Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilâtün Fâ’ilün

Gamzen ile zülfün el bir eylemiş
‘Âlemi teshîr ü nahcîr eylemiş
Âferîn cân-âferîne kim seni
Ahsen-i takvîm tasvîr eylemiş
Nakşunı nakkaş u hallâk u mübîn
Sûret-i zîbâda tahrîr eylemiş
Âteş-i firkat nigârâ Şâhînün
Yakuban cânına te’sîr eylemiş

In English

1. Your sidelong glance and your hair have joined hands; together they have conquered and hunted the world.

2. Bravo to the Creator of souls, who has portrayed you in the best of moulds.

3. The Painter, the Creator, the Manifest has written your image in a beautiful form.

4. O idol-like beauty, the fire of separation has burned the soul of Şâhî and seized it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal of four couplets is written in the "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" pattern and carries the folio mark 26a in the edition. The redif (refrain) is "eylemiş", and the rhyme is the "-îr" sound in the words "bir, nahcîr, tasvîr, tahrîr, te'sîr". The pen name appears in the last couplet. Ghazals of four couplets are few in the divan; in the table Kılıç gives according to the number of couplets, poems of four couplets are shown in a separate row. The heading of this ghazal carries no "nâ-tamâm" (unfinished) note like that of ghazal 65.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a short counterpart of ghazal 67 immediately before it. In the opening couplet, with hair in place of forelock and with a small change of order between the two lines, it builds the same picture: hair and sidelong glance join hands and hunt the world. The second couplet gives the expression that appears in ghazal 67 as "ahsen-i sûret" here directly in its Qur'anic form, "ahsen-i takvîm". The fourth verse of the sura al-Tîn states that man was created in "ahsen-i takvîm" (the best of moulds); the poet applies this expression to the creation of the beloved. In the third couplet the divine attributes "nakkâş" (painter), "hallâk" (creator) and "mübîn" (manifest) are listed, and the beloved's face is seen as an image this painter has written in a beautiful form. Thus the words belonging to the arts of writing and painting form a congruence of images (tenasüp) in this ghazal as well.

In the last couplet "âteş-i firkat" (the fire of separation) replaces the "âteş-i mihr ü mahabbet" (the fire of love) of ghazal 67, and the address "nigârâ" (O idol-like beauty) is added. The couplet of the Allotter of Pre-eternity found in the other ghazal is absent here. This closeness between the two ghazals is our own observation. That two poems written with the same refrain and rhyme stand one after the other may suggest that the poet tried the same ground twice, or that the copyist copied two different forms of one ghazal together. There is no information showing which was written first and which was the poet's final choice. Kılıç does not mention this similarity and numbers the two texts as separate ghazals.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 80, ghazal no. 68 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 26a); also p. 27 (table of couplet counts), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources