Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḳaddüm ki miyānuñ hevesiyle kemer oldı
Seyl-āb-ı güẕergāh-ı fenāya memerr oldı
Şehbāz-ı ruḫ-ı yāre ki ḫaṭṭ bāl ü per oldı
Murġ-ı dilüñ aḥvāli ḳatı pür-ḫaṭar oldı
Bend itdi miyāna kemer-i himmeti ḳat ḳat
Şām-ı ġam-ı ‘aşḳuñda vücūdum fener oldı
İrişdi ser-i hefte tirāş itdi ḫaṭuñ yār
Şeb buldı nihāyet yine vaḳt-i seḥer oldı
Āhum dil-i sengīnine yārüñ eṡer itdi
Ṣan mıṣra‘-ı tārīḫ idi naḳş-ı ḥacer oldı
Her bāba duḫūl itmede mānend-i gedāyān
Ḫurşīd o mehüñ ‘aşḳı ile der-be-der oldı
Gördükde ‘araḳ-rīz-i ruḫuñ giryeler itdüm
Tār-ı nigehüm rişte-i dürr ü güher oldı
Pey-rev olalum Ḫaṭṭī’ye Ṣāḥib dil ü cāndan
Bu vādī-i nevde bize çün rāh-ber oldı

In English

1. My stature, through longing for your waist, became a kemer (both a sash and an arch); it became a passage for the flood on the road of annihilation.

2. Since the down became wing and feather to the royal falcon of the beloved's cheek, the state of the bird of the heart became perilous indeed.

3. I bound the sash of resolve round my waist fold upon fold; in the evening of the grief of your love my body became a (folding) lantern.

4. The start of the week came round and the beloved shaved his down; the night found its end, and it was the hour of dawn again.

5. My sigh left its mark on the beloved's stony heart; it was as if it were the line of a chronogram, and became a carving in stone.

6. Entering every door like the beggars, the sun has become a wanderer from door to door for love of that moon.

7. When I saw your cheek dripping with sweat I wept; the thread of my gaze became a string of pearls and jewels.

8. O Sâhib, let us follow Hattî with heart and soul, since he has become our guide in this new valley.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fifth couplet points to the stone inscriptions of Ottoman towns. When a fountain, mosque or madrasa was built, the year of building was often given in a chronogram, and the last line of the chronogram, showing the year through the numerical value of its letters, was carved in stone. The poet likens his sigh's cutting into the beloved's stony heart to the line of a chronogram carved into an inscription stone. Sâhib, whose divan also contains chronograms, had used the chronogram line in the pen-name couplet of ghazal 110; here the image comes down to the stone itself.

The fener of the third couplet is the folding, bellows-like lantern of paper or cloth used by the Ottomans, with fold upon fold. The lover has wound the sash of resolve fold upon fold round his waist, and in the evening of love's grief this many-folded body has turned into a lantern. "Kemer" in the first couplet also has two senses: the sash bound round the waist and the curved arch of a bridge. The lover's bent stature becomes a bridge arch, a passage beneath which the flood of annihilation flows.

The fourth couplet ties the divan convention that likens down to night to the calendar of the week. At the start of the week the beloved has shaved and his down is gone; this is like the night ending and the morning coming once more. One copy reads "ruhın" (his cheek) in place of "hatuñ" (your down).

The pen-name couplet runs over onto the next page of the thesis and shows that the ghazal is a nazire, a response poem: Sâhib proposes to follow with all his heart Hattî, who has guided him "in this new valley". The thesis does not say on this page who the poet with the pen name Hattî was. The name also calls up the word "hat" (down); in couplet four the down is shaved, while in the final couplet "Hattî" becomes the guide.

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. 216-217, ghazal 114 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 36a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 18a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 24a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources