Original Persian Text

Metre: Mef’ûlü Fâ’ilâtü Mefâ’îlü Fâ’ilün

Bâlâ-bülend ü gonce-dehen gül-’izâr-ı men
Ârâm-ı (cân u) sabr-ı dil-i bî-karâr-ı men
Goftî kesî ki sabr koned yâbed ü vefâ
Ez-had güzeşt sabr u bî-şod intizâr-ı men
Ey yâr-i nâzenîn u dil-âşûb-ı men zi-men
Bürdî be-nâz u şîve zi-dil ihtiyâr-ı men
Dûş ân kirişmeî ki merâ kerdî der-nazar
Ez-âşıkân-ı ber-efrâhtî i’tibâr-ı men
Şâhî be-yek nazar dilem ez-dest bered
Ân çeşm-i mest-gamze-i ayyâr-ı yâr-ı men

In English

1. My tall one, my bud-mouthed one, my rose-cheeked one; the patience of my restless heart and the peace of my soul.

2. You said, "He who is patient finds loyalty"; my patience has passed all bounds, and my waiting too is exhausted.

3. O my delicate beloved, heart-troubling beauty, with coquetry and grace you have carried off from my heart my will.

4. That flirtation you showed me in your glance last night raised my standing among the lovers. (Kılıç takes the couplet in the optative: "had you looked at me from afar, my standing would have risen".)

5. O Şâhî, that drunken-glanced, deceitful eye of my beloved takes my heart from my hand with one look.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five-couplet Persian ghazal is written in the "mef'ûlü fâ'ilâtü mefâ'îlü fâ'ilün" pattern. The redif is "-ı men" (my), and the rhyme is the "-âr" sound in "'izâr, karâr, intizâr, ihtiyâr, i'tibâr, yâr". The same redif and rhyme sound occur in Persian Ghazal 15, written in the same metre. In the edition the folio mark [97b] stands next to the number of the ghazal. Although the mark 94b stands within the previous ghazal and 95a at the head of the next, this poem stands on 97b; this results from Kılıç's alphabetical rearrangement of the ghazals. The "(cân u)" in the second line of the opening couplet is Kılıç's completion. Kılıç notes that the metre of the second line of the fourth couplet is faulty and that in the second couplet the Persian divançe has "safâ" in place of "vefâ". The first line of the closing couplet also stops at twelve syllables and appears short against the fourteen syllables of the pattern; this observation is ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet introduces the beloved with three epithets: tall stature, bud mouth and rose cheek. Bud and rose form a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the images of the garden; the bud is chosen for its smallness and closedness, the rose for its colour. The second couplet quotes a saying of the beloved: he who is patient finds loyalty. The lover answers this advice, saying that his patience has passed all bounds and his waiting is exhausted. The reading "safâ" in the Persian divançe presents what is to be found at the end of patience as joy and peace. In the third couplet the contrast between "dil-âşûb" (heart-troubling) and "ihtiyâr" (will) says that love deprives the lover of his own will.

The fourth couplet can be understood in two ways. Kılıç reads the lines as a wish: had the beloved looked from afar, the lover's standing would have risen. The words "dûş" (last night), "kerdî" (you did) and "ber-efrâhtî" (you raised) in the text, however, seem to tell of an event in the past. In this reading the flirtatious glance the beloved cast the night before has exalted the lover among the others; this reading is ours. The closing couplet calls the beloved's eye drunken and "ayyâr", that is, deceitful; a single glance is enough to take the heart. There is no sign in the poem of the person to whom it was written.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 161-162, Persian ghazal no. 14 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 97b); footnotes 199-204 (variant in the Persian divançe, line with faulty metre, Turkish meanings of the couplets); also p. 29 (the redif "men"; alphabetical arrangement), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources