Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Elifler serv-rengîn gül gibi sînemde dâġum var
Maḥabbet sebze-zârında yine bir tâze bâġum var

In English

1. On my breast there are elif-shaped wounds like cypresses and brands (burn scars) red as roses; in the green meadow of love I have once again a fresh garden.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

Of Siyâbî's poems this is the only couplet found in three sources at once. Latîfî gives it with the word "velehu"; Kınalızâde records it as the only example he chose for Siyâbî, in the form "Elifler serv-i rengîn", and Hüsameddin, quoting Latîfî, as "Elifler serv rengîn". The text is taken from Latîfî's edition. Both lines end with the sound "-âġum var": "var" is the redif (refrain word), "dâġ" and "bâġ" the rhyme words. Kınalızâde calls the couplet a "matla" (opening couplet); none of the three sources gives the rest of the ghazal (gazel).

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet describes like a garden the wounds that lovers of old opened on their own bodies. In divan poetry and among the people, lovers drew upright cuts on their breasts and arms with a knife in the beloved's name, and called them "elif" because they resembled the shape of elif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet; a burn scar made with a hot iron or something burning was called "dâġ". Siyâbî likens these two kinds of wound to two plants of the garden: the upright elifs are like cypresses, the red brands like roses. The compound "serv-rengîn" in the edition can also be read "cypress-coloured"; "serv-i rengîn" in Kınalızâde means "colourful cypress". In either reading the likeness of shape between the elif and the cypress stays the same.

The second line completes the image. The lover's breast is the "mahabbet sebze-zârı", the green meadow of love, and every newly opened wound lays out a fresh garden in it. Presenting pain as beauty is like an example of Kınalızâde's praise of Siyâbî as a poet who skilfully cut the cloth of speech. The word "yine", once again, hints that the wounds are opened over and over and that love does not end.

Historical Context

No occasion is recorded for the matla, but that Kınalızâde chose only this couplet in Siyâbî's entry suggests that at the end of the sixteenth century it was still the poet's best-known line. The article Siyâbî: The Tailor Poet of Merzifon follows Siyâbî's life.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources