Does An Apple Have To Love You Because You Love It?

In first place, I want to expand the title into two questions. How an apple shows its love? And what the lover of apple may expect a lover apple to do as respondent? Think an apple that has an attractive color dark red, light yellow or sour green with cute spots on it. Appearance, fragrance can be a way for apple to show its love and in fact this is the cause for lover to be in love with. This finds an expression in the statement “Aşk odu evvel düşer maşuka andan aşıka.” of Fuzulî. Admirer does love the apple because of already existing fire of love. So, lover should not expect more than seeing, smelling. However, some lovers ask further. They want to disturb that apple and pluck it from its branch. The branch is what apple resides in and is nourished, watered by. They separate apple from the branch of the tree in which fellows of the apple live. Then, they want to taste that apple, to feel its sweet or sour, add it into their body and stir its juice and glucose to their blood. They convert that apple to energy, pulp and a part of their entity.

If we skip to humane love, its sparkle is fired by seeing beloved and then grows up in heart. According to my perception of love, admirer wants sweetheart to be always in peace. Admirer is afraid of hurting beloved, so cannot force beloved to love him/her. For lover seeing beauty, catch sweetheart’s eye is enough; lover should not urge further response.

This is a reality that lover wants to be noticed by beloved. When the lover reveals his/her love, it is the decision of sweetheart to deign response. The lover who attains any grace must consider himself/herself lucky, should be conscious of favor and appreciate it. Reciprocal love is, of course, a beautiful thing. It gives more strength, energy, happiness, and cheer to love. Admirer wonders about beloved, this makes easier to get wind of beloved. This also provides chance to talk love, to tell feelings, to share suffering of love. Then the nights start lasting longer which ustad Fuzulî says:

“Şeb-i yeldada uzar fecre kadar kıssa-yı aşk

Ta ki Mecnun bitirir nutkunu Leyla söyler”

Apart from all these, some admirers believe their loves grow and maturate with missing, keeping away, separation, turning the knife to retain love fresh and to appreciate value of being closer. Rumî recites:

“Sîne hâhem şerha şerha ez firâk

Tâ bigûyem şerh-i derd-i iştiyâk”

When we back to apple matter, I think the question in the title is asked in order to emphasize that beloved doesn’t have to love you. If not, it is an unfortunate question. There is a single sided love that you love something. Admirer doesn’t quit loving because apple or sweetheart doesn’t answerback. We can say that admirer loves independent of beloved’s response. However this “platonic love” shouldn’t happen selfishly. Admirer cannot despise beloved since his/her wonderful, deep love is not responded. Furthermore, when admirer gets response from beloved, he/she cannot compare his/her love to beloved’s. Because lover only loves, admire, follows, wonders beloved. And Zeynep Arkan inquires in her gorgeous verse:

“Hey gözleri doğuştan sürmeli aşk

Sürmeni kim milledi?”

which refers to Turkish saying “love is blind” meaning lover doesn’t notice any fault of inamorato. Even some approve that love ends when lover starts to see imperfections of beloved. As a result, love is a kind of obsession, disease affecting only lover that doctors are not able to cure but remedy is love itself. I want to end with a line from ustad Fuzulî:

            “Aşk imiş her ne var alemde.”