Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Her şūḫa mihrbān ki dirüz bī-vefā çıḳar
Maḥż-ı ṣavāb didigümüz hep ḫaṭā çıḳar
Ruḫsār-ı yāre dīde-güşā-yı niyāz olup
Her toḫm-ı eşk kim ṣaçaruz lubya çıḳar
Olmaz şikeste-ḫāṭırımuz senden ey perī
Kesr itseñ üstüḫānımuzı mūmyā çıḳar
Zerdī-i za‘f-ı hicrüñ ile baḥr-ı dīdeden
Ey yār şimdi dürr yerine güher çıḳar
Sevdā-yı kākülüñle resen-bāz-ı āh-ı dil
Peyveste ḳulle-i felege beste-pā çıḳar
Ol çeşm-i sürme-dāra olaldan ta‘alluḳum
Dilden dehāna nālelerüm bī-ṣadā çıḳar
Te’s̱īr-i yümn-i maḳdem-i yār ile ḫānemüz
Tā-ḥaşr kāviş olsa hemān tūtiyā çıḳar

The rest of the ghazal (including the pen-name couplet) is on page 114, which is missing from the open-access digital copy of the thesis, and could not be read.

In English

1. Every coquette we call "kind" turns out faithless; whatever we call "perfectly right" always turns out wrong.

2. When we open our eyes in entreaty to the beloved's cheek, from every seed of tears we scatter, beans spring up. (The last word of the line differs in the manuscripts; the meaning is conjectural.)

3. O fairy, our heart is not broken by you; if you broke our bones, mummy (the remedy for fractures) would come out of them.

4. O beloved, through the yellowness of the weakness of your separation, (yellow) gems instead of pearls now come out of the sea of the eye.

5. Through passion for your lovelock, the sigh of the heart becomes a rope-dancer and, with its feet bound, climbs without pause to the tower of the sky.

6. Ever since I became attached to that kohl-lined eye, my laments come out from heart to mouth without a sound.

7. The blessing of the beloved's arrival has had such effect that, if they dug our house until the Day of Gathering, tutty (eye salve) would keep coming out.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Under the redif (refrain word) "çıḳar" (comes out), the couplets tell of something unexpected coming out of something else, and most of these emergences are built with the materials of old pharmacy and folk medicine. In the third couplet the lover says that his heart will not be broken because of the beloved, for if the beloved broke his bones, "mūmyā" would come out of them; mummy was a remedy believed in old medicine to heal fractures. The words "şikeste" (broken), "kesr" (breaking) and "üstüḫān" (bone) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) with this remedy. In the last readable couplet, from the soil of the house trodden by the beloved's auspicious foot, "tūtiyā", used as an eye salve, comes out as it is dug.

The sixth couplet rests on an old belief about kohl: it was thought that whoever swallowed kohl would lose his voice. Ever since the lover became attached to a kohl-lined eye, his laments come out of his mouth without a sound. In the fifth couplet the lover's sigh turns into a rope-dancer; taking the beloved's lovelock as its rope, it climbs with bound feet to the tower of the sky. In couplet four the lover, weakened by separation, has turned pale yellow, and from the sea of his tears now comes no longer a white pearl but a yellow gem.

The readable part of the ghazal is seven couplets. The open-access scan of the thesis lacks page 114, so everything after the seventh couplet, including the last couplet bearing Sâhib's pen name, remains unread. Topal gives the last word of the second couplet as "lubya" (bean), while the Istanbul University T. 1710/6 copy reads "bu riyā"; the two readings change the meaning of the couplet considerably.

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. 113-114, ghazal 18 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 17a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 4b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 9b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources