Seyh Galib (1757-1799)

Seyh Galib was born Mehmed Es'ad in Istanbul into a family which had long been associated with the Mevlevi dervishes. He was the descendant of intellectual, scholarly, and sufi elites including his father, Mustafa Reşid, who was a poet, bureaucrat, and second-level adept of the dervish house at Yenikapı. Galib did not go through the theological school (medrese) education which was usual for Ottoman elites, but was educated at home by his father and tutors from various Mevlevi houses. He was clearly a brilliant student and became an exceptional poet, who in his justly famed verse romance Hüsn ü 'Aşk has nothing good to say of the elite bureaucratic scribes with their formal educations. He assembled a divan at the age of twenty-four and was only a year older when he composed his Hüsn ü 'Aşk, which has been so highly praised that his magnificent lyrics are often overlooked. Galib contracted tuberculosis while still at the height of his powers and died in 1799 at the age of forty-two. [This entry was written by Walter G. Andrews.] 

THE ROSE A FLAME

The Rose a flame

                Rosebush a flame

                                Garden a flame

                                                Stream a flame

For lovers made of salamander-stuff

The tulip-bed aflame

Should be enough

Even now, oh Saki,

Ignite a cup with flames of wine

For the hand of her who holds my heart;

She came in rage to the party

And flames here still

Like the candle of the gathering

The sweet breeze has blown up flames

From my eye's bud of hope

The lightning-bolt of spring

Has set afire

The rose-bed of my expectations

As your lovers sigh,

Aaah!—

Imagining what it might be

To long for your dark mole—

In the black night of separation

The heart-aflame casts out

The burning stars as alms

When you are gone, oh moon,

Even the flower-beds

Speak to me of Hell—

                The tree's a flame

                                Sapling's a flame                                                                                                                                

                                                Leaf and fruit a flame                                                                                                                

                                                                 She who is the lantern                                                                                          

That lights the feast of my exile

Is dressed in fascination—                                                                                                                               

For the moth of my heart

                Union with her a flame                                                                                       

                                To wait a flame

Galib! As your pen runs hotly,

Swiftly turning about the page

                The earth's a flame

                                Time's a flame

                All that's drawn

                                Or designed

                                                A flame

 

Translated by Walter G. Andrews                                                                                                    

YOU ARE MY LORD

You are my lord. If I have some credit in the world, it comes from you.

If I have some fame among lovers, it comes from you.

 

You are the plenitude of my life, my soul and my spirit

If there is some gain on the capital of my life, it comes from you.

 

The color of your beauty gives reality to this imagined form

If there is spring in the rose garden of my dream, it comes from you.

 

I have suffered no atom of pain at the hands of fate

O bright sun, if I moan and weep, it comes from you.

 

You are the candle of union, I the moth of your flame

If I yearn every night to kiss and embrace, it comes from you.

 

I have become a martyr of your low, my breast is a tulip bed of wounds

If there is a lamp on my grave, a candle in my tomb, it comes from you.

 

One who sees my aimless turning might take me for the desert whirlwind

I am nothing within nothing, if I have any being, it comes from you.

 

While I was your rolling pearl, why did you let me go astray?

If my dust is on the mirror of life, it comes from you.

 

Cupbearer, you gave my cup a dawn glow of blood and tears

If I am languorous the morrow of a night of revels, it comes from you.

 

It is with you that Galib takes refuge, great Mevlana,

The cap I wear with pride, it comes from you.

 

Translated by Bernard Lewis

IF I SAY THAT THE SKIES HAVE OPENED, THE SPRING HAS COME

If I say that the skies have opened, the spring has come,

I mean that my beloved has shown me some affection.

If I say that the meadow is adorned with blossoms,

It conveys that my sweetheart spoke to me with a smile.

 

Translated by Bernard Lewis

 

[From An Anthology of Turkish literature, Edited by Kemal Silay]