Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Beyt-i ḥüsnüñ iki ebrūña iki mıṣra‘ıdur
Naẓm-ı pākīze-i dīvān-ı ruḫuñ maṭla‘ıdur
Heft-beyt-i ġazel-i ‘işvedür ol mehr-rū kim
Ḫaṭṭ-ı püşt-i leb-i şīrīni anuñ maḳṭa‘ıdur
İtmese şāne tavassuṭ biri birine girer
Dillerüñ kim girih-i zülf-i siyeh mecma‘ıdur
Perde-keş olmayıcaḳ ebr baḳılmaz mihre
Bī-niḳāb olmaḳ o ḫūrşīd-i ruḫuñ bürḳa‘ıdur
Cānı cānāna virüp çıḳmaḳ aradan Ṣāḥib
Kār-ı ‘aşḳuñ hele ‘uşşāḳa ḳatı enfa‘ıdur

In English

1. Your two eyebrows are the two lines of the couplet of beauty; they are the opening couplet of the pure verse of the divan of your face.

2. That sun-faced one is a seven-couplet ghazal of coquetry, whose closing couplet is the down above his sweet lip.

3. If the comb did not step in to mediate, hearts would become entangled with one another; for the knot of the black lock is the gathering place of hearts.

4. Unless a cloud draws a veil, one cannot look at the sun; the veil of that sun of a face is being unveiled.

5. O Sâhib, to give one's soul to the beloved and withdraw from between is, in the work of love, the most profitable of all for lovers.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The first two couplets read the beloved like a book of poetry and do so using the terms of divan poetry itself. The beloved's two eyebrows are the two lines of a couplet of beauty; they form the matla, the opening couplet, of the divan of his face. In the second couplet the beloved as a whole is a "ghazal of coquetry" of seven couplets, the most common length of the ghazal, and the down appearing above his lip is the "maḳṭa‘" of this ghazal, its last couplet. The beginning, middle and end of the poem are thus laid out upon the face. Sâhib's fondness for images of writing and books extends in this ghazal to the very terms of poetic form.

The third couplet repeats the scene of comb and lock also met in the seventh ghazal: the knots of the lock are the gathering place of hearts, and if the comb did not step in to mediate, the hearts would become entangled. The fourth couplet sets up a paradox. The sun can only be looked at from behind a veil of cloud; but the sun of the beloved's face is so bright that even its being unveiled makes it invisible: its unveiledness is its own veil.

The pen-name couplet defines the most profitable work of love as giving one's soul to the beloved and withdrawing from between. The ghazal has five couplets, that is, it is shorter than the seven-couplet ghazal named in the second couplet. There are no variants between the manuscripts.

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. 119, ghazal 23 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 18a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 6a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 8a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources