Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü mefā‘īlü mefā‘īlü fe‘ūlün

Olduḳda ḫaṭ-āverde o maḥbūb ḳazancı
Eliyle yüzinüñ ḳarası ḳaldı ḳazancı
Bāzār-ı viṣāl itdigimüzde aramızda
Ol mūy-miyānuñ kemeri oldı miyāncı
Çekdikde berāt-ı dile ṭuġra-yı dü-zülfüñ
Endīşemi şāhen-şeh-i ‘aşḳ itdi nişāncı
Dil deyü doġar her doġan eṭfāl-i zamāna
Dergāh-ı şeh-i ‘aşḳda dil oldı doġancı
Geçdüm dir ise dil-ber ü meyden dil-i sūzān
Elbette olur tīzde Ṣāḥib hezeyāncı

In English

1. When that gainful beloved grew down on his face, the blackness of his face was all that remained in his hand as gain (like the blackened hands of a cauldron-maker).

2. When we struck the bargain of union, the belt of that hair-waisted one became the go-between (miyâncı) between us.

3. When the tuğra of your two curls was drawn upon the patent of the heart, the emperor of love made my thought the nişancı (the officer who draws the tuğra).

4. Every child born to the age is born calling out "heart"; at the court of the king of love the heart has become the falconer. The couplet is obscure; it plainly rests on "doğan" as both falcon and "being born", but the full sense of the first line is uncertain.

5. O Sâhib, if the burning heart says "I have given up the beloved and wine", surely it will soon be raving (hezeyancı).

Literary and Historical Commentary

All the rhymes of this ghazal are built on the Turkish suffix "-cı", which names a trade: kazancı, miyâncı, nişancı, doğancı, hezeyancı. Two of these words are titles of the Ottoman palace and state. The nişancı was the high official of the council who drew the sultan's tuğra on decrees and patents; the doğancıs formed a corps of the palace that trained birds of prey and joined the sultan's hunts. Sâhib carries these titles into the language of love and presents the heart as an officer at the court of the king of love.

The third couplet returns to the berat-and-tuğra image of ghazal 99. There the brows were the tuğra of the patent; here the beloved's two curls are the tuğra drawn on the patent of the heart. The one who draws it is the lover's thought: the king of love has made his thought the nişancı. The coils of the curls resemble the curved strokes of the tuğra.

The first couplet rests on the double sense of "kazancı". A kazancı is a coppersmith who makes cauldrons, and in his trade his hands grow black with soot; the same word can also be understood as "one who makes gains". The beauty who profited from lovers, once down grows on his face, finds nothing in his hand as gain but the blackness of his own face. In the second couplet the link between "miyân" (waist) and "miyâncı" (go-between) is plain: the belt wound round the middle of the waist acts as broker in the bargain between the two parties.

Sâhib's closing couplet smiles at a heart that says it has given up the beloved and wine; such words can only be delirium.

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, p. 210, ghazal 108 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 34b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 17a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 25b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources