Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘ilün fe‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fe‘ilün

Felekde ṣabr ile her ‘uḳdeler güşāde olur
Ḫum içre ḫūşe-i engūr ḳalsa bāde olur
İder melāḥat-i ruḫsār-ı yāri ḫāl-i efzūn
‘Adū müsā‘ade-i ẓafer ile ziyāde olur
Görüp ‘alāḳa-i ḫūrşīdi ḫāl-i şeb-nemle
Anuñçün ol güli her kim görür fütāde olur
Gelür o şūḫ da bir gün başar deyü ḳademin
Gözüm güzergeh-i her ḫāṣṣ u ‘āma cādde olur
Mülāyemet ider olsa n’ola uçar ebrū
Mürūr-ı sāl ile āḫir kemān-kepāde olur
Resīde oldı o serv olsa būse-dāde n’ola
Kemālini bulıcaḳ naḫl-i mīve-dāde olur
O şūḫuñ ismine ta‘ẓīmdür ‘arż Ṣāḥib
Ḳalem ki pāy-ı ḥurūfa cebīn-nihāde olur

In English

1. In this world every knot is untied with patience; if a bunch of grapes stays in the jar, it becomes wine.

2. The beauty mark increases the charm of the beloved's cheek; the enemy too grows more with the help of victory. (The connection of the couplet is not fully clear.)

3. Seeing the sun's attachment to the state (the mark) of the dewdrop, whoever sees that rose becomes devoted to it.

4. Thinking that one day that coquette too will come and set his foot there, my eye becomes a highway for everyone, high and low, to pass along.

5. What wonder if the eyebrow softens; with the passing of the years it at last becomes (from a taut bow) a slack practice bow.

6. That cypress has ripened; what wonder if he gives a kiss, for when a tree reaches perfection it bears fruit.

7. Sâhib, this is reverence for that coquette's name: the pen (as it writes it) lays its forehead at the feet of the letters.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The ghazal opens with a matla built like a proverb: in this world every knot is untied with patience, and the grape that waits in the jar becomes wine. The ripening power of patience and time is the idea that runs through the whole ghazal. In the fifth couplet time works this time against beauty: the eyebrow, standing like a drawn bow, softens as the years pass and turns into the slack "kemān-kepāde" that archers used for practice. In the sixth couplet time is again on the lover's side: the cypress-statured beloved has ripened, and just as a tree that reaches perfection bears fruit, he is expected to give a kiss.

In the third couplet the word "ḫāl" is used in its two meanings: both "state, condition" and the "beauty mark" on the cheek. The sun's attachment to the state of a dewdrop is a counterpart to the devotion to the mark on the beloved's rose cheek; that is why all who see the rose become "fütāde", devoted. The fourth couplet turns the lover's eye into a highway: in the hope that the beloved might pass that way one day, the eye accepts becoming a road travelled by high and low alike.

The closing couplet turns reverence into a movement of writing: the pen, as it writes the beloved's name, lays its forehead at the feet of the letters. The touch of the pen's slanted tip on the paper is seen as a prostration.

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. 105, ghazal 11 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 15a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 4a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 8b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources