Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Tîr-i gamzen yine bagrumı delüp kan itdi
Beni kurtardı belâ çekmeden ihsân itdi
Haste vü âciz ü dermânde yaturken teşne
İrişüp hançer-i gamzen bana dermân itdi
‘Andelîb-i dil ü cân gülşen-i hüsnünden ırag
Hâr-ı hecr ile delüp bagrını efgân itdi
‘Iyd-ı vasluna erenler senün ey kaşı kemân
Cân fedâ eyleyüben kendini kurbân itdi
Başka başına şeh-i milket-i âzâde iken
Şâhî-i bende o ser-‘asker-i hûbân itdi

In English

1. The arrow of your glance has again pierced my breast and steeped it in blood; it has saved me from suffering affliction and done me a kindness.

2. While I lay sick, helpless, without remedy and thirsty, the dagger of your glance arrived and became my cure.

3. The nightingale of heart and soul fell far from the rose garden of your beauty; piercing its breast with the thorn of separation, it lamented.

4. O you whose brow is a bow, those who reach the feast of union with you have offered up their lives and made sacrifice of themselves.

5. When he was the shah of a free realm, his own master, that commander-in-chief of the fair has made Şâhî a slave.

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) is "itdi" (did, made), and the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in the words "kan, ihsân, dermân, efgân, kurbân, hûbân". Kılıç counts "itdi" among the refrains of the divan. Because the refrain is an auxiliary verb, in every couplet it joins the word before it to form a new verb: to steep in blood, to do a kindness, to cure, to lament, to sacrifice. In the edition there is no folio mark within the text of this ghazal.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets of the ghazal are built on a contrast. The beloved's glance is an arrow and a dagger; it pierces the lover's breast and steeps him in blood. The lover, however, does not see this as an evil: the arrow has saved him from the affliction he would have suffered, and the dagger has become the cure of his sickness. To die at the beloved's hand is a grace for the lover in divan poetry; death is described as a release from the long pain of separation.

In the third couplet the trio of rose, nightingale and thorn appears again. The nightingale was thought to sing with its breast pressed against a thorn; here the thorn is the thorn of separation, and the nightingale pierces its breast with it because it has fallen far from the rose garden. In the fourth couplet there is congruence of images (tenasüp) between the words feast and sacrifice. The name of the Feast of Sacrifice comes to mind; union is a feast, and those who reach that feast sacrifice their lives. The likening of the brow to a bow, recalling also the arrow of the glance, ties back to the weapon imagery of the first couplets.

The closing couplet carries the ghazal into a language of sovereignty. Şâhî is "başka başına", that is, his own master, the shah of a free realm; the beloved is the "commander-in-chief of the fair" and has made him her slave. Because the pen name "Şâhî" also means "belonging to the shah, royal", the contrast of being a slave while a shah is heard in the pen name itself. It may be thought that this couplet, from the pen of a prince, contains an allusion to his own position, but this is only our own reading. The edition gives no information on when the ghazal was written or to whom.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 120, ghazal no. 154 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also p. 29 (refrains), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources