Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Te‘āla’llāh zihī baḫt-ı hümāyūn-ı şeref-‘unvān
Ki oldı maẓhar aña şehriyār-ı a‘ẓam-ı devrān
Zihī yenerdi bāzū-yı ḳaviyy te’s̱īr-i saṭvetkim
Olur maḥṣūṣ-ı ẕāt-ı pāk-i sulṭān-ı ‘aliyyü’ş-şān
İmām-ı ehl-i sünnet ḥāfıẓ-ı gencīne-i millet
Niẓām-ı dīn ü devlet ḫüsrev-i dād-āver-i devrān
Vücūh-ı ḫayra mā’il pādişāh-ı ‘ālim ü ‘āmil
Şeh-i kāmil-cenāb-ı Ḥazreti Sulṭan Maḥmud Ḫān
İdüp teşrīf bir gün ġarra ile Gülhāne Ḳaṣrına
Ḳudūmiyle bahāristān-ı ‘Adene döndi ol meydān
Yed-i beyżāsına bir nev tüfeng-i zer-nişān alup
Ser-i şāh üzre bir ürgü nişāngāh itdi ol sulṭān
Teveccüh eyleyüp semt-i sedāda istiḳāmetle
Alınca şasta bismi’llāh ile tevfīḳ idüp Yezdān
Tüfengüñ dānesi idüp iṣābet çeşmine murġuñ
Düşüp ḫāke o dem oldı ‘adem mülkine bāl-efşān
Olup būd-ı ṣad u pencāh ḫaṭve ol nişāngāhuñ
Tüfeng-endāz-ı ser-i cümle bunda oldılar ḥayrān
Çeküp gülbāng-ı taḥsīn na‘re-i Allahu ekberle
Ḫurūşa geldi cümle bendegān dergeh-i iḥsān
Tefā‘ül itdiler ḳatline Tahmasb ḳulı ḫānuñ
Ser-i menḫūs ide Ḥaḳḳ-ı ḳarībā ḫākde ġalṭān
Sezādur Ṣāḥibā ṣad güne taḥsīn ü sitāyişle
Bu emri ṣafḥa-i ās̱āre yazsa münşī-i dīvān
Ḫaṭālardan maṣūn idüp Ḫudā ol şāh-ı devrānı
‘Adūnuñ murġ-ı cānı lāne-i tenden ide perrān
Ser-i düşmen tüfeng-i ḳahrına olsun nişān dā’im
Sebū gibi şikest ü ḫurd ide dāneleri her ān

In English

1. How exalted is God; what an auspicious and honoured fortune, which the greatest sovereign of the age has been granted.

2. How fine, he would prevail with a strong arm of mighty effect; (this fortune) belongs to the pure person of the sultan of lofty glory. (The reading of the first line is not certain.)

3. Imam of the people of the Sunna, guardian of the treasury of the community; order of religion and state, the justice-dispensing monarch of the age.

4. The sovereign inclined to good works, learned and acting on his learning; the perfect king, His Majesty Sultan Mahmud Khan.

5. One day, when he graced the Gülhâne Pavilion with his radiant (face), that square turned through his arrival into the spring garden of Aden.

6. Taking in his white hand a new gold-inlaid musket, that sultan made a bird on the tip of a branch his target.

7. As he turned with true aim toward the mark and pulled the trigger with "in the name of God", God granted him success.

8. The musket ball struck the bird in the eye; (the bird) fell to the ground and at that moment flapped its wings toward the land of nonexistence.

9. Since the distance of that target was a hundred and fifty paces, the heads of all the marksmen were amazed here.

10. All the servants of the gate of bounty, raising cries of admiration with shouts of "Allahu akbar", were roused to excitement.

11. They took it as an omen of the killing of Tahmasb Kulı Khan: may God soon make his ill-omened head roll in the dust.

12. O Sâhib, it would be fitting if the secretary of the council wrote this event on the page of chronicles with a hundred kinds of admiration and praise.

13. May God protect that sovereign of the age from mistakes; may He make the bird of the enemy's soul fly from the nest of the body.

14. May the enemy's head always be the target of the musket of his wrath; may its ball break and shatter it like a jug at every moment.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The poem tells of a sultan's shot. One day Mahmud I comes to the Gülhâne Pavilion, takes up a new gold-inlaid musket and chooses as his target a bird on the tip of a branch. The ball strikes the bird in the eye from a hundred and fifty paces. Topal gives the heading as "Nişāniyye Tārīḫinde"; the heading suggests a chronogram connected with the target stones (nişan taşı) set up after such shots. No chronogram line reckoned by abjad can be seen, however, among the readable couplets of the text.

The meaning of the shot is explained in the eleventh couplet: those in the palace take this hit as an omen that "Tahmasb Kulı Khan" will be killed. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, this title had been given to the Afshar commander who was the guard commander of the Safavid prince Tahmasp and who took the throne in 1148 (1736) under the name Nadir Shah; in 1142 (1729) he had recaptured Isfahan and then set about retaking the lands held by the Ottomans. That the title is used before he became "shah" shows that the poem was written in the war years between 1143 (1730), when Mahmud I came to the throne, and 1148; Topal does not identify the person. As his biography in the same encyclopedia notes, Sâhib became the sultan's first imam after Mahmud I's accession; his ability to describe a day of the sultan's pastime so closely may be explained by his being a witness who saw the palace from within.

Topal cites the fifth couplet as an example of the beauties of Istanbul in Sâhib's chronograms and notes that Aden is a city of southern Arabia known for its pearls. The bird's death is told in the language of divan poetry: the bird "flaps its wings toward the land of nonexistence", and in the last couplet the bird of the enemy's soul is made to fly from the nest of the body and the enemy's head is broken like a jug. This comparison between the musket ball and the jug makes the passage from the hunt to war through a single image. Its only known copy is on folio 38b of the Ali Emîrî manuscript.

Bibliography

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