Original Arabic Text

Metre: vāfir (mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün fe‘ûlün); we identified the metre, while the edition calls it "serî‘".

القَولُ فِي خاتِمَةِ الرِّسالَةِ
el-Ḳavlu fī ḫātimeti’r-risāle (on the conclusion of the treatise)

ألا يا نَفْسُ اتَّعِظِي بِهَذا
وَلا تَكُنِي عَلَى سُوءِ الفِعالِ

Elā yā nefsu’tte‘ıẓī bi-hāẕā
Ve lā tekūnī ‘alā sū’i’l-fi‘ālī

وَلَو تَبْغِي هَواكِ فَأنْتِ أحْرَى
لِأنْ تُجْزَى بِأصْنافِ العِقالِ

Ve lev tebġī hevāki fe-enti aḥrā
Li-en tüczā bi-eṣnāfi’l-‘iḳālī

أجادَ دَهايَ تَوحِيدًا بَدِيعاً
سَلِيسَ النَّظْمِ كَالماءِ الزُّلالِ

Ecāde dehāye tevḥīden bedī‘an
Selīse’n-naẓmi ke’l-mā’i’z-zülālī

وَأذْكَى مِنْ فَتاتِ المِسْكِ نَشْرًا
وَألْطَفُ مِنْ حَيا حَينِ انْهِمالِ

Ve eẕkā min fetāti’l-miski neşran
Ve elṭafu min ḥayā ḥīne’nhimālī

مَعانِيهِ تَلُوحُ خِلالَ سَطْرٍ
كَبَدْرِ التِّمِّ فِي غَسَقِ اللَّيالِي

Me‘ānīhi telūḥu ḫilāle saṭrin
Ke-bedri’t-timmi fī ġaseḳı’l-leyālī

لَقَدْ أتْمَمْتُهُ فَالحَمْدُ لِلّهْ
وَهذا كانَ مَطْلُوبًا لِبالِي

Le-ḳad etmemtuhū fe’l-ḥamdu li’llāh
Ve hāẕā kāne maṭlūben li-bālī

بَذَلْتُ بِثُلْثِ شَهْرٍ كُلَّ جُهْدِي
فَتَمَّ عَلَى يَدَيَّ بِلا ابْتِذالِ

Beẕeltu bi-s̱uls̱i şehrin külle cühdī
Fe-temme ‘alā yedeyye bi-lā’btiẕālī

دَعَوتُ اللهَ فِي خَتْمٍ لِتارِيخ
"تَرَحَّمْ يا عَزِيزُ لِوَهْنِ حالِي"

Da‘avtu’llāhe fī ḫatmin li-tārīḫ
"Teraḥḥam yā ‘Azīzu li-vehni ḥālī"

لَعَلَّ اللهَ يَغْفِرُ كُلَّ ذَنْبِي
وَيُنْجِينِي مِنْ إدراكِ النَّكالِ

Le‘alla’llāhe yaġfiru külle ẕenbī
Ve yüncīnī min idrāki’n-nekālī

إلهِي أنْتَ خَلّاقِي وَرَبِّي
وَتَعْلَمُ كُلَّ أسْرارِي وَبالِي

İlāhī ente ḫallāḳī ve rabbī
Ve ta‘lemu külle esrārī ve bālī

تَوَسَّلْنا بِفَضْلِكَ وَاعْتَصَمْنا
بِحَبْلِكَ يَومَ حَشْرٍ وَالسُّؤالِ

Tevesselnā bi-fażlike ve’‘teṣamnā
Bi-ḥablike yevme ḥaşrin ve’s-su’ālī

فَيَسِّرْ أمْرَنا فِي دارِ دُنْيا
وَفِي العُقْبَى أنِلْنِي بِالمَنالِ

Fe-yessir emranā fī dāri dünyā
Ve fi’l-‘uḳbā enilnī bi’l-menālī

فَصَلِّ عَلَى رَسُولِكَ هاشِمِيٍّ
قُرَيشِيٍّ نَبِيٍّ ذِي شِمالِ

Fe-ṣalli ‘alā resūlike Hāşimiyyin
Ḳurayşiyyin nebiyyin ẕī şimālī

وَصَلِّ عَلَى صَحابَتِهِ وَآلِهِ
هُمْ خَيرُ الصِّحابِ وَخَيرُ آلِ

Ve ṣalli ‘alā ṣaḥābetihī ve ālih
Hümū ḫayru’ṣ-ṣıḥābi ve ḫayru ālī

In English

221. Come, O soul, take warning from this and do not persist in evil deeds.

222. If you follow your desire, you are the most deserving of being punished with every kind of fetter.

223. My wit has produced, with skill, a matchless work of tawḥīd, its verse flowing like pure water. ("Tevḥīd" means both the doctrine of God's oneness and the gathering of scattered things into one; the edition's translation stresses the second sense.)

224. Its scent is sweeter than crumbled musk, and it is gentler than rain at the moment it pours. (The print runs the two words together and vowels the second as "ḥayn"; the word division and the reading "ḥīne" are ours.)

225. Its meanings shine between the lines like the full moon in the darkness of the night.

226. I have completed it, praise be to God; it was something my heart desired.

227. In a third of a month I spent all my effort, and it was completed at my hands without losing its worth.

228. At its completion I prayed to God, as a date: "Have mercy, O Mighty One, on the weakness of my state."

229. Perhaps God will forgive all my sins and save me from being overtaken by punishment.

230. My God, You are my Creator and my Lord, and You know all my secrets and what is in my mind.

231. We have sought access through Your grace and held fast to Your rope for the Day of Gathering and of questioning.

232. Make our affairs easy in the abode of this world, and in the hereafter grant me my desire.

233. Bless Your Messenger, the Hāshimite, of Quraysh, a Prophet of fine character,

234. and bless his Companions and his family; they are the best of companions and the best of kin.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Date Line

The eighth couplet of the conclusion announces, by way of a riddle, when the poem was finished: "At its completion I prayed to God, as a date." Then comes the second line, given in quotation marks: "Teraḥḥam yā ‘Azīzu li-vehni ḥālī", have mercy, O Mighty One, on the weakness of my state. The qualification "li-tārīḫ" says that this line yields a date by the abjad reckoning, in which each letter has a numerical value. Neither the edition nor its translation carries out the calculation; we have added up the letter values ourselves. ترحم gives 648, يا 11, عزيز 94, لوهن 91, حالي 49; the total is 893, that is, 1487-1488. If the vocative particle "yā" is left out of the count, the total falls to 882. That figure is the same as the date 882 at the end of the National Library copy; perhaps the date in that copy arose from reading the line this way, but this is a conjecture.

Which of the two results is meant cannot be settled with certainty from the text. Still, 893 agrees better with the poem itself. In the introduction Bayezid is praised as "sultan", and Bayezid II came to the throne in 886 (1481); in 882 he was still a prince in Amasya. The inconsistency did not escape the editors either, and it led them to regard the end of the fifteenth century as the likelier time of composition. That Sa‘dī Çelebi was in Bursa in 897-906 (1492-1501) and taught at the Gazi Murad Medrese is reported in Erünsal's encyclopaedia entry; the date 893 shows him a few years before that post, as a young madrasa teacher. The seal of Şehzade Ahmed on the Topkapı copy does not conflict with these years either.

Between Pride and Humility

The conclusion opens with a reckoning with the self: "O soul, take warning from this." Praise of his own work follows. His wit has produced a matchless work of tawḥīd; its verse flows like sweet water, its scent is finer than crumbled musk, its gentleness softer than pouring rain, and its meanings shine between the lines like the full moon in the darkness of the night. Read together with the images of pearl, husk and kernel in the introduction, the similes of musk, rain and full moon tie the two ends of the poem together. The word "tevḥīd" carries two meanings here: it stands both for the doctrine of God's oneness and for gathering scattered things into one. Ünlüsoy and Asım, for their part, take the word as "what I have brought together".

Immediately after this praise the poet presents himself again as a weak and sinful servant, asking for pity on the weakness of his state and for the forgiveness of his sins. The "Ża‘īfun müẕnibun Sa‘dī bnu Tācī" of the introduction and the "li-vehni ḥālī" at the end are two ends of the same attitude. The couplet saying that the work was completed in a third of a month, about ten days, carries both feelings together: he spent all his effort, and the work was completed at his hands without losing any of its worth.

Closing with Blessings

The last two couplets return the poem to where it began. The blessings called down in the sixth and seventh couplets upon the Hāshimite Prophet, his generous Companions and his family are repeated here in almost the same words: "ḫayri aṣḥābin ve ālī" gives way to "ḫayru’ṣ-ṣıḥābi ve ḫayru ālī". The prayer couplets in between, by naming the Day of Gathering and of questioning, turn back to the states of the hereafter described in the sections on belief. The last rhyme word of the 234 couplets, "ālī" (family), carries the same sound as the "celālī" of the first.

Bibliography

Online sources