Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Bülbül-i dil nâlesinden gonceler dem-bestedür
Serv hayrân u benefşe zâr u nergis hastedür
Hâr-ı gamda ‘andelîb-i cânı nâlân eyleyen
Gülsitân-ı hüsn içinde bir gül-i nev-restedür
Hışm-ı çeşmi kaşları gibi bana ol âfetün
Bir zemân hâlî degüldür her zemân peyvestedür
Vuslata irdüm didükde göresin fürkat irer
Rişte-i hicrân benzer pây-ı vasla bestedür
Giceler nâlân olan kûyumda kimdür dir isen
Derd-i hecrün hastesi Şâhî şikeste-bestedür

In English

1. At the moaning of the nightingale of the heart the rosebuds have closed their mouths; the cypress is bewildered, the violet laments, the narcissus is sick.

2. What makes the nightingale of the soul moan on the thorn of grief is a newly blossomed rose in the rose garden of beauty.

3. The anger of that scourge's eye is like her eyebrows; it is never for a moment absent towards me, it is always joined.

4. The moment I say "I have attained union", you see that separation arrives; it is as if the thread of separation were tied to the foot of union.

5. If you ask who it is who moans at night in my street: it is Şâhî, sick with the pain of separation, broken and bandaged (the couplet can be read as a question in the beloved's mouth, or the word "kûyumda", in my street, can be taken in the sense of "kûyunda", in your street).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal of five couplets is written in the pattern "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün". The redif is the suffix "-dür" (is), the rhyme the sound "-este": dem-beste, haste, nev-reste, peyveste, beste, şikeste-beste. This ghazal and the two that follow are built on the same metre, the same redif and the same rhyme. If one considers that Kılıç rearranged the ghazals alphabetically according to the letters of rhyme and redif, their standing side by side is the result of this arrangement; it also appears that poems were attempted several times on the same ground. The pen name appears in the last couplet. There is no information on to whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet paints a garden scene and finds a poetic cause for the appearance of each flower. The rosebud's mouth is closed because it has fallen silent before the nightingale's moaning; the cypress stands motionless because it is bewildered; the violet hangs its head because it is weeping; the narcissus gazes faintly because it is sick. This is the figure hüsn-i ta'lîl (poetic aetiology) used four times in succession. In the second couplet the motif of rose and nightingale is completed: what makes the nightingale of the soul moan among the thorns is a newly blossomed rose in the garden of beauty.

In the third couplet the word "peyveste" plays on two meanings. The word means "joined", and eyebrows that meet are a standard of beauty in divan poetry; the same word also means "continuous, unbroken". The anger in the beloved's eye is peyveste like her eyebrows: it is both joined to the brows and never absent. In the fourth couplet the words thread (rişte), foot (pây) and tied (beste) form a congruence of images (tenasüp); a thread of separation tied to the foot of union expresses that separation follows union at once.

The second line of the fourth couplet begins in the edition "Rişte-i hicrân benzer". In this form the line is one syllable short of the metre; read "hicrâna benzer", the metre is restored. The text has not been altered; the observation is ours. The "şikeste-beste" of the last couplet means broken and bandaged; like a broken limb that has been bound up, it expresses that Şâhî too is wounded and bound.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 65, ghazal no. 38 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also p. 29 (the alphabetical rearrangement of the ghazals), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources