Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ey gubâr-ı hâk-i pâyun çeşm-i câna tûtiyâ
Hayr-makdem merhabâ şâhum safâ geldün safâ
Pister-i hasretde kalmışdum za’îf ü nâ-tüvân
Câna sıhhat virdi vaslun ey tabîb-i cân-fezâ
Vasl-ı cân-bahşunla ihyâ eylemişken rûzgâr
Hâk-i pâyünden cüdâ eylerse yine vâ bana
Zevk-i vaslundan yüce dünyâda olmaz hazz-ı cân
Derd-i hecründen büyük ‘âlemde olmaz bir belâ
Bende-i ednân olsam hizmetünde kâşkî
Mîr-i iklîm-i Karaman olmadansa ben şehâ
Sâyeni Hak başımızdan ırmasun tâ haşre dek
Bendenün budur du’âsı pâdişâhum dâ’imâ
Niçe izhâr eylesün yanunda Şâhî ma’rifet
Bahr-i bî-pâyân katında katrenün hâli n’ola

In English

1. O you the dust of whose feet is collyrium for the eye of the soul; welcome on your auspicious arrival, my king, welcome, welcome.

2. I had lain weak and powerless on the bed of longing; O soul-reviving physician of the soul, union with you has given the soul health.

3. Now that fortune has brought me back to life with your life-giving union, woe to me if it parts me again from the dust of your feet.

4. In this world the soul knows no higher delight than the joy of union with you; in the universe there is no greater calamity than the pain of separation from you.

5. O king, would that I were the lowliest of slaves in your service rather than the lord of the land of Karaman.

6. May God not take your shadow from over our heads until the Day of Resurrection; my padishah, this is ever the prayer of your servant.

7. How could Şâhî display skill in your presence; what is the state of a drop before the boundless sea?

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal of seven couplets is written in the "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" pattern of the remel family of aruz; according to Kılıç this is the pattern most often used in the divan. There is no redif. The rhyme rests on the "-â" sound in the words "tûtiyâ, safâ, fezâ, belâ, şehâ, dâ'imâ", while "bana" in the third couplet and "n'ola" in the last approach this sound with Turkish words ending in a short "a". This looseness of rhyme is our own observation. The pen name appears in the last couplet. The ghazal stands on folio 2b of the manuscript.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens like a poem of welcome: "Hayr-makdem merhabâ şâhum safâ geldün safâ" (welcome on your auspicious arrival, my king, welcome, welcome). That the dust of the feet should be collyrium (tûtiyâ) for the eye is the familiar expression in divan poetry of reverence for the ground on which the great have trodden. The second couplet sets up the image of patient and physician: it is union that restores health to the lover who has fallen weak on the bed of longing. The third couplet shadows this joy with fear; the poet, revived by the meeting, dreads being parted again. The fourth couplet is a plain couplet of contrast, setting the delight of union against the pain of separation through the adjectives "higher" and "greater".

In the fifth couplet the poet refers to himself as "Mîr-i iklîm-i Karaman", the lord of the land of Karaman, and says that he would gladly exchange this lordship for the place of the lowliest slave in the service of the king he addresses. The sixth couplet is a prayer that the padishah's shadow may not be lacking until the Day of Resurrection. In the last couplet, through the image of drop and sea, the poet says that his skill is as nothing beside the one he addresses; the same image is used for God in the second couplet of the first ghazal of the divan.

Historical Context

Kılıç states that this ghazal, like many others in the divan, was written in dedication to Sultan Süleyman the Lawgiver, with a prayer that his shadow may not be lacking from the earth until the Day of Resurrection. Bayezid had been sent to Konya in 1546 as governor of the sancak of Karaman; the words "lord of the land of Karaman" in the fifth couplet suggest that the poem was written in these years. According to the TDV encyclopedia, in 1548 Bayezid met his father at Akşehir as he marched against Iran, and when the army wintered at Aleppo he was summoned there by his father. The ghazal's opening with a welcome and its fear of a new separation after union suggest that it may have been written on the occasion of such a meeting; this is our own conjecture, and the edition contains no record of the circumstances in which the poem was written.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 47-48, ghazal no. 2 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 2b); also p. 7 (sancak of Karaman), p. 29 (metres) and p. 36 (dedication of the ghazal to Süleyman), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.
  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid, Şehzade", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, pp. 230-231. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/bayezid-sehzade

Online sources