Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Dil-i ‘uşşāḳa zülf ü rūy-ı āteş-fām hep birdür
Belī rindān-ı ‘aşḳa küfr ile İslām hep birdür
Ya ḥüsnüñ pāk imiş mūdan yāḫūd olmuş ḫaṭṭ-āverde
Ne mā‘nī ‘āşıḳuñ yanında ṣubḥ u şām hep birdür
Hemān keyfiyyet-i ṣahbā baña dünbālevār olsun
Benüm yanumda ey sāḳī sifāl ü cām hep birdür
Ne ḥācet zülfüñe ḫālüñ daḫı eyler dili naḫçīr
Hümā-yı ‘aşḳa ister dāne ister dām hep birdür
Ḳaçılmaz luṭf u ḳahrından nigāh u ġamzenüñ zīrā
Dil-i zāra nevāzişgārı düşnām hep birdür
‘İtāb u iltifātından taġayyür eyleme çarḫuñ
O bezmüñ zehr ü ḳandı eydil-i nā-kām hep birdür
Dimem ben Ṣāḥibā ḳadr-i kemālüm añlasun yārān
Benüm yanumda olmaḳ müştehir bī-nām hep birdür

In English

1. To the lovers' heart the lock and the fire-coloured face are all one; yes, to the libertines of love unbelief and Islam are all one.

2. Whether your beauty is clear of down or has grown its down, what does it matter; beside the lover, morning and evening are all one.

3. As long as the delight of wine follows after me; O saki, to me an earthen jug and a glass cup are all one.

4. What need is there of your lock, when your beauty mark too makes the heart its prey; to the huma of love, grain or snare, it is all one.

5. There is no escaping the grace and the wrath of your glance and your wink; for to the wailing heart, the caresser and the insult are all one.

6. Do not change at the reproach or the favour of the sky; O heart that never gains its wish, the poison and the sugar of that gathering are all one.

7. O Sâhib, I do not say, let my friends understand the worth of my perfection; to me being famous and being nameless are all one.

Literary and Historical Commentary

To the redif (refrain word) "birdür" (is one) of the seventeenth ghazal the word "hep" (all, always) is added here, and this time the subject of the poem is indifference. For the lover the difference between good and bad, sweet and bitter, fame and namelessness has vanished. The matla gives the boldest expression of this attitude: to the libertines of love, unbelief and Islam are one. This saying, often met in divan poetry, is understood not as equating religion with denial but as the indifference of a person in the state of love to outward appearances and names; just as the black of the lock and the fire of the face bind the lover equally, the two poles come to the same place in his eyes.

The following couplets continue the same thought with everyday examples. As long as the delight of wine comes, there is no difference between an earthen jug and a glass cup; in the fourth couplet the heart is already the prey of the beauty mark, and to the huma of love grain and snare are one. The huma, according to legend, is a bird that harms no one and is not caught in a snare; the indifference of love's huma to grain and snare gains meaning from this knowledge. The fifth and sixth couplets weigh on the same scale the grace and wrath of the beloved and of the sky, their caress and their insult, their sugar and their poison.

Humility sets the tone of the pen-name couplet: Sâhib does not ask his friends to understand the worth of his perfection, for being famous and remaining nameless are one to him. This saying of a poet who rose as high as the office of şeyhülislam agrees with the distance from rank and fame seen in the other ghazals of the divan. The ghazal is not found in the Istanbul University T. 738 copy; the spelling "eydil-i" in the sixth couplet is as given in the edition and should be read "ey dil-i".

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. 128, ghazal 31 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 19a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 7a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources