Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Nâr-ı ruḫa yanan dile pervâne disünler
Pervâne gibi yanar oda yâ ne disünler

In English

1. Let them call the heart that burns in the fire of (the beloved's) cheek a moth; if it burns in the fire like a moth, what else should they call it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The real refinement of the couplet lies in its rhyme: the word "pervâne" in the first line is answered in the second by the words "yâ ne". A noun is rhymed with a phrase made of two separate words, and to the ear they give almost the same sound, while "disünler" serves as the redif (refrain word). Latîfî puts this opening couplet (matla) first in Siyâbî's entry and says "Necâtîye naẓîre vâḳiʿ olmışdur", it was composed as a nazire (response poem) to Necâtî. Which ghazal of Necâtî it answers is not stated; no ghazal of Necâtî with the same redif was available for this study. Of the ghazal (gazel) only this matla survives.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The candle and the moth are among the most worked images (mazmun) of divan poetry: the moth, the night butterfly, falls in love with the light of the candle, circles it and at last burns in the flame. Siyâbî turns this familiar image into a question of naming. The beloved's cheek is fire; the heart that burns in that fire must be called a moth. The second line justifies this and gives the couplet a light touch of mockery: what other name can be given to something that burns in fire like a moth. The couplet argues with the image in the language of conversation rather than building it anew. The repetition of the redif "disünler", let them call, creates the air of a judgement given from other people's mouths.

An unlettered poet writing a nazire to Necâtî, one of the great masters of Ottoman poetry, stands as one of the grounds for Latîfî's remark that his poetic nature was "not bad"; a nazire showed that a poet dared to compete with his master on the same ground.

Historical Context

The matla carries no date. Considering that Necâtî died in 1509, Siyâbî's poems were circulating in the years when Necâtî's fame endured; this agrees with the information that the poet lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. The contradictions over Siyâbî's life and death are discussed in the article Siyâbî: The Tailor Poet of Merzifon.

Bibliography

Online sources