Original Persian Text

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

Ber-ser-i kûyeş fütâde zâr mî-nâlem henûz
Veh zi-istignâ ne-şod vâkıf zi-ahvâlem henûz
Ber-hevâ-yı ân Hümâ-tal’at feşândem nakd-i hod
Der-makâm-ı bî-hodî bî-per ü bî-bâlem henûz
Zîr-i pây-ı ân semen-ber serv-kad der-bahtem
Mâl ü mülk-i hîş râ bî-genc ü bî-mâlem henûz
Der-serem bü’gzeşt dey ü sengî ber-zed ber-serem
Ez-ser-i ân zevk rû ber-seng mî-mâlem henûz
Sâlehâ şod hem-çü Şâhî ber-deret zârî konem
Ez sitem-kârî ne-geştî vâkıf-ı hâlem henûz

In English

1. Fallen at the head of her street, I still weep and moan; alas, from indifference she has still not become aware of my state.

2. In longing for that beauty with the fortune of the Huma I scattered my own coin (all I had); in the station of self-oblivion I am still without arms and without wings.

3. At the feet of that jasmine-breasted, cypress-statured one I lost my own goods and property; I am still without treasure and without wealth.

4. Yesterday she passed over my head and struck my head with a stone; for the delight of that moment I still rub my face against the stone.

5. For years now I have wept and moaned at your door like Şâhî; in your cruelty you have still not become aware of my state.

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 "henûz" (still), and the rhyme is the "-âlem" sound in "nâlem, ahvâlem, bâlem, mâlem, mâlem, hâlem". Kılıç counts the word "henüz" among the redifs of the Persian ghazals. In the edition the folio mark [93a] stands next to the number of the ghazal, so the poem begins at the head of a new leaf in the manuscript. The second line of the opening couplet and the second line of the closing couplet say almost the same thing: the beloved has "still" not become aware of the lover's state. The ghazal thus closes where it began.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The redif "henûz" recalls the length of the waiting anew in every couplet. In the second couplet the beloved is likened to the Huma, the bird believed to raise to fortune the person on whom its shadow falls. The lover has scattered everything he had in pursuit of this bird, but he himself is "without arms and without wings", that is, he cannot fly; there is a congruence of images (tenasüp) between bird and wing. In the third couplet the word "der-bâhtem" (I lost, I gambled away) says that love, like a game of chance, has carried off all his property. The jasmine breast and the cypress stature are familiar similes likening the beloved to two plants for whiteness and height.

The fourth couplet is the most difficult. Kılıç takes the word "dey" as the winter month (the month of Dey in the Persian calendar) and explains the second line as "I scrape on the stone so that the beauty of that face may leave my head". In Persian "dey" also means "yesterday". In this reading the beloved passed over the lover's head yesterday and threw a stone at his head; with the delight of that moment the lover still rubs his face against the stone. There is a strong play on sound (cinas) between "mî-mâlem" (I rub), from the verb "mâlîden", and "bî-mâlem" (I am without wealth) in the third couplet: the two words are very close in writing and sound, while their meanings are entirely different. The reading "yesterday" and the observation of the cinas are ours. That the stone thrown by the beloved is counted a favour accords with the way the lover in divan poetry receives every cruelty from the beloved as a compliment. 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 p. 159, Persian ghazal no. 9 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225, fol. 93a); footnotes 173-177 (Turkish meanings of the couplets); also p. 29 (the redif "henüz"), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources