Original Persian Text

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

Derdmendân-ı turâ endîşe-i dermân nîst
Yek-nefes kayd-ı dil ü yek-lahza fikr-i cân nîst
Tâ ki zân yâkût-ı cân-perver hayâtî yâftem
Z’ân zemânem ârzû-yı çeşme-i hayvân nîst
Âşıkan der-kûy-ı tû dîdâr-ı tû dârend taleb
Hîç îşân râ hevâ-yı cennet ü rıdvân nîst
Ez-berem tâ ân perî çün nûr-ı dîde dûr şod
Nîst yek dem kîn dü çeşmem behr-i ân giryân nîst
Ber-güzîd ez-digerân Şâhî turâ ez-behr-i ân
Dil-berî vü ân dârî digerân râ ân nîst

In English

1. Those afflicted by you have no thought of a cure; not for one breath a care for the heart, not for one moment a thought for life.

2. Since I found life from that soul-nourishing ruby (the lip), from that time on I have had no longing for the fountain of the water of life.

3. The lovers in your street long to see your face; they have no desire at all for paradise and the garden of Rıdvan.

4. Since that fairy, like the light of the eyes, went far from my side, there is not a moment when these two eyes of mine do not weep for her.

5. Şâhî chose you from among the others for this reason: you have heart-stealing beauty and that indefinable "ân", and the others do not have that "ân".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The five-couplet Persian ghazal is written in the "fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilâtün fâ'ilün" pattern. The redif is "nîst", and the rhyme is the "-ân" sound in "dermân, cân, hayvân, rıdvân, giryân, ân". The same redif is used in Persian Ghazal 2; Kılıç counts two Persian ghazals with the redif "nîst". In the edition there is no folio mark within the text of this ghazal. According to Kılıç's survey in the introduction, five of the Persian ghazals are written in this pattern; the same pattern is also the metre most used in the Turkish ghazals of the divan. All the couplets of the ghazal repeat the same structure: the first line states a condition, and the second completes it with a sentence of absence ending in the redif.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Every couplet of the ghazal is built on an "absence", and the redif states this absence anew each time. The afflicted do not seek a cure, the lover does not want the water of life, those in the beloved's street do not wish for paradise, there is no moment without weeping. There is an ascent in this sequence: first the pain is preferred to the cure, then the lip to the water of immortality, finally the beloved's street to paradise. In the second couplet the ruby is a metaphor (istiare) for the lip; the adjective "cân-perver" (soul-nourishing) and the word "hayât" (life) set the life the lip gives against the water of life. In the third couplet "Rıdvan", the name of the keeper of paradise, also stands for the garden of paradise. In the fourth couplet the beloved is like "nûr-ı dîde", the light of the eyes; when the light of the eyes goes far from the eye, the eye weeps and grows dark, and this adds a congruence of images (tenasüp) to the couplet.

The closing couplet turns the rhyme word itself into a play on words. In Persian "ân" as a demonstrative means "that"; in the language of poetry it denotes the nameless charm in beauty. Kılıç's Turkish rendering in the footnote also reads the couplet in terms of beauty and heart-stealing grace. "Ân" occurs twice in the line, and its second occurrence forms the rhyme: you have that "ân", the others do not have that "ân". That Şâhî "chose" the beloved from among the others is also stated openly in the couplet. There is no sign in the poem of the person to whom it was written, and no variant from the Persian divançe is recorded in the footnotes.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 155-156, Persian ghazal no. 3 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); footnotes 141-145 (Turkish meanings of the couplets); also p. 29 (the redif "nîst"), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources