Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Göñül süflīlere meyl eyleyüp aḳdıḳca ābāsā
Beni ser-geşte ḳıldı çarḫ-ı gerdūn āsiyābāsā
Şifā-yı ṣadrı buldum müşkülātum cümle fetḥ oldı
Alınca ḳoynıma ol nüsḫa-i ḥüsni kitābāsā
Ẓuhūr itdikde ḫaṭṭ-ı la‘li yārüñ hep pesend itdi
Ṣaf-ı naẓm-ı melāḥat içre beyt-i intiḫābāsā
Nişān-ı sīnede oldı nişānda tīr-i müjgānuñ
İṣābet menzilin buldı du‘ā-yı müstecābāsā
Döner şol ḫātem-i zerrīne kim elmās ola faṣṣı
Başarsa çeşmüme ol şeh-süvārum pā-rikābāsā
Dilüñde ‘ūdāsā ḥiṣṣesi yanmaḳ yaḳılmaḳdur
Sirişküm bezm-i dil-dāre nis̱ār ise gül-ābāsā
O şūḫ-ı ġurre mest-i ḫod-pesendüñ vaṣlına Ṣāḥib
Bulunmaz vāsıṭa hiç ḫālyādan soñra ḫābāsā

In English

1. As the heart inclined toward low things and flowed like water, the turning sky made me dizzy like a millstone.

2. When I took that copy of beauty into my bosom like a book, I found the cure of my breast, and all my difficulties were solved.

3. When the down above the beloved's lip appeared, everyone admired it like a choice couplet in the ranks of the poetry of beauty.

4. The arrow of your eyelash became a mark on the target of the breast; like an answered prayer it found its place of hitting.

5. If that horseman king of mine stepped on my eye as on a stirrup, my eye would turn into a gold ring with a diamond stone.

6. In your heart its share, like aloe wood, is to burn and be burned; my tears, if scattered at the beloved's gathering, are like rosewater.

7. Sâhib, for union with that coquettish, self-admiring, intoxicated beauty, no intermediary is found, like sleep after ... (The meaning of one word in the line could not be solved.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Since the redif (refrain word) "āsā" (like) is a suffix of comparison, every couplet closes on a simile: like water, like a millstone, like a book, like a choice couplet, like an answered prayer, like a stirrup, like rosewater. Topal discusses the first couplet where she describes Sâhib's mystical type of the lover: the lover is a bewildered man inclining to low, humble things, whose eye is not on the heights; the sky turns him like a millstone, and this turning brings the lover to ecstasy. If one remembers that a mill is turned by water, the "flowing like water" in the first line and the millstone in the second complete each other.

The second and third couplets use images from the world of books. The beloved is a "nüsha", a copy of a book or an amulet, carried in the bosom; the lover who takes it into his bosom finds the "şifâ" (cure) of his breast, and all his "müşkül" (difficulties) are solved. Setting the words şifâ, müşkül and nüsha side by side builds a congruence of images (tenasüp) that likens the beloved to a book of learning. In the third couplet the down appearing above the beloved's lip becomes the most admired couplet in an anthology of poems (intihâb).

The sixth couplet describes a gathering: aloe wood incense gives off its scent as it burns, and rosewater is sprinkled on the guests. The lover's share is to burn like aloe wood, and the task of his tears is to be scattered like rosewater. We could not solve the word "ḫālyā" in the second line of the last couplet; Topal offers no explanation either. The ghazal is written in the hezec metre with four "mefā‘īlün" feet and is found in all three manuscripts; the Istanbul University T. 1710/6 copy, however, lacks the sixth couplet, and in the T. 738 copy the first line of the second couplet reads differently, "müşkülāt u res-i vuṣlatdan".

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. 93, ghazal 2 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 12a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 2b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 4b); also p. 15 (couplet 1). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources