Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Endişenüñ ki ḥarf u raḳam tercümānıdur
Gūyā devāt u ḫāme dehān u zebānıdur
Ḥarf-i zebān ki māşıṭa-i ḫoş-beyānıdur
Kilk ü devāt-ı mīli ile sürme-dānıdur
Ḳaṣr-ı suṭūra çıḳmaḳ içün şāhid-i raḳam
Mısṭar-keşīde levḥa anuñ nerdbānıdur
Çīn-i devātdan raḳam-ı müşg-bār ile
Ḫāme memālik-i süḫanuñ kārbānıdur
Leyl ü nehāre döndi ḫaṭ u kāġıd-ı sefīd
Ma‘nā vü lafẓ-ı nūr ile anuñ duḫānıdur
Silk-i süḫanda lafẓ ile ma‘nā-yı dil-nişīn
Ṣāḥib baḳılsa nāṭıḳanuñ cism ü cānıdur

In English

1. Letters and numbers are the interpreters of thought; it is as if inkwell and pen were its mouth and tongue.

2. The letter of the tongue, which is the comb of fine expression; pen and inkwell, with its stick, are its kohl box.

3. For the beauty of script to climb up to the pavilion of the lines, the board ruled with the mıstar is its ladder.

4. With musk-scattering script from the China of the inkwell, the pen is the caravan of the realms of speech.

5. Script and white paper have turned into night and day; meaning and word are its light and its smoke.

6. Sâhib, in the chain of speech, word and the meaning that settles in the heart are, if one looks, the body and soul of the speaker.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Inkwell, pen, inkpot, ruling board: in this praise of the pen, devoted to the tools of writing, each couplet turns a part of a calligrapher's desk into a comparison. In the first couplet thought is a person; letters and numbers are its interpreters, and inkwell and pen its mouth and tongue. In the second couplet the pen dipped into the inkwell resembles a kohl stick and kohl box: just as the stick goes in and out of the kohl box, the pen goes in and out of the inkpot, and the letters become a comb that combs the hair of fine expression.

The third couplet carries a writing tool wholly into poetry. The "mıstar" is a board with strings stretched across it for marking the lines on paper; when the paper is pressed onto this board, the places of the lines appear. Sâhib likens this strung board to a ladder: the beauty of script climbs up to the pavilion of the lines by this ladder. The visual likeness between the parallel strings of the mıstar and the rungs of a ladder carries the whole wit of the couplet. The inkwell of the fourth couplet is China, the home of musk; and the pen is a caravan carrying the musk-scented ink from there to the realms of speech.

The last two couplets pass from script to speech. Black script and white paper turn into night and day; meaning is its light, and word its smoke. The pen-name couplet expresses the relation between word and meaning in classical rhetoric through a comparison of body and soul: in the chain of speech the word is the body, and the meaning that settles in the heart is the soul. This ghazal of a poet who spent his life in offices carried on by the pen, as secretary, judge and military judge, bears the eye of one who knew the tools of writing closely.

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. 132, ghazal 34 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 20a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 7b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 7b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources