Original Persian Text

Metre: Mefā‘ilün Fe‘ilātün Mefā‘ilün Fa‘lün

Zi dest-i şāh-ı cihān mī dehed nişān ḫancer
Ki kerd-i cevher ü zer cümle der-miyān ḫancer
Ḫuceste ḫażret-i şeh Bāyezīd-i Ġāzī ānek
Keşed kemīne ġulāmeş berāred vān ḫancer
Şehinşehī ki zi behr-i ġazā-yı ū āverd
Simāk nīze vü rāmiḥ zi āsmān ḫancer
Şehī ki mī şeved ez ḫavf-ı ḫancereş dem-i āb
Dem-i fürū şuden ez ḥalḳ-ı düşmenān ḫancer
Be-çeşm-i ḫışm eger bengered be-sūy-ı sipihr
Be-güfted ez kef-i ḫurşīd der-zemān ḫancer
Eger ne ḫaṣm zu himmet penāh bered be-baḥr
Çerā şudest ser-ā-ser zi māhiyan ḫancer
Be-ḥall-i müşkil-i düşmen çi ḥācet-i şemşīr
Cevāb mī dehedeş ez ser-i zebān ḫancer
Be-ḳaṣd-ı ḫasm-ı tu mīgerded āftāb meger
Ki mī kuned zi kerān tā kerān cihān ḫancer
Ve ger ne kīst be-ālem ki ber kesī be-keşed
Be-‘ahd-i ‘adl-i tu ey şāh-ı kāmrān ḫancer
Şehā be-ma‘reke-i ma‘rifet kemīne-i tu
Zenem be-ṣadr-ı büzürgān-ı nükte-dān ḫancer
Be-gāh-i baḥs̱ şeved fażl-ı men bedīd ārī
Be-rūz-ı ceng kuned cevhereş ‘ıyān ḫancer
Velī sezed ki şeved ḫāṣ-ı ḫażret-i sulṭān
Çü cevherī be-nümāyed der-imtiḥān ḫancer
Hezār beyt-i diger būd der-dil ez medḥet
Dırīġ ḳāfiye rā sāḫt şāyegān ḫancer
Be-cüz-i medīḥ tu kerdem zenem be-medḥ ü ġazel
Merā be-cāy-ı zebān bād derdehān ḫancer
Hemīşe yār-i kemer bend-i ḫusrevān bāyed
Mezīd mertebe ber tīġ ü ber sinān ḫancer
Kesī ki bā tu bedel bāşedet ḫayāl-i fülan
Cevāb bād hezāreş derūn-ı cān ḫancer

In English

1. The dagger gives a sign from the hand of the king of the world; it is a dagger that has gathered jewels and gold wholly into its middle. ("Miyân" means both middle and waist; the jewelled, gold-worked dagger is carried at the sultan's waist.)

2. He is the blessed majesty, King Bayezid the Gazi, whose humblest servant draws a dagger. (The phrase "berāred vān" at the end of the line is unclear; Filiz Kılıç renders the couplet "even his humblest servant draws such a dagger".)

3. He is a king of kings for whose holy war the star Simâk brings a spear from the sky, and Râmih a dagger. (Simâk is the name of two bright stars in the sky; one of them is called "Simâk-ı Râmih", the lance-bearing Simâk. By splitting the name in two, the poet shows the stars as soldiers carrying weapons to the sultan's war. In Kılıç's translation part of this couplet is left blank.)

4. He is a king for fear of whose dagger even a dagger turns to water the moment it goes down the throat of his enemies. (The couplet can be read in two ways. "Dem" means both moment and the edge of a blade, and "âb" both water and the lustre of steel; Kılıç renders the couplet "from fear of his dagger a dagger is driven into the throats of the enemies".)

5. If he should look at the heavens with an angry eye, a dagger would at once fall from the palm of the sun. (The rays of the sun are thought of as daggers in its hand.)

6. If the enemy had not fled from your zeal to take refuge in the sea, why would the sea have turned from end to end into daggers of fish? (The fish in the sea are likened to daggers awaiting the enemy who has fled there. The syntax of the couplet is uncertain; Kılıç translates it "If the enemy has not taken refuge in the sea out of zeal, why has the dagger been filled with fish from end to end?")

7. What need is there of a sword to solve the enemy's difficulty? The dagger answers him with the tip of its tongue. (The dagger's sharp edge is counted as its "tongue"; the dagger itself gives the answer due to the enemy.)

8. Or is it that the sun turns about bent on your enemy, since it brandishes a dagger from one end of the world to the other? (The rays of the sun are again likened to daggers.)

9. Or else, O fortunate king, who in the world could draw a dagger on anyone in the age of your justice? (The sultan's justice has made it impossible for people to draw weapons on one another.)

10. O king, in the battle of knowledge I, your humblest servant, strike a dagger into the breast of the great who understand subtle points. (Here the poet praises himself: in learned debate he is able to defeat even the most learned.)

11. Yes, in the hour of debate my merit becomes plain, as on the day of battle the dagger reveals its temper. ("Cevher" means both a precious stone and the essence and quality of steel; the poet likens his own merit to the temper of the dagger.)

12. Since the dagger shows its worth when put to the test, it is fit to become the sultan's own dagger. (The couplet hints that the poet too will show his worth when tested and deserves to be the sultan's own servant.)

