Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Şâh-ı gül gibi kadün nev-reste vü mevzûndur
Kâmetün üzre ruhun mânend-i gül gül-gûndur
Bâdeye düşsem ‘aceb mi câm-ı la’lün şevkine
İhtiyâr elden gider sâkî lebün mey-gûndur
Ruhları alı durur sanma gözinin humreti
Çeşm-i mest-i hûn-feşânından dökilen hûndur
Kime ayak tolasa başdan çıkanır ‘âkıbet
Kâkül-i dil-berde yâ Rab bu nice efsûndur
Bagrı pâre pâre nâyun kellesi kızgın defün
Şevk-i haddünle biri nâlân biri mahzûndur
Vasf-ı ruhsârunda rengîn u latîf ü âb-dâr
Serv-i kaddün gibi nazmum hûbdur mevzûndur
Bûseye çekse n’ola gördükde Şâhî la’lüni
Mülk-i ‘Osmânîde bac almak begüm kânûndur

In English

1. Your stature, like a rose branch, is newly grown and well-proportioned; above your stature your cheek, like a rose, is rose-coloured.

2. Would it be strange if, longing for the cup of your lip, I gave myself up to wine? O cupbearer, your lip is wine-coloured, one's will slips from one's hand.

3. Do not take the redness of her eye for the red of her cheeks; it is blood shed from her blood-scattering, drunken eye.

4. Whomever's feet it entangles, it leads astray in the end; O Lord, what kind of spell is this in the heart-stealer's forelock?

5. The reed flute's breast is torn to pieces, the frame drum's head is heated; in longing for your cheek one of them moans and the other is sorrowful.

6. In describing your cheek my verse is colourful, graceful and lustrous; like your cypress stature it is beautiful and well-measured.

7. What if Şâhî, seeing your lip, demands a kiss as a tax; my lord, in the Ottoman realm taking tribute is the law.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal of seven couplets is written in the pattern "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" and stands on folio 15b of the manuscript. The redif is the suffix "-dur/-dür" (is), the rhyme the sound "-ûn": mevzûn, gül-gûn, mey-gûn, hûn, efsûn, mahzûn, kânûn. The word "mevzûn" serves as rhyme both in the opening couplet and in the sixth; in the first it is a quality of the stature, in the second of the poetry. The pen name appears in the last couplet. There is no information on to whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The two uses of the word "mevzûn" are among the keys to the ghazal. The word means both "well-proportioned, measured" and "metrical". In the opening couplet the beloved's stature is newly grown like a rose branch and mevzûn; in the sixth couplet the poet's verse describing this beauty is also mevzûn, like the beloved's cypress stature. Thus the beloved's stature and the metre of the poem meet in a single word. Kılıç notes that couplets in which Şâhî praises his own poetry are few in the divan; although this couplet is not among the examples he lists, it belongs to the same kind of measured praise.

In the third couplet a fine cause is found for the redness in the eye: that redness is not the reflection of the red of the cheek, but the lover's blood shed from the beloved's blood-scattering, drunken eye. This is the figure called hüsn-i ta'lîl, which puts a poetic cause in place of the real one. In the fourth couplet a contrast between foot and head is set up between the forelock reaching down to the feet and its leading a person "baştan" (literally, from the head) astray. The fifth couplet personifies two instruments: the reed flute with its pierced breast moans, the frame drum with its heated head is sorrowful. The holes in the body of the reed flute are conceived as a wounded breast, the taut skin of the frame drum as a head heated in the fire.

The last couplet brings the language of law into the ghazal. Seeing the beloved's lip, the lover demands a kiss from her as if it were a tax; for in "mülk-i 'Osmânî", the Ottoman realm, taking "bac" is the law. Bac is the name given in the Ottoman tax system to market and transit dues. That a prince of the dynasty should defend his love with the tax law of the state can be read as a pleasant jest; this assessment is ours. The phrase "mülk-i 'Osmânî" also occurs in another ghazal of the divan that speaks of the lands of Karaman, and Kılıç mentions that ghazal in the context of the prince's coming to Karaman to fight Selim.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 64-65, ghazal no. 37 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 15b); also p. 41 (the couplets on mülk-i 'Osmânî and Karaman), p. 42 (the poet's praise of his own poetry), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources