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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
  • Author
  • 04/29/2024
  • 225 Words
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  • 5 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 110. the love of an emperor

.

He

 

He comes, with the surprise

Of a moon out of the clouds,

And Love throws her arm

About the hearts of all men.

 

I never sighed until I knew him;

But now my weeping tastes of blood.

I have slain lions and terrified captains;

But now I am the slave of a boy

Glancing like a young deer.

 

If he shuts his eyes, when we sit

In the light of the sun together,

I am plunged in darkness;

Also his eyes are the two jewels

Of my kingdom.

 

As the song of a fountain woos

All memory of the desert,

So his voice woos all my

Care away from me.

He is my fountain and my lute,

The shadow where my sleep is calm.

 

I would bow myself before him,

If Allah were not, saying:

“You are my God!”

—Ottoman Sultan Selim I,[i]

circa 1495

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] “He” Sultan Selim I Eastern Love: Anthology of Eastern Love Volume I (London 1929), [E. Powys Mathers, Editor and Translator from the French], p. 3

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.238178/page/n11/mode/2up?q=

Mathers’ versions are based on L’anthologie de l’amour Turc [Edmond Fazy / Abdul-Halim Memdouh, Editors and Translator] (Paris 1905), and Les colombes des minarets: anthologie islamique [Franz Toussaint, Editor and Translator] (Paris 1928)

_

as noted
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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AC Benus

AC Benus 36,631

Posted (edited)

On 4/29/2024 at 9:38 PM, ReaderPaul said:

This seems lyrical to me in the way it comes across.  Very good, @AC Benus.

I feel I could improve it, but that'd necessitate my searching for the Turkish original . . . and I could not even find the two French books online . . . 

That being said, Mathers' chapter -- the one containing this poem -- is called "Eleven Turkish Poems", and I'll be posted a couple more in the Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love. One is from a 19th century poet too, and quite interesting

Edited by AC Benus
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