in the third couplet appears in manuscript A as "her demde", at every moment.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal combines the language of the madrasa with the language of love. In the first couplet the lover uses the verb "dürişmek", to study, to toil, for his labour in the beloved's love and likens love to a book that is hard to read; the word "muglak" recalls the obscure texts that madrasa students tried to understand with the help of commentaries. In the mouth of a poet who had served as preacher and imam, this comparison has a further meaning. The second couplet says that some give their heart, some their head to win union with the beloved; the poet, for his part, says that his strength is barely enough for his own life, meaning either that his life is all he has to give or that his strength barely keeps him alive. The couplet can be read in two ways.

The third couplet suddenly changes the tone of the ghazal and hurls a heavy insult at the rival. The rival is a "donkey's skull" standing planted everywhere in the beloved's garden. The image rests on the custom of setting up a donkey's skull in vegetable gardens and vineyards to protect them from the evil eye and from birds; this explanation is ours. The phrase "ne eşek başı" also recalls an expression used in popular speech for useless, worthless people. In divan poetry the rival is usually named abstractly as "agyâr" and "rakîb"; Makâmî's coarse, everyday image brings the ghazal close to a witty poem of verbal sparring.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi gives this ghazal immediately after the ghazal "Ḥüsnüñdür āftāb" that Makâmî sent to Mihrî Hatun and Mihrî's reply to it, saying "bu gazel daḫı anuñdur", this ghazal too is his. The heading "Cevâb-ı Makâmî" in manuscript F suggests that this ghazal was also written as a reply, perhaps Makâmî's answer to Mihrî's reply; but since its metre and rhyme differ from Mihrî's ghazal, there is no direct common pattern between the two poems. To whom the ghazal was written as a reply is therefore unknown; its relation to Mihrî remains a possibility.

Bibliography

Online sources