Hüsn ü Aşk (Beauty and Love)

Hüsn ü Aşk is the masnavi Şeyh Galib wrote in 1783 (1197 in the Hijri calendar). Two thousand forty-one couplets in aruz meter, a single allegorical story from beginning to end. Some sources say 1782. The İslam Ansiklopedisi (the Turkish encyclopedia of Islam) entry gives 1197 based on the chronogram at the end of the book, and I follow it. It is considered the last great masnavi of Divan literature.

Let me put down a note at the start: the details in this piece rest on encyclopedia entries that describe the book's structure and plot, on edition blurbs and on bibliographic information. I will not say I read it couplet by couplet. As someone who reads Divan literature, I want to do this text justice as far as I have read it. Where I have not read, I will not act as if I had.

Who Galib was

Mehmed Esad was born in Istanbul in 1757, in a house near the Yenikapı Mevlevihane, the Mevlevi lodge. His father, Mustafa Reşid Efendi, was a Mevlevi and gave him his first education. He studied with Hüseyin Efendi, sheikh of the Galata Mevlevihane, and learned Persian from Hoca Neş'et. Neş'et gave him the pen name "Esad"; later, so as not to be confused with other Esads, he chose "Galib".

He compiled his first divan in 1781, at twenty-four. He completed in Yenikapı the çile, the novice's ordeal of service, that he had begun in Konya, and became a dede in 1787. In June 1791 he was appointed sheikh of the Galata Mevlevihane. There his friendship with Selim III, a poet, musician and calligrapher sultan, deepened, and the sultan had the Galata lodge restored. Galib died on 4 January 1799 and was buried in the tomb in the garden of the same lodge. Today it is the Galata Mevlevihanesi Museum. From 1975 until the 2011 renovation it was open under the name Museum of Divan Literature.

When he wrote Hüsn ü Aşk he was twenty-six and not yet even a sheikh. Put next to this age, the book's self-assured voice makes for an interesting contrast.

A book born from a bet

The sebeb-i telif, the reason for writing, is one of the standard steps of the masnavi tradition. Galib's rests on a real scene. At a gathering he attends, Nabi's Hayrabad is being praised, and someone says nothing like it could ever be written. Galib argues that the work has flaws. In reply he is told: "If you know so much, write it yourself."

About six months later Hüsn ü Aşk was ready. According to the Şeyh Galib entry in the İslam Ansiklopedisi, Tanpınar says that Galib's criticism of Nabi was in fact aimed at the whole poetic tradition. Nabi was a poet who wrote didactically and plainly, while Galib was the poet of the image and of the mazmun, the conventional poetic figure, close to a riddle. The distance between the two voices looks like the distance of that bet.

Gates before the story

Before the story begins, the classical opening sections line up: the tahmid (praise of God), the na't (praise of the Prophet), the miraciyye, then two eulogies of eighteen couplets each. The first is for Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi, the second for Galib's father, Mustafa Reşid Efendi. Last comes the sebeb-i telif.

It looks like a preface, and you want to skip it. I think you should not, because it tells you how the book is to be read. This is not an adventure story but a work of Sufi order literature, and the author announces it at the very start, with reverence for Mevlana and for his father.

From the Children of Love to the School of Manners

The story begins in the tribe of Benî Mahabbet, the Children of Love. Hüsn (Beauty) and Aşk (Love) are born on the same night and are betrothed. They attend the Mekteb-i Edeb, the School of Manners, run by Molla-yı Cünun, and there they give their hearts to each other.

Hayret (Bewilderment) comes between them and separates the young pair. Their correspondence is carried by Sühan, an all-knowing old man. At Aşk's side is his companion Gayret, at Hüsn's side her wet nurse İsmet. When Aşk asks the tribe's elders for Hüsn's hand, he is mocked. The conditions are heavy: he is to go to the Castle of the Heart and bring back the kimya, the alchemical elixir, from there. Only then, Hüsn.

On the road: a well, a witch, a sea of fire

The stops along the road are listed in order in the İslam Ansiklopedisi entry. There is a well with a giant in it, a witch whom Sühan defeats, a gloomy steppe called Harabe-i Gam, the Ruin of Grief. And the Derya-yı Ateş, the sea of fire, which Aşk crosses on a horse named Eşkar.

Then China. There Aşk falls captive to Hüşrüba, the ruler's daughter, and is shut away in the Castle of Zatüssuver. He burns the castle down. This time Sühan comes disguised as a physician and takes Aşk to the Castle of the Heart. In the castle the book's real knot is untied: Hüsn and Aşk are one. Then Hayret unites Aşk with Hüsn, and the veils of the unseen are lifted.

This sequence is what I love most. The kimya starts out as an object sitting inside a castle and ends up turning into a piece of knowledge. Aşk is tested along the way because he thinks Hüsn is something separate from himself. I think the separation itself was the obstacle.

Every name a key

The allegory is not closed but transparent. This is not counted as a flaw; it is the method itself. Hüsn is absolute beauty, that is, God. Aşk is the salik, the traveler trying to reach it. Benî Mahabbet is the Sufi order, Mekteb-i Edeb the lodge, Molla-yı Cünun the spiritual guide, Sühan the perfect guide. Gayret is spiritual striving, İsmet sincerity. The Castle of the Heart is the heart, Hüşrüba the ego. The well, the witch and the sea of fire are the obstacles of seyr ü süluk, the spiritual journey.

According to the encyclopedia entry, the work's theme is this: union is hard, it needs a guide, and it comes about only once it is seen that Hüsn and Aşk are one. The story prepares the reader for this. In the early sections Aşk takes Hüsn for someone separate, because the narrative shows it that way to the reader too.

