Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün
Geçdi müjeñ derūnuma tīr-i ḳażā ḳadar
Yoḳdur cihānda çāre ḳażāya rıżā ḳadar
Amāc-ı cism ü cāna geçen tīr-i ġamze ki
Olmaz tesellī-baḫş mażā-mā-mażā ḳadar
Çekdük o şūḫı sīneye bezm-i ḫayālde
Yoḳdur viṣāle vāsıṭa hīç ḫūylā ḳadar
Bī-rūy-ı yār-ı merdümek-i çeşm-i girye-pāş
Gelmez gözime mā-ḥaṣalı rūbyā ḳadar
Nisbetle kūy-ı yāre bu nüh ḳubbe-i felek
‘Uşşāḳa gelmez ābile‘i zīr pā ḳadar
Gitdi o şūḫ bilmedi ‘arż-ı ḫulūṣumı
Añlatmadıḳ cihānda ne var müdde‘ā ḳadar
Bu cism ki mis̱āl düşüp ḳaldı ḫākde
Himmetde reng-i ‘aşḳ degül keh-rübā ḳadar
Sīmīn-berāta itmege ṣarf-ı reh-i viṣāl
Ser-māye lāzım elde hemān kīmyā ḳadar
Ṣāḥib ġubār-ı maḳdemi ol kebg-i ‘işvenüñ
Ṣad şevḳle gözümde uçar tūtiyā ḳadar
In English
1. Your eyelash has passed into my heart like the arrow of fate; in the world there is no remedy like contentment with fate.
2. For the arrow of the glance that has pierced the target of body and soul, nothing consoles like the saying "what is past is past" (mâ mazâ).
3. We pressed that coquette to our breast in the gathering of imagination; there is no intermediary for union like imagination. (The reading of the rhyme word is not certain.)
4. Without the beloved's face, nothing, in short, comes to the pupil of my weeping eye but a dream. (The rhyme word differs in the manuscripts.)
5. Compared with the beloved's street, this nine-domed sky does not seem to lovers even as big as a blister under the foot.
6. That coquette left without knowing the sincerity I offered; we could not express in the world all that we wished.
7. This body that has fallen to the dust and stays there is, in zeal and in the colour of love, not even as much as amber.
8. To spend on the road to union with the silver-bodied, one needs capital in hand no less than alchemy.
9. Sâhib, the dust of the step of that partridge of coquetry flies into my eye with a hundred longings, like tutty (eye salve).
Literary and Historical Commentary
The matla of the ghazal is the couplet through which Topal shows Sâhib's understanding of fate and destiny: the eyelash has passed into the heart like the arrow of fate, and in the world there is no remedy other than to be content with fate. According to Topal, Sâhib thinks of fate and destiny within the framework of Islamic principles; the only thing a person can do in the face of fate, which forms beyond his will and which he can never prevent, is to show contentment. The second couplet adds an Arabic saying to this thought: "mâ mazâ mazâ", what is past is past. The arrow of the glance has pierced the soul; nothing is more consoling than this saying.
The redif (refrain word) "ḳadar" (as much as) serves throughout the ghazal as a means of measuring and comparing. The nine heavens, beside the beloved's street, are not even as much as a blister on the lover's foot; the fallen body is not even as precious as amber in the yellow colour of love. The likeness between the yellow of amber and the lover's pale complexion supports this comparison. In the eighth couplet the capital needed to reach silver-bodied beauties is no less than the alchemy that turns copper into gold; the words silver and alchemy bring money and beauty into the same account.
The rhyme word of the fourth couplet differs in the manuscripts: Topal read "rūbyā", the T. 1710/6 copy has "tūtiyā" and the T. 738 copy "lūbyā". In the eighteenth ghazal there was a similar variant between "lubya" and "riyā". In the maqta, the closing couplet, the beloved is a graceful partridge, and the dust raised by his step becomes tutty, an eye salve, for the lover's eye.
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. 129-130, ghazal 32 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 19b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 7a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 7a); also p. 14 (couplet 1). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
