Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ūlün

Ey yār-ı faṣīḥ u nuṣḥ-güftār
Naẓm ile iden cevāhir īs̱ār
Ki luṭf ile eyleyüp ḫiṭābı
Ki ‘unf ile eyleyen ‘ıtābı
Bu ben megese hümā oḳıyan
Belki melek-i semā oḳıyan
Ki ṭūṭi diyüp maḳāl ṣoran
Bülbül diyü vaṣf-ı ḥāl ṣoran
Hem baña diyen nedür bu ḥālüñ
Ḳaṭ‘ oldı meger ki per ü bālüñ
Gūş eylegil imdi vaṣf-ı ḥālüm
Ṣanma ki ḳırıldı per ü bālüm
Çoḳ ‘ilme Ḫudā ḳılupdı mālik
Hem olmış idüm ṭarīḳa sālik
‘İlm ile ‘avāma pend idüp ben
Pend ile hevāya bend idüp ben
Hem rāh-ı Hudā ṭutup giderdüm
Çoḳ nefs ḍalāletin giderdüm
Şeh-zāde-i a‘ẓam u mu‘aẓẓam
Nev-bāve-i efḫam u müfaḫḫam
Evṣāfumı çünki gūş ḳılmış
Deryā gibi ḳalbi cūş ḳılmış
Şevḳı bu faḳīre ġālib olmış
Ol şeh bu gedāya ṭālib olmış
‘Azm-i sefer eyledükde sulṭān
Olduḳda aña mülāḳi ol ḫan
Gūş eyledüginde pend-i pīri
Ḳılmış ṭaleb anda ben faḳīri
Nā-geh baña ḥükm-i şāh geldi
Derd ile dilümden āh geldi
Ne ḳudreti ola mūr-ı zīrüñ
Kim red ide ḥükmini emīrüñ
Çün emr ile oldı bende me’mūr
Nā-çār oldı döndi çün mūr
Her vech ile gördüm anı pür-nūr
Ārāste mis̱l-i Beyt-i Ma‘mūr
Her pendümi ol ḳabūl ḳıldı
Bu ḳalbi ḳabūli ḳul ḳıldı
Nefsinde ziyād idüp ṣalāḥı
‘Ālemlere virdi hem felāḥı
Ey Ka‘be mücāviri ‘azīzüm
Ẓann itme ki olmaya temīzüm
Nef‘üm baña vü ‘avāma idi
Ṣanma ki ḳamu enāma idi
Şimdi ḳamu ḫalḳa oldı nef‘üm
Her vech ile oldı ḳadr ü ref‘üm
Ṣanma ki ṣalāḥumuz kem oldı
Belki o ṣalāḥ-ı ‘ālem oldı
Sizden umaruz du‘ā vü himmet
Bu şāha müyesser ola devlet
‘Adliyle cihānı ide pür-nūr
Ola bu Sürūrī sırrı mesrūr

In English

1. O friend of fluent speech and sincere counsel, who scatters jewels in verse,

2. who at times addresses me with kindness and at times reproaches me with harshness,

3. who calls me, a mere fly, a hümâ, and even calls me an angel of the heavens. (The hümâ is the legendary bird believed to bestow good fortune on anyone its shadow falls upon.)

4. who asks for my words calling me a parrot, and asks after my state calling me a nightingale. (In his letter Gubârî had called Sürûrî the parrot of the garden of honour and the nightingale of the orchard of eminence.)

5. and who says to me, "What is this state of yours? Have your wings been clipped?"

6. Now listen to the account of my state; do not think that my wings have been broken.

7. God had made me master of much learning, and I had also become a traveller on the mystic path.

8. With learning I gave counsel to the people, and with counsel I bound the desires of the self.

9. I went on keeping to the road of God, and removed the error of many souls.

10. The greatest and most exalted prince, the most glorious and honoured fresh fruit ("nev-bâve", the first fruit of a tree; here the sultan's young son)...

11. ...since he had heard of my qualities, his heart surged like the sea.

12. His longing for this poor man prevailed; that king sought out this beggar.

13. When the sultan set out on campaign, and when that khan met with him... (The couplet can be read in two ways: "that khan" may be the prince who met the sultan setting out on campaign, or the sultan himself.)

14. ...on hearing the counsel of the old man, he asked for me there.

15. Suddenly the king's command came to me; a sigh of pain rose from my heart.

16. What power would the lowly ant have to refuse the emir's command? (There is an allusion to the story of the prophet Solomon and the ant; the sultan who gave the command was also named Süleyman, that is, Solomon.)

17. Since this servant was charged by command, helpless, he turned back like the ant.

18. I found him full of light in every way, adorned like the Beyt-i Ma‘mûr. (The Beyt-i Ma‘mûr is the heavenly counterpart of the Kaaba, believed to be circled by the angels.)

19. He accepted every counsel of mine; by this acceptance he made this heart his servant. (The line can also be understood as "this heart made acceptance its servant".)

20. Increasing righteousness within himself, he also gave salvation and well-being to the worlds.

21. O my dear friend, neighbour of the Kaaba, do not think that I would not stay pure. (Gubârî was then living in Mecca beside the Kaaba.)

22. My benefit used to be for myself and for the common people; do not think it reached all mankind.

23. Now my benefit has reached all the people; in every way my worth and rank have risen.

24. Do not think that our righteousness has grown less; rather it has become the righteousness of the world.

25. From you we hope for prayer and spiritual favour: may fortune be granted to this king. ("Devlet" means both fortune and sovereign power.)

26. May he fill the world with light through his justice; may the heart of this Sürûrî be glad. ("Mesrûr", glad, comes from the same root as the poet's pen name Sürûrî.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem has twenty-six couplets (beyit) and is written in the metre "mef‘ūlü mefā‘ilün fe‘ūlün" of the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre). The metre is not stated in the biographical anthology; it has been deduced from the scansion of the couplets and from its being in the same pattern as the verse letter it answers. Âşık Çelebi calls the poem a "ḳıṭ‘a" (fragment), but its form is that of the mesnevi: the two lines of each couplet rhyme with each other, and the rhyme changes from couplet to couplet (güftār/īs̱ār, ḫiṭābı/‘ıtābı, ḥālüñ/bālüñ and so on). This form was often used in divan literature for letters in verse. The poet's pen name (mahlas) "Sürūrī" appears in the last couplet. The poem is a reply to a verse letter that Gubârî wrote in the same metre and form.

The text followed here is the full text in Âşık Çelebi's biographical anthology (tezkire) as edited by Filiz Kılıç. According to the manuscript variants Kılıç records, couplets 3, 20 and 24 are missing in the F manuscript of the anthology, and the word "‘ilme" in couplet 7 reads "fenne" in the same manuscript. Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr gives the reply in thirteen couplets, with some words different: there the first line reads "Ey yār-ı naṣīḥ-i nuṣḥ-güftār", and the second line of the fifth couplet "Ḳat‘ oldı mı yoḳsa perr ü bālüñ". Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi quotes only Gubârî's letter.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The reply proceeds by taking up the images of Gubârî's letter one by one and turning them round. Gubârî had likened Sürûrî to a bird soaring in the heavens, to the parrot of the garden of honour and the nightingale of the orchard of eminence, and had then said that this bird's wings were clipped and that it had fallen into the snare of the world. In the opening couplets Sürûrî meets this praise with modesty: though he is no more than a fly, he has been called a hümâ, an angel, a parrot and a nightingale. Then comes his real answer: his wings have not been broken. The rest of the poem gives the grounds for this claim. The poet first describes his former state: he was a man of learning, had entered the mystic path and gave counsel to the people. Then he relates how the prince asked for him, how he went at the sultan's command and how he found the prince.

Couplets sixteen and seventeen are the subtlest point of the poem. The poet likens himself to an ant and the one who gave the command to an emir. This allusion (telmih) to the Qur'anic story of the prophet Solomon and the ant gains a second meaning because the sultan who gave the command also bore the name Süleyman: the ant cannot refuse Solomon's command. In the eighteenth couplet the prince is compared to the Beyt-i Ma‘mûr, held to be the Kaaba of the heavens; this comparison joins the poem's later address to Gubârî as "neighbour of the Kaaba". To the friend living beside the Kaaba in Mecca, the poet hints that he too is beside his own "Kaaba".

In the closing couplets the defence turns into a general claim: formerly the poet's benefit reached himself and the people around him; now, because he is educating a prince regarded as a future sultan, it reaches the whole world. His righteousness has therefore not lessened but has become "the righteousness of the world". The poem ends with a prayer. The word "devlet" in the twenty-fifth couplet means both fortune and happiness and sovereign power; the couplet can therefore also be read as a wish that the prince should come to the throne. In the last line there is a play on words (cinas) between the pen name "Sürūrī" and the word "mesrûr" (glad).

Historical Context

The story of the episode is told by Âşık Çelebi, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî and Kınalızâde. Sürûrî and the poet Gubârî were fellow travellers on the same path in the Nakşibendî order. After the death of his teacher Fenârîzâde Muhyiddin Çelebi, Sürûrî had given up teaching, become a disciple of Abdüllatif Efendi, sheikh of the dervish lodge of Emîr Buhârî, and withdrawn from worldly affairs. At this point he was called to be tutor to Şehzade Mustafa (Prince Mustafa), the eldest son of Süleyman the Magnificent. According to Âşık Çelebi, the invitation came when the sultan set out on the campaign of "fetḥ-i Van ve kesr-i şāh-ı mülḥidān", the conquest of Van and the breaking of the Persian shah; the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi places this invitation in 955 (1548). Âlî, in the Gubârî entry of the Künhü'l-ahbâr, gives the date of the offer as 953 (1546). When Gubârî, then living in Mecca, heard the news, he wrote the letter reproaching his old friend, and Sürûrî replied with this kıt‘a.

The prince described in the poem is Prince Mustafa, who was sanjak governor (sanjak-bey) of Amasya from 1541 to 1553. Sürûrî's years as his tutor were also spent at the court in Amasya. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar names "the famous Sürûrî Efendi" among the teachers who taught at the prince's summer pavilion at Karakaya, and writes that Sürûrî wrote his commentary on the Gülistan in Amasya in the prince's name and completed it in 958, and that he was "hem muallimi hem de mahrem-i esrârı", both the prince's teacher and the keeper of his secrets. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi also records that Sürûrî completed his book on rhetoric, the Bahrü'l-maârif, in Amasya at the prince's side on 11 Safer 956 (11 March 1549). The same entry says that Sürûrî went to Karaman on receiving the invitation; this note does not agree with the other evidence that the prince was in Amasya in those years.

The biographers do not much approve of Sürûrî's decision. Âşık Çelebi relates that before the decision he asked his teacher, "Have you accepted?", and that Sürûrî answered, "I am counted among the dead; accepting and refusing are matters for the living"; in the end, he writes, Sürûrî was "cāha şīfte ve riyāsete firīfte", seduced by rank and office. Kınalızâde too likens him to a soul that, while bound to the pulpits of the divine throne, came down to earth. The end of the story is bitter. Prince Mustafa was killed in his father's camp in Şevval 960 (October 1553). According to the biographers Sürûrî spent the last nine years of his life without office and in poverty. Âşık Çelebi and Âlî also point to an irony: Gubârî, who reproached Sürûrî for becoming a prince's tutor, himself became tutor to the sons of Prince Bayezid a little later.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

  • İsmail Güleç, "Sürûrî, Muslihuddin Mustafa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 38, Istanbul 2010, pp. 170-172, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/sururi-muslihuddin-mustafa.
  • İsmail Güleç, "Gelibolulu Musluhiddin Sürûrî, Hayatı, Kişiliği, Eserleri ve Bahrü'l-Ma'ârif İsimli Eseri", Osmanlı Araştırmaları 21 (2001), pp. 211-236.

Online sources