Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ne ḫoş birbirine şem‘ ile pervāne yaḳışmışlar
Çerāġ-ı ‘aşḳı gūyā kim bir āteşden yaḳışmışlar
Cemālüñ ‘aksüñe ‘aksüñ cemāl-i ‘ālem-ārā ki
Olup ebniyede ṣad-şevḳle ḥayrān yaḳışmışlar
Olup her ḥalḳa-i zencīr derd-i envāz-ı yek-dīger
Cünūn engüşterin hep biri birinden ṭaḳışmışlar
Göñül gülzāra seyl-i ġam dile cūlar çemenzāra
Bahāruñ neşesiyle cūşa gelmişler aḳışmışlar
Ḫumuñ rindān u rindün ḫum atup ser-pūşını Ṣāḥib
Külāhuñ bāde-nūşān biri birinüñ ḳaḳışmışlar

In English

1. How well the candle and the moth suit each other; it is as if they had lit the lamp of love together from one fire.

2. Your beauty to your reflection, and your reflection to your world-adorning beauty, admiring with a hundred longings in the buildings, have suited each other. (The meaning of the couplet is not fully clear.)

3. Each link of the chain being the pain of the other, they have hooked the fingers of madness into one another. (The meaning of the first line is not certain.)

4. The flood of sorrow to the heart, the streams to the rose garden and the meadow, have surged with the joy of spring and flowed together.

5. Sâhib, the wine jar has thrown off the headgear of the rinds and the rinds the cover of the jar; the wine drinkers have knocked off one another's caps.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Yakışmak, takışmak, akışmak, kakışmak: every rhyme carries the suffix "-ış-", which expresses reciprocity. The subject of the poem is the meaning of this suffix; each couplet shows a pair that completes or answers each other: candle and moth, beauty and its reflection, the links of a chain, heart and the flood of sorrow, jar and rind. In the opening couplet the same word is repeated with two senses: in the first line "yakışmışlar" means suiting each other, in the second, lighting a fire together. Candle and moth become two partners who lit the lamp of love from the same fire.

The third couplet works the chain of madness. The links of the chain on Majnun's foot are likened to fingers laced together; by hooking the fingers of madness into each other, the links give the picture of hands held. The meaning of the phrase "derd-i envāz" in the line does not fully open up with the edition's reading. The fourth couplet lets the joy of spring and the flood of sorrow flow with the same movement; the streams running to the rose garden and the flood of sorrow coming to the heart are two faces of the same season.

The pen-name couplet is a tavern scene. The wine jar and the rinds throw off each other's headgear: the cover on the mouth of the jar is lifted, and the heads of the rinds are bared; in their drunkenness the drinkers knock off one another's caps. Since "ser-pûş" means both headgear and the cover of a vessel, it carries the likeness between jar and man in a single word.

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. 136, ghazal 38 (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