Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Sipihr-i vuṣlatuñ kim sīne ḫūrşīd-i münīridür
O ḫurşīdüñ şikāf-ı pīrehen ṣubḥ-ı āḫiridür
Giyüp ‘iydiyye dil-berler ḳabā-yı aṭlas-ı ḫāra
Kibāruñ ḫānesi gūyā maḳāmāt-ı ḥarīridür
Leṭāfet-i ḳad u ḳāmet-i ḥüsn-ṣūret kemālinde
O şāhuñ ḳıṭ‘a-i mecmū‘a-i ḥüsni vezīridür
Olursa sāl-i ‘aşḳuñ sūz-ı dil eyyām-ı bāḫurı
O sālüñ āh-ı serdinde zamān-ı mihr yiridür
Bu seyl-i eşk ü āhum hep o meh ruḫsār-ı rāci‘dür
Dü-çeşm-i hā-nümūn-ı ḫūn-feşān anuñ żamīridür
Ḳarār-ı mezra‘-ı dilden olur taḥṣīl-i peyveste
Nuḳūd-ı eşk-i çeşme naḳş gelmez māl-i mīrīdür
Cihānuñ bulmayan nān pāresinden māye-i lez̤z̤et
Çü Ṣāḥib bu tenūrun ne ḫamīri ne faṭīridür

In English

1. In the sky of your union the breast is a shining sun; the tear in that sun's shirt is the last dawn.

2. When the beauties put on, for the feast, robes of watered satin, the house of the great becomes as it were the Maqâmât of Harîrî.

3. In the perfection of the grace of stature and the beauty of face, the section of the anthology of beauty is the vizier of that king. (The meaning of the couplet is not fully clear.)

4. If the burning of the heart is the dog days of the year of love, in the cold sigh of that year the time of the sun (or of the month of Mihr) has come. (The meaning of the second line is not certain.)

5. This flood of tears and my sighs all refer back to that moon-cheeked one; the two blood-shedding eyes shaped like the letter hâ are its pronoun.

6. From the yield of the field of the heart tax is collected without pause; no stamp is struck on the coins of the eye's tears, they are state property.

7. For one who, like Sâhib, finds no leaven of pleasure in the world's piece of bread, the (bread) of this oven is neither leavened nor unleavened.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Words from six fields, from astronomy to baking, meet in this ghazal. Each couplet takes its words from another field: astronomy (sipihr, hurşîd), literary history (the Maqâmât), the calendar (eyyâm-ı bâhur, sâl), Arabic grammar (râci', zamîr), public finance (tahsîl, mâl-i mîrî) and baking (hamîr, fatîr). Topal records the second couplet as the place where the poet mentions festive dress and Harîrî's Maqâmât. The wit of the couplet is a pun: "harîr" means silk; mansions full of beauties dressed in silk satins thus become Harîrî's famous Maqâmât. The word "makām" too means both a mansion, a place of residence, and the sections of that book.

The fifth couplet builds a comparison from grammar. In Arabic the third-person pronoun is written with the letter ه (hâ), and because of the two hollows in its middle this letter is called "the two-eyed hâ". The lover's two blood-shedding eyes resemble this letter; all his tears and sighs are "râci'" to the beloved, that is, they refer back to her like a pronoun in grammar. In the sixth couplet the heart is a field whose tax is collected continually; the coins of tears are state property on which no stamp is struck. Tax collection and state revenue belonged to a world Sâhib knew well, having spent part of his life as a judge and in state service.

"Eyyâm-ı bâhur" in the fourth couplet is the name used in old almanacs for the hottest days of summer; the burning of the heart is likened to these days. The pen-name couplet turns the world into an oven: for one who cannot find the leaven of pleasure, the bread of this oven is neither leavened nor unleavened, that is, the world gives him no taste in any form.

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. 23 (couplet 2), p. 143, ghazal 45 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 12b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources