Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Sübḥa-i pānṣadını döndürüp elde bir bir
Bilmem kürbe-ṣıfat ṣūfī ne söyler mır mır
Nānı yoḳ sürfe-i ẕikrüñ deyü mānend-i kilāb
Ṣufiyān biri biriyle çekişirler ḫır ḫır
Cezbe-i şeyḫ ile döndükce bütān ardından
Āsiyā-seng gibi şeyḫ de döner fır fır
Ten-i pālūdeveş-i dil-beri ṣūfī göricek
Cezbesi dutdı düşüp yüregi ditrer dır dır
Gördigi demde ten-i penbe-nümūnun Ṣāḥib
Ṣūflīler çarḫa girüp döndi mis̱āl-i çır çır

In English

1. Turning his five-hundred-bead rosary bead by bead in his hand, I do not know what the cat-natured Sufi mutters, purring.

2. Saying "the table of the dhikr has no bread", the Sufis quarrel with one another like dogs, snarling.

3. As (the disciples) turn after the idols (the beauties) through the ecstasy of the sheikh, the sheikh too spins round and round like a millstone.

4. When the Sufi sees the beloved's body, soft as a starch pudding, his ecstasy seizes him, he falls, and his heart trembles and trembles.

5. Sâhib, the moment they saw your cotton-like body, the base ones were caught in the wheel and spun like a cotton gin.

Literary and Historical Commentary

In this ghazal, one of the most mocking poems of the divan, every couplet ends with an onomatopoeic word: mır mır, hır hır, fır fır, dır dır and çır çır. These sound doublings carry the rhyme, and each likens the Sufi to an animal or a tool. Sufis who purr like cats, snarl like dogs, spin like millstones and are caught in the wheel like a cotton gin are drawn throughout the poem as a company in which ritual and greed, ecstasy and lust are mixed. The "five-hundred-bead rosary" of the opening couplet is a dig at the long rosary carried for show.

The subject of the second couplet is the table laid after the dhikr gathering: when the bread runs short, the Sufis snarl at one another like dogs. The third and fourth couplets mock the turning and falling down during the devran (the circling dhikr) and ecstasy; the poet sees a sheikh who runs not after God but after beauties. In the fourth couplet "pâlûde" is a pudding of starch and sugar; by likening the beloved's skin to this sweet, the Sufi's appetite and desire are joined in one word.

In the pen-name couplet "penbe" (cotton), "çarh" (wheel) and "çırçır" form a group of related words. The çırçır is the wheeled device that separates cotton from its seeds; the base ones who look at a body like cotton spin as if caught in the wheel of this device. Where the Istanbul University T. 738 copy followed by Topal reads "süflîler" (base ones), the Ali Emîrî and T. 1710/6 copies say "sûfîler" (Sufis) here too. Coming from a scholar who rose as high as military judge and aimed at one section of the dervish orders, the satire recalls the debates of the early eighteenth century.

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. 135, ghazal 37 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 20b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 8a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 11a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources