Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫaṭṭ geldi ruḫ-ı ḥüsnünüñ ārāyişi bitdi
Kārın başa irdi o cefākār işi bitdi
Doldı dehen-i dīde vü eşk-i ṭarabla
Yaşına girüp ṭıfl-ı dü-çeşmüñ yaşı bitdi
Dil-i zaḫmına isterdi şehā [okunamadı]
Lafẓ eyledi ḫaṭṭ geldi hele ḫᵛāhişi bitdi
Ḫaṭṭ-ı lebi vaḥşet-res iken ‘āşıḳ-ı zāra
Ruḫsārda andan nefi‘ bir mevḥaşı bitdi
Ṣāḥib diyerek ṣabr ile her iş beter olma
Ḫaṭṭ geldi ruḫ-ı ḥüsnünüñ ārāyişi bitdi

In English

1. The down has come, and the adornment of the cheek of your beauty is over; the business has come to its end, that cruel one's work is done.

2. The mouth of the eye has filled with tears of joy; the child of the two eyes (the pupils) has entered his years, and his "yaş" (both years and tears) has sprouted.

3. O king, the heart used to want (……) for its wound; it said "the down has come", and at last its desire was over. Since the word at the end of the line could not be read, the first half of the couplet remains incomplete.

4. While the down of the lip was frightening the weeping lover, a profitable wilderness sprang up from it on the cheek. The sense of this line is uncertain; the rendering is approximate.

5. Saying "Sâhib, with patience not every matter turns worse": the down has come, and the adornment of the cheek of your beauty is over.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The whole game of this ghazal rests on the two senses of the verb "bitdi" in the refrain. In Turkish "bitmek" means both to come to an end and to sprout from the ground like a plant. The down "bitdi", that is, it sprouted on the cheek; at the same moment the adornment of beauty "bitdi", that is, it came to an end. Since in divan poetry the coming of the down is counted the end of beauty, a single verb tells of both events at once. In the second couplet the word "yaş" has two senses as well: the years of a life, and tears. The pupils are called "the child of the two eyes"; the child "enters his years" and his tears "sprout", that is, come out and flow. In Sâhib's ghazal 111, too, tears were likened to a child cutting his teeth on entering his seventh year.

The last line of the ghazal repeats its first line word for word. The ghazal thus closes with the sentence it opened with, and the news "the down has come, the adornment is over" is heard twice, like a refrain. The first line of the final couplet resembles a popular saying: with patience not every matter turns out worse. The lover's patience has been rewarded once the beloved's beauty is at an end.

The last of the Turkish ghazals in the thesis has three separate textual difficulties: one word of the third couplet could not be read, a fault of metre is noted in the first line of the second couplet, and the sense of the fourth couplet cannot be fully worked out. No second copy can be called on for help; the ghazal is contained only in the Istanbul University manuscript T. 738.

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. 220, ghazal 117 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 24b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources