Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilün

Âteş-i âhumla cânâ göklere dikdüm ‘alem
Pâdişâhıyam cihânun bana degdi mülk-i gam
Deyr içinde taş olup kaldı mü’ebbed dostum
Da’vî-i hüsn itdügiçün sen büt ile ol sanem
Ey gönül sabr eyle gel itme şikâyet yârdan
‘Âşıka çün eksük olmaz gâh cevr ü gâh gam
Her ne denlü cehd kıldum yâre hâlüm arz idem
Döymedi nâr-ı firâka dutuşup yandı kalem
‘Âkıl isen gönlüni virme cihâna Şâhiyâ
Görmedi bundan vefâ İskender ü Dârâ vü Cem

In English

1. O beloved, with the fire of my sighs I have planted a banner up to the skies; I am the padishah of the world, yet the realm of grief has fallen to me.

2. My friend, because that idol dared to claim beauty against you, the idol of beauty, it has remained in the temple turned to stone forever.

3. O heart, be patient, come, do not complain of the beloved; for the lover never lacks now cruelty, now grief.

4. However hard I strove to lay my state before the beloved, the pen could not bear the fire of separation, caught fire and burned.

5. O Şâhî, if you are wise, do not give your heart to the world; neither Alexander nor Darius nor Jamshid found faithfulness in it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five-couplet ghazal is written in the "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" pattern. It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the final "m" sound of the words "'alem, gam, sanem, kalem, Cem" and the vowel before it. The rhyme word "gam" is used twice, in the opening and third couplets. That "gam" is written with "a" and the others with "e" in transliteration comes from Turkish pronunciation; in the Arabic script all of these words carry the same vowel sign (üstün) before the last letter, and the rhyme is regular. This explanation is ours. In the edition the folio mark 37b stands at the end of the first line of the second couplet. The addressee is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In the opening couplet the sigh is likened to a banner planted in the sky; imagining the rising smoke of the sigh as a banner is a familiar image in divan poetry. In the second line the poet proclaims himself "padishah of the world", but the realm that has fallen to his share is grief. This ironic pairing of the language of sovereignty with the pain of love is especially striking from the pen of a prince who used the pen name "Şâhî" (royal). The second couplet is built on poetic aetiology (hüsn-i ta'lîl): the reason idols are made of stone is that they entered into a contest of beauty with the beloved and were turned to stone forever for it. The words "büt" (idol) and "sanem" (idol) are used in the same couplet in two different senses: one is the beloved, the other the statue in the temple.

In the fourth couplet the pen, while trying to write the lover's state, cannot bear the fire of separation and burns. Naming writing, fire and burning together forms a congruence of images (tenasüp). The closing couplet leaves the theme of love and turns to advice on the faithlessness of the world. Alexander, Darius and Jamshid are names cited in divan poetry as the greatest rulers of the world; if even they found no faithfulness in the world, no one else can expect to find it. This is allusion (telmih).

The closing couplet is very close to the couplet of ghazal 9, "'Âkıl isen bu cihâna virme dil / Gönli bir ma'mûre vir k'olmaz harâb" (if you are wise, do not give your heart to this world; give it to a dwelling that is never ruined), which Kılıç quotes in his introduction among the couplets of advice on the transience of the world; both couplets begin with the same words ("'Âkıl isen", if you are wise) and give the same advice. This similarity is our observation.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 95, ghazal no. 100 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 37b); also p. 41 (couplets of advice on the transience of the world, G.9/4-5), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources