Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gitmedi zülfün hevâsı cân u dilden bir nefes
Gül yüzünden ayru ‘âlem bana olmışdur kafes
Hasretünden gice gündüz dem-be-dem kan aglarum
Hem-dem olmak rûz u şeb sana düşer mi hâr u has
Derd-i hecr ile cihânda yine ben hâk olmadan
Gelse ihyâ eylese olmaz mı ol ‘Îsâ-nefes
Dil-berâ şîrîn lebüne cân virürsem tan degül
Kanda kim şehd ola lâ-büd meyl ider ana meges

In English

1. The longing for your hair has not left my soul and heart for a single breath; apart from your rosy face the world has become a cage for me.

2. From longing for you I weep blood night and day without pause; is it fitting that thorns and straw be your companions day and night?

3. Before I once more become dust in the world through the pain of separation, would it not be well if that one with the breath of Jesus came and revived me?

4. O heart-stealing beauty, it is no wonder if I give my life for your sweet lip; wherever there is honey, the fly surely inclines to it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This poem of four couplets is written in the "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" pattern, and in the edition the folio mark 25a stands at the end of the second couplet. There is no redif; the rhyme is the "-es" sound in the words "nefes, kafes, has, nefes, meges". In the manuscript the heading carries the note "Gazel-i nâ-tamâm" (unfinished ghazal), which Kılıç records in a footnote. The poem has no couplet with the pen name, which confirms the note. Kılıç says nothing about the missing part of this ghazal, which is counted among the problematic texts.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Both lines of the opening couplet end in the words "nefes" and "kafes", and these two words are also rhymes in the opening couplet of the preceding ghazal. There the beloved's hair was a cage for the bird of the soul; here the whole world has become a cage for the lover separated from the beloved's rosy face. In the second couplet the rivals beside the beloved are again called "hâr u has" (thorns and straw). The third couplet calls the beloved "'Îsâ-nefes" (with the breath of Jesus); this allusion, based on the belief that Jesus raised the dead with his breath, prepares the ground for the lover's wish that the beloved come and revive him before he dies. The lover has not yet become dust, but the pain of separation has brought him close to that point.

The last couplet rests on the comparison of honey and fly: the beloved's lip is honey, and the lover is the fly that swarms on it. In the preceding ghazal the fly was the rival; here it is the lover himself. This couplet is almost identical with the second couplet of the sixty-sixth ghazal that immediately follows in the edition: there too the line "Kanda kim şehd ola lâ-büd cân virür ana meges" occurs, and only the verb changes. "Kafes" and "nefes" in the opening couplet, "hâr u has" in the second and the fly in the last are also common to the three ghazals. This closeness suggests that this unfinished ghazal may be a draft of the sixty-sixth ghazal or a first attempt on the same ground; this is our own inference, and there is no record in the manuscript to confirm it.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 79, ghazal no. 65 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 25a); footnote 109 ("Gazel-i nâ-tamâm"), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources