Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dünyâ-yı bî-vefâ vü sitemkâr u ser-keşün
Degmez safâ vü zevkı ‘azâb u belâsına

In English

1. The pleasure and joy of the faithless, cruel and headstrong world are not worth (its) torment and affliction.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The nineteenth single couplet is the last of the Turkish single couplets and is written in the "mef'ûlü fâ'ilâtü mefâ'îlü fâ'ilün" pattern. It is the only couplet among the single couplets to use this pattern. In Kılıç's survey of metres no single couplet is counted among the poems in this pattern; the survey, on the other hand, lists a single couplet in "mefâ'îlün mefâ'îlün fa'lün" that has no counterpart in the text. The Turkish single couplets in the survey total eighteen, while the text has nineteen. The edition does not explain the source of these differences; the survey may have been based on a count made before the text was settled, which is our conjecture. There is no folio mark in the edition; the couplet follows the eighteenth single couplet, which begins with the mark [97b]. There is no rhyme between "ser-keşün" and "belâsına".

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet takes up the theme of the transience and faithlessness of the world. The first line names the world with three adjectives: "bî-vefâ" (faithless), "sitemkâr" (cruel, tormenting) and "ser-keş" (headstrong, stubborn). In classical poetry these adjectives are usually used of the beloved; giving them to the world here rests on imagining the world, too, as a beloved who beguiles a man and then abandons him. This is an example of teşhis (personification). The first line ends with the genitive suffix ("ser-keşün"), and the sentence is completed in the second line: the pleasure and joy of the world are not worth its torment and affliction. The two lines are thus compared like the two pans of a scale. There is a clear tezat (antithesis) between "safâ vü zevk" (pleasure and joy) and "'azâb u belâ" (torment and affliction). The use of two-word synonym pairs in both pans (pleasure and joy, torment and affliction) creates a sense of balance. The advice not to become attached to the world is a common subject of the couplets of asceticism and wisdom in divan poetry.

Historical Context

Kılıç notes that the prince's divan contains admonitory couplets on the transience of the world, on not becoming attached to it and on not trusting crown, throne and sovereignty, and he gives as examples the couplet "'Âkıl isen bu cihâna virme dil" from the ninth ghazal and the line "Tâc u taht u saltanat aldanma fânîdür gönül" from the eighty-seventh ghazal. In the closing couplet of the sixteenth Persian ghazal, too, Şâhî tells himself "never trust this passing fortune and youth". This single couplet belongs to the same line of admonition. Its place beside the couplets of pardon and supplication at the end of the manuscript allows it to be read as part of a voice that has ceased to expect anything from the world; but this interpretation is our own, and the date of the couplet is unknown.

Bibliography

  • Filiz Kılıç (ed.), Şâhî Dîvânı (Şehzâde Bâyezîd), Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Müdürlüğü, 2018, e-book p. 149, single couplet no. 19 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Efendi, Manzum Eserler 225); also pp. 29-30 (survey of metres), p. 41 (couplets on the transience of the world), p. 163 (Persian ghazal no. 16, note 215), https://ekitap.ktb.gov.tr/Eklenti/59394,sahi-divanipdf.pdf.

Online sources