Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Kâse kâse zehr-i dehri içeli dil toldı hûn
Sâkiyâ kanı bize şol câm-ı sıhhat-bahşi sun
Sîneme bir şerha çekmişdün yâ dâg urmak neden
Ey cefâ-hû n’eyledün derdüm bir iken itdün on
Meclisünden dûr cânâ def gibi sînem dögüp
Bezm-i gamda inlerüm mânend-i nây u erganûn
Ey gönül itme ta’alluk bî-vefâ gaddârdur
Kime yâr oldı ki sana yâr ola bu çarh-ı dûn
Kâse-i çarhun bakup nakşına Şâhî sunma el
Âb-ı ‘işretden tehîdür işbu câm-ı ser-nigûn

In English

1. Since I drank the poison of time cup after cup, my heart has filled with blood; O cupbearer, where is that health-giving cup? Pour it for us.

2. You had cut a gash in my breast; why now brand it as well? O you of cruel nature, what have you done: my pain was one, and you made it ten.

3. O beloved, far from your gathering, beating my breast like a frame drum, I moan in the assembly of sorrow like the reed flute and the organ.

4. O heart, do not attach yourself to this base sky; it is faithless and treacherous. To whom has it ever been a friend, that it should be a friend to you?

5. Şâhî, do not reach out your hand, gazing at the pattern on the sky's bowl; this upturned cup is empty of the water of revelry.

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; the rhyme is the "-un/-ûn" sound in "hûn, sun, on, erganûn, dûn, ser-nigûn". Rhyming short-syllabled Turkish words such as "sun" (pour) and "on" (ten) with long-voweled Persian words leaves the rhyme loose. In the edition the folio mark [45a] stands after the last couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a cup and closes with a cup. In the first couplet the poet says he has drunk the poison of time cup after cup and asks the cupbearer for a healing cup. In the last couplet the same bowl is the sky itself: the dome of heaven is likened to an upturned cup, and no water of joy is said to remain in it. These two bowls, placed at the beginning and the end, form a frame around the whole poem. The couplets in between fill this frame with pain.

In the second couplet "şerha" (gash) and "dâg" (brand, the mark of cauterising) are used together. In divan poetry the lover carries on his breast the wounds opened by the beloved and tries to close them by branding; here, however, branding is seen as a new pain. The phrase "derdüm bir iken itdün on" (my pain was one, you made it ten) is a simple play with numbers and brings the complaint close to spoken language. In the third couplet the frame drum, the reed flute and the erganun (an organ-like instrument) build a congruence of musical images (tenasüp): the lover beating his breast like a drum resembles the flute and the organ in his moaning. Separation thus becomes an "assembly of sorrow" described through the instruments of the gathering.

The fourth couplet turns directly to the sky (felek) and says that it has shown faithfulness to no one. The line "Kime yâr oldı ki sana yâr ola" voices, in a simple question form, a complaint about the world often met in divan poetry. The word "nakş" in the last couplet suggests both the decoration on the cup and the starry appearance of the sky: the cup that is ornamented outside is empty. The only place in the ghazal where the beloved is addressed is the second couplet; in the remaining couplets the addressees are the cupbearer, the heart and the poet himself. Kılıç sums up the main theme of Şâhî's poems with the words of separation and grief; this ghazal is one of the examples in which that grief is laid on the sky and on time rather than on the beloved.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 104, ghazal no. 119 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 45a); also p. 31 (the main theme of the poems), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources