Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâ’îlün Mefâ’îlün Fe’ûlün

Lebüne benzedürdüm la’l-i nâbı
Eger bir zerre denlü olsa cânı

In English

1. I would liken the pure ruby to your lip, if it had even a speck of life (soul).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The tenth single couplet is written in the "mefâ'îlün mefâ'îlün fe'ûlün" pattern. The two lines end with the words "nâbı" and "cânı"; both share the long "â" and the final "-ı", but the consonants on which a rhyme would rest (b and n) differ. The couplet is therefore not counted as fully rhymed; the similarity of sound gives only a sense of half-rhyme. This observation is our own. There is no folio mark in the edition. The mark [64a] stands beside the number of the next single couplet.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet takes up one of the most frequent comparisons for the lip in divan poetry, the red ruby, and finds it wanting. "La'l-i nâb" means pure, unalloyed ruby; in colour and lustre it is the object that comes closest to the beloved's lip. The poet says that only one condition is missing for him to liken the ruby to the lip: the ruby has no life. In classical poetry the beloved's lip is "cân-bahş", that is, it bestows life; when it speaks or smiles it gives life to the lover. A stone is lifeless. The comparison is thus both made and unmade within a conditional sentence, and the beloved's lip is held superior to the ruby. This way of speaking is an example of teşbih-i tafdil (simile of preference). The phrase "bir zerre denlü" (as much as a speck) stresses how small the difference seems and yet how impassable it is: a speck of life would have been enough for the ruby to become a lip, and that is lacking. The bond between lip and ruby is so settled in the divan that in the second mesnevi the word "la'l" is used directly for the lip: "Ciger hûn oldı la'lün hasretinden". There the comparison has become a metaphor (istiare); this single couplet questions the same comparison and turns it back. Taken together with the comparison of the lip to wine in the fourth single couplet, it shows the image of the lip being taken up from different sides in Şâhî's single couplets. A further link between ruby and life could be drawn from the classical belief that the ruby ripens within the stone through the sun's influence; the couplet does not refer to this belief openly. The couplet contains no historical indication.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 148, single couplet no. 10 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources