Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gamze-i hûn-rîz elinden tende cânum hastedür
Zülfün ucından bu dil dâm-ı belâya bestedür
Göreliden gül yüzüni pâdişâhum ben senün
İnlerem bülbül gibi gönlüm yine şikestedür
Âh kim feryâd u zârum irmedi sen meh-veşe
Gerçi kim feryâd u âhum göklere peyvestedür
Bâd-ı âhumdan sakın nâzük-nihâlüm kaddüni
Döymeye şâyed mizâcı kim dahı nâ-restedür
Seglerünle kûyunı geşt eyleyüp tâ subh-dem
Âsitânun bekleyen bu Şâhî-i dil-hastedür

In English

1. At the hand of your blood-shedding glance the soul in my body is sick; from the tip of your locks this heart is bound to the snare of calamity.

2. My sovereign, ever since I saw your rose face I moan like a nightingale; my heart is broken once again.

3. Alas, my cries and lamentation did not reach you, that moon-faced one; yet my cries and sighs have reached the heavens.

4. O my graceful sapling, guard your stature from the wind of my sighs; perhaps its nature could not endure it, for it is a sapling not yet grown.

5. The one who wanders your street with your dogs until dawn and keeps watch at your threshold is this Şâhî, sick at heart.

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": haste, beste, şikeste, peyveste, nâ-reste, dil-haste. It is the third of the three ghazals on the same ground. The pen name appears in the last couplet. There is no certain information on to whom it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal places the rhyme words it shares with the two preceding poems in new contexts. In the opening couplet the soul is sick at the hand of the glance; the heart is bound to the snare of calamity by the tip of the locks. The glance is conceived as a weapon and the locks as a snare; both are means by which the beauty hunts the lover. In the second couplet the motif of nightingale and rose is set up again: the lover who sees the rose face moans like a nightingale. The phrase "göklere peyvestedür" (has reached the heavens) in the third couplet occurs in the same form in the fourth couplet of the preceding ghazal. Here the phrase serves a contrast: the lover's cry has risen to the heavens, but has not reached the moon-faced beloved close beside him. The contrast between the voice that reaches the sky and the voice that cannot reach the moon is also supported by the moon comparison.

The fourth couplet likens the lover's sigh to a wind and the beloved's stature to a graceful sapling. The wind of the sigh is so strong that it could fell the sapling not yet grown (nâ-reste); that is why the lover calls on the beloved to guard herself against his own sigh. In the last couplet of the preceding ghazal the beloved was called "nev-reste", newly grown; this closeness of wording between the two ghazals shows that poems were written facing one another on the same ground. In the last couplet the lover wanders until dawn together with the dogs in the beloved's street and keeps watch at her threshold. Companionship with the beloved's dogs is a well-known expression in divan poetry of the lover's seeing himself at the lowest rank.

The address "pâdişâhum" (my sovereign) in the second couplet is frequent in the divan. Kılıç regards some poems containing this address as written to Süleyman the Magnificent; in this ghazal, however, there is no sign beyond the address that supports such a reading.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 66, ghazal no. 40 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also pp. 32-33 (poems addressed to the father), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources