Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilâtün Fe’ilün

Niçe bir gözlerümi hecr ile giryân ideyin
Yâ niçe bir dili ‘ışk odına biryân ideyin
Varayın işügüne ko beni ey kaşı kemân
Gussadan kurtulayın kendümi kurbân ideyin
Ey tabîbüm dimedün gitdi bu ben haste-dilün
Şerbet-i vaslun ile derdine dermân ideyin
Aglaram bunca zemândur gam-ı hecrünle gör a
Dir misin irgüreyin vasluma handân ideyin
Âh ol kanlu vü cellâd gözün hod dir imiş
Alayın Şâhî dilin habs-i zenahdân ideyin

In English

1. How long shall I make my eyes weep with separation; or how long shall I roast my heart in the fire of love?

2. O bow-browed one, let me come to your threshold; let me be free of grief and make myself a sacrifice to you.

3. O my physician, you did not say, "This sick-hearted one is lost; let me cure his pain with the syrup of my union."

4. See how long I have been weeping with the grief of separation from you; will you say, "Let me bring him to my union and make him smile"?

5. Ah, that bloody, executioner eye of yours, it seems, was already saying: "Let me take Şâhî's heart and imprison it in the dungeon of the chin dimple."

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five-couplet ghazal is written in the "fe'ilâtün fe'ilâtün fe'ilâtün fe'ilün" pattern. The redif (refrain word) is "ideyin" (let me make), and the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in "giryân, biryân, kurbân, dermân, handân, zenahdân". Kılıç lists "ideyin" among the refrains of the divan. In the edition the folio mark 40b stands at the end of the opening couplet. The ghazal shares the metre and the optative mood of ghazal 107, which precedes it in the edition: there the suffix "-eyin" itself is the redif, here the verb "ideyin". The addressee is not stated.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on the repetition of the question "niçe bir" (how long) in both lines: the eyes weep with separation, the heart is roasted in the fire of love. The rhyme words "giryân" (weeping) and "biryân" (roasted) differ only in their first letter; this closeness of sound ties the weeping eye and the burning heart together as two faces of the same pain. In the second couplet the lover wishes to come to the beloved's threshold and sacrifice himself; the sacrifice, the threshold and the bow-shaped brow complete the picture of a lover ready to give up his soul before the beloved.

The chief feature of the ghazal is that it reports, as if in quotation marks, words the beloved did not say or did say. In the third couplet the beloved, who is the physician, has not said "let me cure his pain with the syrup of my union". In the fourth couplet the lover asks: will you say "let me bring him to my union and make him smile"? In the last couplet what is reported is said this time not by the beloved but by his bloody, executioner eye: it will take Şâhî's heart and imprison it in the dungeon of the chin dimple. In divan poetry the chin dimple is mostly likened to a well (çâh-ı zenahdân) and recalls the well and the prison of the Prophet Joseph. Here, with the word "habs" (imprisonment), it has turned directly into a dungeon.

This manner of reporting the words the beloved did not say also occurs in the closing couplet of ghazal 107, the preceding one in the edition: "Dimedün anı murâdına yazık irgüreyin" (you did not say, what a pity, let me bring him to his wish). The occurrence of the words "dimedün" (you did not say) and "irgüreyin" (let me bring) in both ghazals suggests that these two poems, written one after the other in the same metre, may have been composed at about the same time. This observation is ours.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 99, ghazal no. 108 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 40b); also p. 29 (refrains) and pp. 98-99 (ghazal 107), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources