Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḳaşlaruñ altında cānā çeşm-i cādūlar mıdur
Lāne-sāz-ı ṭāḳ-ı ‘işve yā piristūlar mıdur
Ḫaṭṭ-ı nev-ḫīzüñ midür ruḫsāruñ üzre ser-zede
Ya açılmış gülşen-i hüsnüñde şeb-būlar mıdur
Ḫam-be-ḫam kākül mi gird-i gerdenüñ üzre yāḫūd
‘Iṭr-ı senc-i çārsū-yı dil terāzūlar mıdur
Ḫaller mi zīr-i ḫaṭṭ-ı müşg-i sebzüñde ‘ayān
Yoḫsa kim mecnuñ ile hem-bezm āhūlar mıdur
Böyle vaḥşī eyleyen Ṣāḥibden ey āfet seni
Muḳteżā-yı baḫt-ı bed ya ṭa‘n-ı bed-gūlar mıdur

In English

1. O soul, are those beneath your eyebrows sorcerer eyes, or swallows that build their nest in the arch of coquetry?

2. Is that your newly sprouting down appearing on your cheek, or night-scented stocks blooming in the garden of your beauty?

3. Is that a lovelock curling around your neck, or the scales of the perfume weigher in the market of the heart?

4. Are those beauty marks visible beneath your musky green down, or gazelles keeping company with Majnun?

5. O bane, is what has made you so shy of Sâhib the decree of ill fortune, or the taunts of the slanderers?

Literary and Historical Commentary

The ghazal moves from beginning to end with the same pattern of question: "is it …, or is it …?" In the figure of speech that divan poetry calls "tecâhül-i ârif", knowing yet feigning ignorance, the poet describes the beloved's beauty as though he were undecided between two comparisons, and so manages to say both at once. The eyes beneath the eyebrows are either sorcerers casting spells or swallows building their nests under an arch. Likening the eyebrow to an arch and the eyes to birds sheltering beneath it carries the picture of swallows nesting under the eaves.

The third couplet sets up a scene from market life: the curling lovelock falling onto the neck resembles the scales of a perfumer weighing scents in the market of the heart; the curls of the lock are the chains of the scales, and its fragrance the musk and ambergris being weighed. Next, the beauty marks beneath the down are likened to the gazelles that befriend Majnun in the desert. Majnun's friendship with the gazelles is a known scene of the story of Layla and Majnun; the down becomes the desert and the beauty marks the gazelles roaming in it.

The last couplet turns the question, this time, to the beloved's behaviour: is what makes the beloved shy of Sâhib, "vahşî" like a gazelle, ill fortune, or the words of the gossips? The gazelles of the previous couplet have prepared the way for this word "vahşî" (wild, shy).

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. 122, ghazal 25 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 18a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 6a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 10b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources