Excerpt from the book Ottoman Lyric Poetry AN ANTHOLOGY by Walter G. Andrews * Najaat Black * Mehmet Kalpakli University of Washington Press, 2006. English Translation Ottoman Text

Who sets traps: It was forbidden to hunt or trap in the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. In this case the gazelle, which it would be a crime to hunt in the sanctuary, becomes the illegal hunter by turning Kaaba into a trap for those inclined to worship. The gazelle is here and elsewhere a metaphor for the beloved because of its graceful body, large brown eyes, and shy demeanor. The beloved entraps the lover into worshiping her and substituting her house or neighborhood for Kaaba (because her lover walks round and round them as worshipers do at the Kaaba). Or course, the beloved of the Kaaba is the Divine, which entraps the pilgrim who is following only the outwars forms of religion into an inward, emotional spirituality.

Hulagu: Hulagu was the grandson of Genghiz Khan and warlord of the Mongols when the Tatar soldiers invaded the central Middle East and sacked Baghdad in the mid-thirteenth century. The Mongols gained a reputation as invincible warriors and cruel conquerors, who ruthlessly sacked cities that refused to surrender and massacred their inhabitants.

Hizir, Jesus, Alexander: For Hizir and Alexander (Iskender) see Iskender/Alexander following poem no. 10. For Jesus see the note for poem no 7. Both Hizir and Jesus are known for bringing the dead to life. In this couplet both of the most famous raisers-of-the-dead are willing to die for the taste of the beloved's moist lip, and for it Alexander would give up the search for the Fountain of Eternal Life.

Oh my love, my sun: This couplet has a complex internal sense, in the fashion of the sebk-i hindi. (see article following poem no. 67), that is not apparent from the translation (not could it be made apparent in English). The theme of Jesus is carried on by a very oblique reference to the legend that when Jesus, most holy for having given up things of this world even including marriage and family, was taken up into heaven, he was required to completely divest himself (tecrîd) of all worldly things. As he ascended through the nine spheres/heavens he was stopped in the fourth -the sphere of the sun- because he had unwittingly brought a needle with him. So he remains in that heaven and has not risen to the Heaven of the Throne of God (see The Cosmos and the Earth following poem no. 19). The word used here for sun (mihr) also means "love" and is a common source of the play on double meaning the Ottomans called tevriye. So the beloved is linked to the sun, to Jesus, and from there to the wild rose, which is unique, alone (not with other flowers in the garden), and white (like the sun and Jesus in this rejection of worldly adornment) rather than red (like the beloved's cheek).

Her mouth: In the Ottoman mythology of attractiveness, the beloved's mouth is supposed to be vanishingly small. Here it has been compared to the tip of her curl or, in the original, the tip of a hair (i.e., a hair's breadth) and the beloved is furious because this describes it as far larger than it really is.