Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün
Cenāb-ı Cem-ḫadem Sulṭān Maḥmūd Ḫān Ġāzikim
Musaḫḫardur yed-i iclāline dünyā vü mā-fīhā
Kerem-ver şāh-ı İskender ẓafer şāhenşeh-i ‘ālem
‘Adīl olmaz en ednā bendesine Ḫātem ü Dārā
Müsellemdür aña ṭab‘-ı selīmi ‘adl-ı Fārūḳı
Zamānında olan fetḥi ne mümkin eylemek imlā
Süleymān bār ki bir pādişāh-ı heft-i kişverdür
Ki lāyıḳdur kühende olsa çārūbı per-i ‘anḳā
Biniş taḳrībi ile seyr-i gül-geşt eyledikçe gāh
Sezādur sāyebān-dār olsa mihr-i asumān-pīrā
Yine ḳasr-ı bāhariyye olunca lāne-i şevket
Ḥamel burcına gūyākim gelür ḫūrşīd-i tāb-efzā
Ser-i düşmen gibi perrān olurdı dā’imā şaydı
Tüfeng-i zer-nişānından çıḳan bir dāneden ammā
Tüfengin destine şāhīn-mis̱āl fāl eyleyüp aldı
Yine cevv-i hevāda gördi bir murġ-ı hevā peymā
Ṭabanca çaḳdıġı sā‘at o şeh-bāz-ı kerāmet-sāz
Yuvarlandı mis̱āl-i beftere ṣaḥn-ı zemīne tā
Selāmet yoḳ ‘adū-yı kīne-cūyāne zamānında
Yere girmek degül isterse ḳılsun gökleri me’vā
Ḳuş olsa ḳurtuluş yoḳdur tüfeng-i bī-amānından
Uçan ḳuşa daḫı ḥükmin revān eyler o bī-pervā
Bu dīn düşmānları hep ḳuşca cānın itsün istiḫlāṣ
‘Adūya sen ne ḳuş olduñ dimekdür bu es̱er zīrā
Hemīşe Rüstemāne tīr-i ḳahrı dīde-dūz olsun
İde İsfendiyār-ı düşmenin Ḥaḳḳ vālih ü şeydā
Biri birinden a‘lā iki tārīh-i dil-ārādur
Yazıldı yek ḳalemden Ṣāḥibā bu beyt-i müstes̱nā
Yine birden urup Sulṭān Maḥmūd ṭayr-ı eflāki
Ṣadā-yı yek tüfengi ile uçurdı beñzini a‘dā
In English
1. His Majesty Sultan Mahmud Khan Gazi, whose servants are like Jam, to whose hand of majesty the world and all that is in it are subject.
2. The generous king, victorious like Alexander, the emperor of the world; Hatem and Darius cannot equal the least of his servants.
3. A sound nature and a justice like that of Omar are granted to him; how could one write down the conquests of his time?
4. Like Solomon he is the sovereign of the seven climes; it would be fitting if the wing of the Anka were the broom of his old house.
5. Whenever he goes out on procession to view the roses, it would be fitting if the sun that adorns the sky held a canopy over him.
6. When the Bahâriye Pavilion again becomes the nest of his majesty, it is as if the light-shedding sun enters the sign of Aries.
7. With a single ball from his gold-inlaid musket, his prey would always fly off like the enemy's head.
8. He took the musket in his hand like a falcon, as a good omen; once again he saw a bird gliding in the open air.
9. The moment that miracle-working royal falcon fired the pistol, (the bird) rolled like a ball down to the face of the earth. (The meaning of one word in the second line is not certain.)
10. In his time there is no safety for the spiteful enemy; let alone hiding in the ground, let him make the heavens his refuge if he wishes.
11. Even if it be a bird, there is no escape from his merciless musket; that fearless (sultan) makes his rule pass even over the flying bird.
12. Let these enemies of religion all try to save their lives like birds; for this deed is a way of saying to the enemy "what kind of bird are you?"
13. May the arrow of his wrath always be eye-piercing like Rustam's; may God make the Esfandiyar of the enemy bewildered and distraught.
14. O Sâhib, these are two heart-adorning chronograms, each finer than the other; this matchless couplet was written by a single pen:
15. "Sultan Mahmud, striking all at once again, (brought down) the bird of the heavens." "With the sound of his single musket he made the enemies' colour fly."
Literary and Historical Commentary
The second poem on the marksmanship of Sultan Mahmud I celebrates a shot made this time not in a pavilion garden but in the open air, at a bird in flight. The sultan is at the Bahâriye Pavilion; he takes up the musket he regards as a good omen like a falcon, sees a bird gliding in the air, and the moment he "fires the pistol" the bird rolls to the ground. In the previous poem the bird was on the tip of a branch; here the fact that the target is hit in flight is the real ground of the praise. The eleventh couplet says this plainly: the sultan's rule passes even over the flying bird.
The shot is again tied to a wish for war. In the twelfth couplet the poet uses the colloquial idiom "sen ne kuşsun" (what kind of bird are you, that is, who do you think you are): the sultan's deed says "what kind of bird are you" to the enemy, and the enemies of religion should try to save their lives like birds. In the thirteenth couplet a scene from the Shahnameh is called up: may the arrow of Rustam's wrath be "dîde-dûz", eye-piercing, and bewilder the enemy's Esfandiyar. The story of Rustam shooting the invincible Esfandiyar in the eye with an arrow also matches the previous shot that struck the bird in the eye.
The sultan's titles in the praise section come from the ready-made patterns of the divan tradition; in the third couplet the justice of Mahmud I is likened to that of Omar, and Topal cites this couplet as a place where the justice of the second caliph of Islam is recalled. The fourteenth couplet announces that each of the two lines of the last couplet is a chronogram on its own. When we tried to find the values of these lines by abjad (ebced), we could reach no reliable result because of uncertainties of spelling; Topal gives no calculation either. Using the same hezec pattern as the previous shooting poem, the text comes in the Ali Emîrî manuscript directly after the previous shooting poem (fol. 39a).
Bibliography
- Meral Topal, Pîrî-zâde Mehmed Sâhib Hayatı, Edebî Kişiliği, Eserleri ve Divanı'nın Tenkitli Metni, MA thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Elazığ 2004, pp. 87-88, tarih 12 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 39a); also p. 22 (couplet 3). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