Galib's voice

What sets the book apart from an ordinary allegory is the voice. Galib stays inside Divan aesthetics but renews the old mazmuns with the technique of Sebk-i Hindî, the Indian style. Double meanings, vivid comparisons, and expressions from everyday speech and local language multiply. Istanbul place names such as Boğaziçi, Divanyolu, Modaburnu, Gümüşsuyu and Sütlüce appear in the text. Seeing Divanyolu inside a story about a sea of fire is a strange and beautiful thing.

He also states his view of poetry openly, in separate places. The encyclopedia entry points to couplets 173-234, 675-685, 708-800 and 2009-2022 as the sections devoted to this. Four tardiyyes scattered in between, that is, muhammes poems of six stanzas each, break the monotony of the narrative. When these are counted too, the total rises to 2,101 couplets. The book closes with a fahriyye, the section in which the poet praises himself, and that is where the chronogram comes from.

Tanpınar likens his poetry to a chandelier full of color and light. I think it is a good description, because a chandelier scatters a single light in every direction, and one of Galib's mazmuns likewise opens a single idea in several directions at once.

What it was built on

The question of sources is disputed. Hammer had said that Galib took Fettahî's Hüsn ü Dil as his model, because he found the two alike. Gibb objected: the resemblance is limited to the allegory and the heroine's name. Gölpınarlı found parallels with İbn Sina's Risaletü't-tayr, Sühreverdî's Munisü'l-uşşak, Attar's Mantıku't-tayr, and Fuzulî's Leyla vü Mecnun and Sıhhat ü Maraz, and stressed that these were not imitation. That he drew on Mevlana's Masnavi, Galib says himself.

The conclusion I draw from this debate is this: Galib does not invent a story from nothing, he rearranges the material at hand. The originality here is not in the events but in the telling.

Its strongest sides

First, the voice. Drawing a language this much its own out of the thousand and one molds of the divan is not easy.

Second, the way the allegory is tied to an idea. Aşk's discovery is not the learning of a rule but the undoing of a misunderstanding. This works far better than explaining a concept like a lesson.

Third, its influence. According to the İslam Ansiklopedisi, Keçecizade İzzet Molla's Gülşen-i Aşk, Abdülhak Hamid's Makber, Ahmed Haşim's poems and Orhan Pamuk's Kara Kitap (The Black Book) are mentioned in connection with this legacy. Turan Oflazoğlu also turned the book into a two-part musical play under the title Güzellik ve Aşk.

Weak sides and difficulties

The book is hard. When aruz, the Ottoman vocabulary and intricate mazmuns come together, a reader left alone with an unannotated text is lost by the second page. So choosing the edition stops being a preference and becomes a necessity.

I think the narrative does not carry the weight of the poetry everywhere, either. Events chase one another, and the trials resemble each other because of their allegorical functions. Judging by the plot, Hüsn is offstage for most of the story. She stands there more like a goal than a person.

There is also the question of reading: the encyclopedia entries take the allegorical reading as the basis. I agree with it as well, but I do not want to pass on without noting that this is a reading, not the text's only necessary conclusion.

Which edition

There are many editions in Turkish. Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları offers Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı's rendering in its 464-page edition. According to reader reviews, it also has a simplified Turkish version and a glossary. Akçağ Yayınları has a 440-page edition. The 1975 edition prepared by Orhan Okay and Hüseyin Ayan, with an introduction by Bilgegil, is also mentioned. In English, Victoria Rowe Holbrook's translation, Beauty and Love, came out from the Modern Language Association in 2005. The text's publishing history is interesting too. Its first printing appeared in Bulak in 1836, together with the divan. Vasfi Mahir Kocatürk translated it into plain Turkish prose in 1944. In 1968 Gölpınarlı published a facsimile of Galib's own manuscript along with the simplified text. So behind most of the Turkish editions we have today lies a long publishing effort. I have not held any of the editions in my hands. I took these details from the encyclopedia entry and from publisher and seller pages.

I have one suggestion whatever the edition: have an annotation or a simplified version next to it, and do not try to finish the couplets in one sitting. As I explained in the site's article why reading books is hard with ADHD, short sessions work for long texts. This book lends itself to that format.

Who it is for

For someone curious about Divan literature who does not know where to start. For someone who wants to see how Sufi thought is carried by a story. For someone who wants to look at the height Turkish poetry reached in the 18th century.

Not for someone looking for something fast and plot-driven. Not for someone who wants to start with an unannotated edition, either.

Its place on the shelf

On the shelf there are books that tell of love in different ways. Masumiyet Müzesi (The Museum of Innocence) turns love into an obsession, into collecting objects, into a wait that lasts for years. In Galib, love is a road and an ordeal. The two look at the same feeling from two opposite places.

On the philosophy side, Sisifos Söyleni (The Myth of Sisyphus) describes a rebellion that finds meaning in pushing a rock. Aşk's road is a kind of rock-pushing too, but in Camus the kimya never comes, while in Galib it does, and when it comes it turns out that what was being sought was inside all along. Nikomakhos'a Etik (Nicomachean Ethics) asks a similar question in another language: is happiness a destination or a way of living? In the diary I had looked at this question through eudaimonia.

Last word

I do not see Hüsn ü Aşk as a book to finish in one go. It is a text to read with an annotated edition, piece by piece, spread over years. If a poem that a young Mevlevi wrote in six months because of a bet has been read for two hundred and forty years, there is a reason for it: Galib buries inside a story the idea that what you are looking for is not separate from you, and that story still whispers the same sentence to anyone setting out on the road.