Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

N’ideyin zâyi’ idüp tûl-i emelle nefesi
Kalmadı zerre kadar dilde bu dünyâ hevesi
Iztırâbı ko gel ey murg-i revân sabr eyle
Eskiyüp işde helâke varıyor ten kafesi
Kârbân-ı reh-i iklîm-i ‘adem-menzilinün
Tokınur oldı dilâ sem’üme bâng-i ceresi
Gâfil olma gözün aç dîde-i hak-bîn olıgör
Hor tutma has ü hâşâk ile mûr u megesi
Şâhî-i bî-dil ü bîmâr u güneh-kâre ne gam
Sen olursan eger ey şâh-ı kerem dest-resi

In English

1. What shall I do, wasting my life (my breath) on long hopes; not a particle of desire for this world is left in the heart.

2. O departing bird of the soul, stop struggling, come, be patient; the cage of the body has grown old and is now going to ruin.

3. O heart, the sound of the bell of the caravan on the road to the halting place of the land of non-existence has begun to reach my ear.

4. Do not be heedless, open your eyes, become an eye that sees the truth; do not despise the straw and the chaff, the ant and the fly.

5. O shah of generosity, if you become the one who holds his hand, what grief is there for the heartless, sick and sinful Şâhî.

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. It has no redif; the rhyme is the "-esi" sound in "nefesi, hevesi, kafesi, ceresi, megesi, dest-resi". In the edition the folio mark [89b] stands next to the number of the ghazal. It is the last Turkish ghazal of the divan, standing before the Persian poems at its end. Kılıç quotes the poem in full in two places in his introduction and refers to it as "G169"; this number in the introduction is one less than the number in the text. The quotation in the introduction has small differences of reading such as "Dokunur", "olagör" and "güneh-kâra".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

From beginning to end the poem is the voice of a man preparing for death. In the second couplet the soul is a bird struggling in the cage of the body; as the cage grows old, the bird's release draws near. In the third couplet death is likened to a caravan bound for the land of non-existence, and the caravan's bell (ceres) has begun to sound in the poet's ear. The fourth couplet is a piece of advice: the eye that sees the truth does not despise even the smallest creature, the straw and the chaff, the ant and the fly. In the last couplet a door of hope opens out of this dark mood. The word "dest-res" means the place the hand can reach, help and support.

Kılıç's footnotes show that the poem also circulated in the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) and in the chronicles. In Hasan Çelebi the first line begins "Ben nice zâyi' idem"; "helâke" in the second couplet appears as "harâba" in Hasan Çelebi and Ahdî and as "harâb oluyorur" in Künhü'l-ahbâr. The most important difference is in the last line: in the tezkires "bâr-ı Hudâ" or "lutf-ı Hudâ" stands in place of "ey şâh-ı kerem", so that help is asked of God. In these witnesses the second and third couplets are transposed, and in Solakzâde the fourth couplet is missing.

Historical Context

According to Kılıç, Shah Tahmasb, alleging a plot to assassinate him, first dispersed Bayezid's soldiers and on 16 April 1560 had him and his sons imprisoned; some of the poems in the divan must have been written in these days, and Kılıç gives this ghazal as his first example. Elsewhere he says that the ghazal is mentioned in various sources as the last ghazal Şâhî wrote, that the poet awaits death in the first four couplets and in the last still hopes for pardon from his generous father. Kılıç also reports that Âlî, Ahdî and Beyânî singled the poet out for hasb-i hâl, poetry telling of one's own experience; Beyânî records that these poems were spoken in the days when the prince was held captive in the shah's hands. The reading "bâr-ı Hudâ" in the tezkires shows, however, that a version also circulated in which the last couplet is addressed to God rather than to the father; the observation of this difference between the two readings 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. 128, ghazal no. 170 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 89b); footnotes 116-120 (variants in Hasan Çelebi, Ahdî, Künhü'l-ahbâr and Solakzâde); also p. 15 (probably written in the days of imprisonment; under the reference "G169"), p. 30 (the judgements of Âlî, Ahdî and Beyânî on hasb-i hâl), pp. 39-40 (its mention as the last ghazal), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources