Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ’îlün Mefâ’îlün Fe’ûlün

Ele câm al ki hengâm-ı çemendür
Husûsâ sâkî ol gonce-dehendür
Habîbüm hokka-i la’lînün içre
Şu lü’lü’ dişlerün dürr-i ‘Adendür
Yüzüm zer gibi zerd iden cihânda
O gül-gûn çihre ol sîmîn-bedendür
Bize hâlet viren sâkî lebündür
Biz anı dimezüz kim râh-ı dendür
Figân u nâleme rahm eylemezsin
Be hey zâlim be hey âfet nedendür
Mahall-i merhamet kimdür dir isen
Benüm çok sevdigüm sini sevendür
Muhassal gül yüzün vasfında Şâhî
Bu gün bezmünde bir şîrîn-sühandur

In English

1. Take a cup in hand, for it is the season of meadows, of spring; all the more so when the cupbearer is that beauty with a rosebud mouth.

2. My beloved, those pearl teeth inside your casket of ruby (your lips) are pearls of Aden.

3. What turns my face yellow as gold in this world is that rose-faced one, that silver-bodied beauty.

4. What gives us the rapture of forgetting ourselves is the lip of the cupbearer; we do not say it is the work of the wine in the jar.

5. You take no pity on my cries and moans; you tyrant, you scourge, why is it so?

6. If you ask who deserves mercy: O my dearly beloved, it is the one who loves you.

7. In short, Şâhî is today, in your gathering, a sweet-tongued poet who describes your rose face.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal of seven couplets is written in the pattern "mefâ'îlün mefâ'îlün fe'ûlün" and stands on folio 14b of the manuscript. The redif is the suffix "-dür/-dur" (is); the rhyme rests on the sound "-en": çemen, dehen, 'Aden, beden, den, neden, seven. The word "şîrîn-sühan" in the closing couplet ends in "-an" and does not fully match the other rhymes; it is a weak rhyme. The pen name appears in the last couplet. There is no information on to whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal opens with a spring gathering. The season of meadows has come, and the hand should reach for the cup; that the cupbearer is a beauty with a rosebud mouth makes the invitation all the more tempting. In the second couplet the lips are likened to a casket of ruby (hokka-i la'lîn) and the teeth to pearls of Aden. Aden is a port remembered for its precious pearls; a congruence of images (tenasüp) is set up between the words pearl, ruby and casket. In the third couplet colours are set against each other: the lover's face is as yellow (zerd) as gold (zer), the beloved's face rose-coloured and her body like silver. The likeness of sound between "zer" and "zerd" is a well-known pun (cinas).

We have understood the phrase "râh-ı den" in the fourth couplet as "the wine in the jar", starting from the fact that "râh" means wine in Persian and "den" means a jar; the edition gives no explanation of this place, and the reading is ours. On this reading the poet is saying that what intoxicates him is the cupbearer's lip and not the wine. The cry "Be hey zâlim be hey âfet" (you tyrant, you scourge) in the fifth couplet is a lively expression taken from spoken language and sounds like a cry of reproach within the ornate language of divan poetry. In the sixth couplet the form "sini" (seni, you) reflects the spelling of Old Anatolian Turkish; the couplet, which says that the one who deserves mercy is the one who loves the beloved, asks indirectly that the beloved take pity on the poet himself.

In the last couplet the poet presents himself as "şîrîn-sühan", a sweet-tongued man who describes the beloved's rose face in her gathering. Kılıç notes that couplets in which Şâhî praises his own poetry are few in the divan and that this praise stays measured. This closing couplet carries the same measured attitude; the praise is directed at the task of describing the beloved's beauty rather than at the poetry itself.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 64, ghazal no. 35 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 14b); also p. 29 (redifs and metres), p. 42 (the poet's praise of his own poetry), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources