Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilâtün fâʿilün (identification of the metre is ours)

Bir zer ile ḳâʾil itdi her ki ol sîmîn-berî
Bir filori deñlü yire virdi aña bir zeri

In English

1. Whoever won the consent of that silver-bodied beauty with a single gold piece has paid him one gold piece for a place worth (or the size of) one florin.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Latîfî's Description

Latîfî counts this couplet among Zekâî's "mutâyebât", his pieces of banter, and adds that it belongs to his hezl verse spoken in the guise of a joke. Hezl in divan literature is jesting and comic verse that deliberately drops all seriousness and often slips into bawdy innuendo. The tezkirist's note suggests that the couplet was spoken as a piece of teasing in company; to whom and on what occasion it was said is unknown. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar did not quote the couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The joke is built on the names of money. The beloved is "sîmîn-ber", silver-breasted, silver-bodied; what wins him over is "zer", gold; and the place given in return is "bir filori deñlü", worth one florin. Filori was the name of the gold coins in circulation in the Ottoman lands. This play on silver, gold and florin turns the love affair into a commercial reckoning: whoever wins the beauty with one gold piece has paid one gold piece for a place worth one florin, and the account balances. The phrase "bir filori deñlü yer" can be understood both as "a place worth one florin" and as "a place the size of a florin"; Latîfî's description of the couplet as hezl suggests that the second sense rests on a veiled innuendo. The source does not spell out the allusion, and exactly what the couplet means is not certain.

Historical Context

Latîfî presents Zekâî above all as a master of prose composition who drafted decrees and letters; that he nonetheless made one of the five couplets he chose a hezl couplet shows that the tezkirist also remembered the secretary for his wit in company. His service in the divans of Alemşah and Osman Bey is described in Zekâî Ahmed Çelebi.

Bibliography

Online sources