13. There were a thousand more couplets in my heart in your praise; alas, the rhyme made the refrain "dagger" şâyegân. ("Şâyegân" is the fault of a rhyme running out, so that the same sounds and suffixes begin to repeat; by saying that words to fit the rhyme, not praise, have run out, the poet frames a reason for ending the kaside. Kılıç translates the line "Alas, the dagger overshadowed the rhyme".)

14. If I should compose any praise or ghazal other than your praise, may there be a dagger in my mouth in place of a tongue.

15. The dagger, higher in rank than sword and spear, should always be the companion of the belts of kings. (The couplet belongs to the prayer section of the kaside; that the dagger should never be missing from the sultan's belt is a wish for his power to endure.)

16. To anyone who in his fancy counts himself your equal, may a thousand daggers within his soul be the answer. (Kılıç translates the second line "may the dagger within my soul be a thousand answers"; here the phrase "derûn-ı cân" has been understood as that person's soul.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a Persian kaside (qasida) of sixteen couplets (beyit), written in the metre "mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fa‘lün" of the müctes family of aruz (quantitative metre). The metre is not stated in the biographical anthology; it has been deduced from the scansion of the couplets. Every couplet ends with the redif (refrain word) "ḫancer" (dagger); the rhyme is built on the sound "-ān" in words such as nişān, miyān, āsmān, düşmenān, zebān, cihān, ‘ıyān, imtiḥān, sinān and cān. The kaside is the long poem of praise written for the sultan and the great men of state; its first couplet is a matla rhyming within itself. No pen name (mahlas) appears in the poem.

The full text of the kaside is found only in Âşık Çelebi's Meşâ‘irü'ş-şu‘arâ, in the entry devoted to his grandfather Müeyyedzâde. As shown in Filiz Kılıç's edition, couplets 4-6 and 8-16 are missing in the F manuscript of the anthology, and the word "rāmiḥ" in the third couplet is read differently in two manuscripts. Kılıç gives a Turkish translation of the kaside in a footnote. The English rendering here has been prepared on the basis of that translation and the Persian text. Where the translation is free or left blank (couplets 3, 4, 6, 13 and 16), other possible readings are noted separately.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The kaside is built entirely on a single object, the dagger. The dagger is on the one hand a jewelled weapon worn at the sultan's waist, and on the other the emblem of his power, his justice and his terror. The poet carries this object up to the sky, the sea and the sun: the stars bring weapons from heaven for the sultan's holy war, the rays of the sun become daggers, the fish in the sea turn into daggers awaiting the enemy. These hyperboles make up the praise section of the kaside. The likeness drawn in the seventh couplet between the "tongue" and the sharp edge of the dagger is a good example of the poet's effort to turn the redif towards a new meaning in every couplet.

From the tenth couplet onwards the poet speaks of himself. This is the section of a kaside called the "fahriye", in which the poet praises his own skill. Müeyyedzâde praises himself as a scholar: he strikes his dagger into the breast of the great who understand subtle points in the battle of "ma‘rifet", knowledge; in the hour of learned debate his merit shows itself as the temper of the dagger does on the day of battle. That the word "cevher" means both a precious stone and the essence of steel allows the poet to liken himself to the sultan's own dagger. The thirteenth couplet is an elegant reason for ending the kaside: the praise to be spoken is not exhausted, but no rhyme is left to fit the refrain "dagger". The last two couplets form the prayer section of the kaside.

Historical Context

Âşık Çelebi introduces the kaside thus: "Sulṭān Bāyezīd'e ḫancer redīf ḳaṣīdesin virmişdür ki diyār-ı feṣāḥati tīġıyle alduġına delīldür." That is, the kaside with the refrain "dagger" that he presented to Sultan Bayezid is the proof that he conquered the land of eloquence with his sword. Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar also quotes the matla of the kaside in Arabic script in his Amasya Tarihi and repeats the same image: Müeyyedzâde took the land of eloquence with his sword. TEİS too counts this kaside among Müeyyedzâde's admired poems. Since the kaside names the sultan "Bāyezīd-i Ġāzī" in its second couplet, it belongs to the years of Bayezid II's reign (1481-1512); the year in which it was written is not known.

The matla as Hüsameddin gives it in Arabic script reads:

زدست شاه جهان میدهد نشان خنجر
که کرد جوهر و زر جمله در میان خنجر

This text is word for word the same as the transliteration in the edition of Âşık Çelebi. In Hüsameddin's edition the refrain is typeset as "خنچر" in the first line and "خنچز" in the second; both are misprints of the word "ḫancer" (dagger) and have been corrected here.

That Müeyyedzâde wrote this praise in Persian fits his education. After fleeing the anger of Mehmed II he had gone to Shiraz, received a licence (icazet) from Celâleddin Devvânî, and was known as a poet who wrote in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Âşık Çelebi also writes that he had Persian ghazals and kasides. The sultan to whom the kaside was presented is Bayezid, with whom he had grown up in Amasya in his youth. Bayezid himself wrote poetry in Persian, and the poets of the age, Müeyyedzâde among them, wrote response poems (nazire) to one of his Persian matlas. The fahriye section of the kaside also matches Müeyyedzâde's reputation in the learned debates described by the biographers.

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