MEHMED NEBÎL BEY VE HİCR Ü VİSÂL’İ

Mehmed Nebîl Bey was a classical divan poet of the 19th century. The son of Osmân Sâ’ib Efendi and his wife Şerîfe Sâmiye Hanım, and also the nephew of the well-known poet Şeref Hanım, he was born in Istanbul in AH 1258 (1842/43 CE). He was initiated into the Mevlevi order by Osmân Selâhaddîn Dede, the shaykh of the Yenikapı Mevlevi dervish lodge, where he learned to play the ney. It is said that, by nature, he was a contented person much given to pleasure and to eating and drinking, as well as being quite flirtatious and elegant. After completing his education, he served in a number of different government posts before passing away in the month of Ramadan in AH 1307 (April/May 1890 CE), in Ayvacık, where he had been appointed as a notary. A portion of his poetry was collected after his death under the title Külliyât-ı Mîr Nebîl (Collected Works of Master Nebîl), and this collection, consisting of 2793 couplets in all, contained a tevhid (a poem expressing the oneness and majesty of God), a na’at (a poem in praise of Muhammad), a poem entitled Hicr ü Visâl (Separation and Reunion), and an assortment of other poems said to include “40 ghazals, 2 elegies, 44 tercis (a poem using recurring lines in a manner reminiscent of the rondeau) and tahmises (a poem that adds three lines to each couplet of another poet’s ghazal), 16 verses, 30 chronograms, 11 songs, 37 quatrains, and 12 unrhymed couplets.” In addition to these, there was also said to be a Mecmû’a (Compilation) from the poet’s younger years, which lacked a beginning and end but contained “51 ghazals, 23 terkibs (a poem similar to the terci but lacking the recurring lines) and verses, 22 quatrains, 14 songs, 74 chronograms, and 51 couplets and independent hemistichs.” However, no manuscript copy of either of these collections appears to be extant in libraries today. The only work by Nebîl Bey that has survived to the present is his mesnevî entitled Hicr ü Visâl (Separation and Reunion). This poem, which consists of 610 couplets and was completed in AH 1299 (1881/82 CE), is a romantic adventure dealing with the love felt for a handsome young man. Based on the text of Hicr ü Visâl, it is possible to say that the poet generally wrote poems using an idiom that was somewhat ponderous; that his ghazals were likely rather romantic and sensuous; and that his verse was not particularly original but rather amounted to a faithful repetition of examples of classical divan poetry of a similar style. In this study, information will be provided concerning Mehmed Nebîl Bey’s life, works, and literary style, followed by an analysis of his mesnevî poem Hicr ü Visâl (Separation and Reunion) and a transcription of this work’s unique extant text.