Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ḥüsn ile māh-ı felek kim ḫaylice ḳābil geçer
Görse ruḫsāruñ olur noḳṣānına ḳā'il geçer
Gelse de ḫaṭ rūy-ı ālinden yine geçmez göñül
Ol perī-rū ile ṣanmañ aramızdan ḳıl geçer
Dīde-dūz-ı şāh-rāh-ı vuṣlatuñdur ḫaste-dil
Sensiz ey cān künc-i ġamda her günim bir yıl geçer
İrmek ümmīdiyle fülk-i dil kenār-ı vuṣlata
Baḥr-i ġamda bār-ı ḥasretle nice sāḥil geçer
Ṣāḥib olmazsa mezāyā-yı muḥabbetden naṣīb
Nüsḫa-i ‘aşḳ vāḳıf-ı cāh ile geçer

In English

1. The moon of the sky, which passes as quite capable in beauty, would, if it saw your cheek, pass as one who admits its deficiency.

2. Even if the down comes, the heart does not give up (the beloved's) rosy face; do not think that a hair passes between us and that fairy-faced one.

3. The sick heart has fixed its eyes on the highway of your union; O soul, without you, in the corner of grief, each of my days passes like a year.

4. In hope of reaching the shore of union, the ship of the heart passes many coasts in the sea of grief with its cargo of longing.

5. Sâhib, if no share is had of the virtues of love, the book of love passes (only) through the hands of one who knows rank. (The metre of the second line is faulty; its reading and meaning are not certain.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

In this ghazal the redif (refrain) "geçer" takes on a different meaning in every couplet. In the first couplet it means "passes for, is counted as": the moon is counted capable in beauty but, on seeing the beloved's cheek, would pass as admitting its deficiency. In the second couplet "giving up" and the idiom "a hair passes between" stand side by side; in the third time passes, in the fourth a ship passes coasts. The repetition of the same verb with so many different faces turns the refrain into a field of wordplay.

The idiom "not a hair passes between us" in the second couplet says that there is not the slightest separation between two people. The poet joins the idiom to the down: down has appeared on the beloved's face, yet the heart still does not give up and says that this down has not come between them. The likeness between a hair and the down also draws the idiom toward its literal sense.

In the fourth couplet "fülk-i dil", the ship of the heart, moves from coast to coast in the sea of grief with its cargo of longing. That the word appears here plainly as "fülk" supports the suggestion that the word printed "Felek" in ghazal 33 may also be read "fülk" in the sense of ship. The second line of the pen-name couplet is troubled in both copies; Topal notes that its metre is faulty and records that a word is faded in the T. 738 copy.

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. 140, ghazal 42 (Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 5a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 9a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources