Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Derdüni dil ‘ayn-ı dermân gussanı şâdî bilür
Dostum her san’atun kadrini üstâdı bilür
‘Işk zevki gayrıdur Hüsrev haberdâr olmadı
Zevk u şevk ü hâlet-i Şîrîni Ferhâdı bilür
Ben ‘irâdet başını kodum işigi taşına
Bâki emri gamze-i hûn-hâr u cellâdı bilür
Cân u dilden itdügümce âh arz-ı ihtisâs
İ’timâd itmez o şâhum ben kulın yâdı bilür
Uyaran encüm gözin çarh-ı felekde her gice
Şâhî benden kendinün efgân u feryâdı bilür

In English

1. The heart knows your pain as the very essence of remedy and the grief you give as joy; my friend, the worth of every craft is known by its master.

2. The pleasure of love is something else; Hüsrev never knew of it; the pleasure, the longing and the rapture of Şirin are known to Ferhad.

3. I have laid the head of my will on the stone of her threshold; the rest is known to her blood-drinking glance and the executioner.

4. However much I sigh with heart and soul and offer my devotion, that king of mine does not believe it; he takes me, his slave, for a stranger.

5. Every night Şâhî knows from me (from my state) that what keeps the eyes of the stars awake in the wheel of heaven is his own moaning and crying (the couplet can be read in two ways: Şâhî knows the cause of this sleeplessness, or the stars know that the cry that robs them of sleep comes from Şâhî).

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" and stands on folio 17b of the manuscript. The redif is "bilür" (knows), the rhyme the sound "-âdı/-âdî": şâdî, üstâdı, Ferhâdı, cellâdı, yâdı, feryâdı. "Bilür" is also among the redifs in Kılıç's list. 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 closes in the manner of a proverb: "her san'atun kadrini üstâdı bilür", the worth of every craft is known only to its master. The general maxim of the second line confirms the claim of the first, the counting of pain as remedy and grief as joy; this is called irsâl-i mesel (the use of a proverb as proof). Love too is a craft, and the lover who is its master finds pleasure in what an ordinary person counts as pain.

The second couplet illustrates the same thought with a well-known love story. In the story of Hüsrev and Şirin, Şirin has on one side the ruler Hüsrev and on the other Ferhad, who cut through mountains for her sake. The poet says that the ruler did not know the true pleasure of love and that only Ferhad tasted it. That a prince should withhold love from a ruler and grant it to a stonecutter gives the couplet a particular sense; this assessment is ours. In the third couplet the lover has left his will at the beloved's threshold; the head laid on the threshold stone, joined to the words glance and executioner, evokes a scene of execution. There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between head, stone and executioner.

The "arz-ı ihtisâs" of the fourth couplet means devoting oneself to someone and declaring one's attachment. Although the lover offers all his devotion, "o şâhum" (that king of mine) does not trust him and counts his slave as a stranger (yâd). The last couplet is built on hyperbole and hüsn-i ta'lîl (poetic aetiology): the reason the stars stay awake in the sky every night is the lover's crying. Since the grammar of the couplet allows two readings, both possibilities are shown together in the rendering. Throughout the ghazal the lover's state is presented as a kind of mastery; the heart that knows pain as remedy, the head that leaves its will at the threshold and the cry that keeps the stars awake are tied to the idea of the master in the opening couplet.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 67-68, ghazal no. 43 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 17b); also p. 29 (redifs), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources