Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Leṭāfetde o şūḫ-ı ‘işve-cū kim ābdan ḳalmaz
Dil-i nālān u ser-geşte daḫı dolābdan ḳalmaz
Helāk-i ḫançer-i müjgānıyam ol şūḫ-ı bī-raḥmuñ
Ḥikāyem dāstān-ı Rüstem ü Sührābdan ḳalmaz
Gehī dil-ḫāhum üzre dönse de çarḫ-ı ‘adū-ṣūret
Derūna itmede īrās̱-ı ġam-ı aḥbābdan ḳalmaz
Dil-i pür-sūzı ṣaḳlar cism-i zārum āh-ı serdümden
Ki ḫākister vücūd-ı āteşe sincābdan ḳalmaz
Faḳat çeşmüm degül ḫūn-ı dil-i ṣad-pāreme mücrih
Benüm her zaḫm-ı sīnem bir güşāde bābdan ḳalmaz
Olup aḫter-şümār-ı şām-ı firḳat fikr-i ḫālüñle
Yed-i endīşede levḥ-i dil usṭurlābdan ḳalmaz
O şūḫuñ eylesem taḥrīr-i vaṣf-ı vaż‘-ı hem-vārın
Varaḳ destümde Ṣāḥib nüsḫa-i ādābdan ḳalmaz

In English

1. That coquetry-seeking flirt is no less than water in grace; the moaning, giddy heart too is no less than the waterwheel.

2. I am one slain by the dagger of the lashes of that merciless flirt; my story is no less than the epic of Rustam and Sohrab.

3. Even if the enemy-faced wheel of heaven sometimes turns as my heart wishes, it never fails to bring the grief of friends into my heart.

4. My feeble body hides the burning heart from my cold sigh; for an ash-coloured body is no less than squirrel fur to a fire.

5. It is not only my eye that makes the blood of my hundred-pieced heart flow; each wound of my breast is no less than an open door.

6. Counting the stars of the evening of separation with the thought of your mole, the tablet of the heart in the hand of thought is no less than an astrolabe.

7. Sâhib, if I wrote a description of the graceful manner of that flirt, the leaf in my hand would be no less than a book of good manners.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Opening the ghazals of the divan that end in the letter "z", this poem uses the redif (refrain) "-âbdan kalmaz" as a tool of comparison: in each couplet something "is no less than" another thing named, it matches it. The rhyme words are chosen from fields far apart: water (âb), the waterwheel, Rustam and Sohrab, friends (ahbâb), the squirrel, the door (bâb), the astrolabe and good manners (âdâb). In the opening couplet the moaning heart is likened to the waterwheel that moans as it turns. The creak of the waterwheel is a known sound likened to moaning in divan poetry, and the word "dolap" also expresses endless turning.

The second couplet recalls one of the saddest tales in Firdawsî's Shâhnâma: Rustam killing his own son Sohrab without knowing who he was. The lover's death by the dagger of the beloved's lashes is set equal to the grief of this unknowing killing. The fourth couplet carries an invention about colour and heat: an ash-grey body protects the burning heart from the cold sigh as ash hides the embers beneath it; squirrel fur, grey and warm, is the second face of this comparison.

In the sixth couplet the heart of the lover who counts the stars at night turns into an astrolabe. The astrolabe is a round plate marked with circles and lines, used to measure the height of the stars; the tablet of the heart held in the hand of thought reckons the whole night by the beloved's mole. Last of all, a single leaf describing the beloved's graceful manner is counted equal to a whole book of etiquette.

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. 26 (couplet 2), p. 144, ghazal 46 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 21a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 8b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 14b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources