Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün feʿilâtün feʿilâtün feʿilün (metre identified by us)

Opening couplet (Beyânî and Kınalızâde):

Sanma cismüm görüben dâg ile pür-yâre beni
Cümleten kapladı bir hırka-i sad-pâre beni

Couplets quoted by Âşık Çelebi:

Ṣaldı nâr-ı şafaḳa ṭâs-ı mehi şaḥne-i çerḫ
Mihrüñi fâş ide ṣanur gelüp iḳrâre beni
Dâġlar sînede ḳadd-i ʿışḳla ḫam çün Ẕü’n-nûn
Beñzedürlerse n’ola Mâlik-i Dînâra beni
Niçe bir uyuyasın sen gele ey dîde-i baḫt
Sen uyan ben varayın ḫâba ḳo bir pâre beni

In English

1. Do not think, seeing my body covered with brands (the burn marks of love), that I am full of wounds; a patched cloak of a hundred pieces has covered me from head to foot.

2. The watchman of the sky has thrust the moon's bowl into the fire of dawn (to heat it); he thinks I will come and confess, and reveal my love for you. (This reading is ours.)

3. With the brands on my breast and my body bent by love like Zünnûn's, is it any wonder if they liken me to Mâlik-i Dînâr?

4. O eye of fortune, how long will you sleep, come now; you wake, and let me go to sleep a little, leave me be.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Brands, the Cloak and Two Ascetics

The four couplets of the ghazal, scattered across three sources, are linked by a line of images likening the lover's body to the appearance of a dervish. The "dâġ", the brand burned into the body on the road of love, is the lover's badge in divan poetry. In the opening couplet the poet does not want these marks taken for wounds: they are the patches of a dervish cloak of a hundred pieces. The third couplet continues the game with the names of two famous ascetics. The body bent by love resembles the curved letter "nûn" of the Arabic script and recalls the Egyptian sufi Zünnûn; the round brands on the breast are like gold coins, dinars, so that likening the lover to Mâlik-i Dînâr, known for his asceticism, is apt. Each name denotes both an ascetic and a shape in the couplet.

The Heated Bowl

In the second couplet the "şaḥne" is the town's night watchman, the officer of the watch. The watchman of the sky has heated the moon's bowl in the fire of dawn. In old punishments a confession was extracted by putting a red-hot bowl on the offender's head; the couplet can be read as carrying this scene into the sky: the moon reddening in the glow of dawn is an instrument of torture prepared to make the lover tell his secret. "Mihr" is both love and the sun; the sun that comes with the dawn is also the secret coming to light. This reading is drawn from the text; the anthologist does not explain the couplet. The last couplet is a reproach to fortune spoken out of sleeplessness: fortune is asleep, the lover cannot sleep, and he proposes that they change places.

Hüsameddin gives the opening couplet as "Sanma çeşmim görünen dağ ile pür yâre beni"; in that reading "cism", body, has become "çeşm", eye, and the image of the brands loses its sense. Sülûkî's life and the contradiction in the sources are told in Sülûkî Mehmed Çelebi (Memî Çelebizâde).

Bibliography

Primary sources

Online sources