Şâhî, Persian Nazm 2: Menem ân ki kerdem günâh-ı azîm

Persian Nazm 2 — Menem ân ki kerdem günâh-ı azîm

Amasya05 Editorial Board • Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk • 01 October 2026 • Updated: 13 October 2026 • 4 min reading

Prince Bayezid's two-couplet Persian nazm: the "I" who committed a great sin and the "you" who forgives and shows mercy; a Persian voicing of the plea for pardon in Turkish Mesnevi 3.

Original Persian Text

Metre: Fe’ûlün Fe’ûlün Fe’ûlün Fe’ûl

Menem ân ki kerdem günâh-ı azîm
Sezâ-vâr geştem be-zecr-i elîm

Tuyî ân gafûr (u) tuyî ân rahîm
Tu hâşâ ki rânî merâ der-cahîm

In English

1. I am the one who committed that great sin; I have become deserving of a painful torment.

2. You are the Forgiving, you are the Merciful; God forbid that you drive me into hell.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The two-couplet Persian poem is written in the "fe'ûlün fe'ûlün fe'ûlün fe'ûl" pattern. According to Kılıç's survey of metres, this Persian nazm is the only poem in the divan written in this pattern. All four lines end with the "-îm" sound: "azîm, elîm, rahîm, cahîm". The "(u)" in the first line of the second couplet is Kılıç's completion. Kılıç notes that he counted such poems, shown as "kıta" in the edition of the Persian divançe, as "nazm" on the evidence of their rhymes. In the edition there is no folio mark within the text of this poem.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The poem is a two-couplet supplication built on two pronouns. The first couplet begins "menem" (it is I): it is I who committed the great sin and deserve a painful torment. The second couplet repeats the word "tuyî" (it is you) twice: you are the Forgiving, you are the Merciful. The servant's guilt and God's mercy are thus set against each other. "Gafûr" (Forgiving) and "rahîm" (Merciful) are among the names of God; "elîm" (painful) and "cahîm" (hell) describe the torment. The rhyme words also carry this contrast: "azîm" and "elîm" bring together sin and punishment, "rahîm" and "cahîm" mercy and hell. The word "hâşâ" (God forbid) in the last line shows a confidence that does not even allow the thought of God driving his servant into hell.

This little nazm is very close in wording to Turkish Mesnevi 3 of the divan. The fourth couplet of that mesnevi reads "Rahîmâ rahm kıl salma cahîme / Giriftâr eyleme zecr-i elîme" (O Merciful, have mercy, do not cast me into hell / do not make me captive to painful torment); the same rhyme words, "cahîm" and "elîm", the same phrase "zecr-i elîm" and the same plea are expressed there in Turkish. The line "Kara yüzüm getürdüm bâr-gâha" (I have brought my black face to the court) of the mesnevi also tells of the sinful servant coming to God's door. This connection is our observation. Kılıç says that Şâhî ends the last couplets of the mesnevi at the very end of the divan by asking God to forgive him. That the Persian nazms carry the same plea for pardon shows that on the last pages of the divan this theme continues side by side in Turkish and Persian. The poem has no pen name, and there is no information on the person to whom or the time at which it was written. This plain comparison between sin and pardon is one of the shortest expressions of the theme of "afv" (pardon), frequent in Şâhî's divan.

Bibliography

Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book pp. 163-164, Persian nazm no. 2 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); footnote 221 (the distinction between nazm and kıt'a), footnotes 224-225 (Turkish meanings of the couplets); also p. 30 (survey of metres: "Fe'ûlün Fe'ûlün Fe'ûlün Fe'ûl"), p. 36 (the mesnevi at the end of the divan closing with a plea for pardon), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources