Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef’ûlü Mefâ’îlü Mefâ’îlü Fe’ûlün

Yaşumla gönül mülkini vîrân ideyorsın
Garka virüben ‘âlemi tûfân ideyorsın
Mestâne el urup yine gamzen kılıcına
Göz göre benüm iki gözüm kan ideyorsın
Hûn-ı cigerüm yire döküp tîr-i müjenle
Ey kaşı kemânum beni bî-cân ideyorsın
Eşküm gibi nâ-gâh sürüp pîş-i nazardan
Hecrünle yine çeşmümi giryân ideyorsın
Cem’ eyleyüp ebyâtunı dergâh-ı nazımdan
Şâhî yine tertîb ile dîvân ideyorsın

In English

1. With my tears you lay waste the realm of the heart; drowning the world, you turn it into a flood.

2. Drunkenly reaching again for the sword of your glance, before my very eyes you turn my two eyes to blood.

3. Spilling my heart's blood on the ground with the arrow of your lashes, O my bow-browed one, you leave me lifeless.

4. Suddenly driving me, like my tears, from before your sight, with your absence you make my eye weep again.

5. Gathering your couplets from the convent of verse, Şâhî, you once again arrange them in order and make a divan.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five-couplet ghazal is written in the "mef'ûlü mefâ'îlü mefâ'îlü fe'ûlün" pattern. The redif is "ideyorsın" (you are making), and the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in "vîrân, tûfân, kan, bî-cân, giryân, dîvân"; "kan" in the second couplet, with its short vowel, loosens the rhyme slightly. Kılıç counts the redif "ideyorsın" among the refrains of the divan. In the edition there is no folio mark within the text of this ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first four couplets form a complaint that lists the harm the beloved does to the lover and ties every line to the verb "ideyorsın". The tears ruining the realm of the heart and drowning the world in a flood are a familiar hyperbole of divan poetry. The beloved's face is then described like a set of weapons: the glance is a sword, the lash an arrow, the brow a bow. This congruence of images (tenasüp) gives the poem the air of a single battle scene; the ruined realm and the flood of the opening couplet draw the wide frame of this scene. In the second couplet the idiom "göz göre" and the phrase "iki gözüm" use the same word both in the sense of "openly, before everyone's eyes" and in the sense of the actual eye. In the fourth couplet the lover is likened to a tear that slips from the eye and falls; the more the beloved drives him from her sight, the more the eye weeps again.

The closing couplet suddenly changes the subject. The poet addresses himself and says that he gathers his couplets from "the convent of verse" and builds a divan "in order". The word "dîvân" here evokes both the book of poems and the ruler's council; in the mouth of a prince the second sense is not far off either. According to Kılıç, the single surviving manuscript is not arranged in order, the sequence of rhymes and refrains is broken in many places, and the alphabetical order of the ghazals was established by the editor during the edition. That the couplet in which the poet speaks of building a divan "in order" has survived in a disordered manuscript carries a small irony; this observation is ours. Kılıç notes that the couplets in which Şâhî speaks of his own poetry are few and modest. This couplet, too, records rather than boasts: the poet is busy bringing his poems together.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 103, ghazal no. 117 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also p. 27 (the divan not being arranged in order), p. 29 (refrains and alphabetical arrangement), p. 42 (the poet speaking of his own poetry), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources