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Mehmet Sniffing a Rose
It is an unlikely pose: in this portrait, copied by Sinan from the lost original, the Sultan, described by contemporaries as hawk-faced, red-haired, "of an aspect inspiring fear rather than reverence," is evaluating a rose: nostrils delicately arched, lips pursed, eyes lost to the horizon- this man, who favored careful decapitation of his victims, strangulation, impalement, who had the son of Constantine's chief minister slaughtered before his father's eyes because he had refused to give the child over to the Sultan's pleasure - is nevertheless holding the rose delicately, between his fingertips, such a frail thing, but he appreciates its nature; and in his mind makes a metaphor between this rose and the life of man: kingdoms bloom and fall, releasing their perfumes: beauty, terror, bloodshed, new palaces on top of the old, as the bones in the graveyards stir-so the petals of history unfold, one by one, at the center, a bare stalk: a few thorns, torn leaves. Mehmet, bastard son of a slave girl and a sultan, who taught himself Greek, Latin, Persian, who scribbled verses - Mehmet, called Fatih, conqueror, is sniffing a rose, savoring its scent: that is to him like poetry, Greek logic, like the fields outside Vienna in springtime, like Europe, like the sweet necks of princes.