Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Bir şūḫ kim temādī-i dil-berlik istemez
Beñzer şu kimseye ki mu‘ammerlik istemez
Ref‘-i ser itme el viricek pāy-būs-ı yār
Ol pāye-i refī‘ sebük-serlik istemez
Ḫūbān-ı dehr ber-ṭaraf olursa da yine
Mīzān-ı ḥüsn-i yār ber-ā-berlik istemez
‘Uşşāḳa ‘aczdür yaḳışan Kūh-kense de
Meydān-ı ‘aşḳ zūr-ı dil-āverlik istemez
Ṣāḥib ġubār-ı dehr ile āḫir kederlenür
Anlar ki rūy-ı yāre ḫaṭ-āverlik istemez

In English

1. A flirt who does not want his beauty to last long is like a person who does not want a long life.

2. When you are allowed to kiss the beloved's foot, do not raise your head; that lofty rank does not suffer light-headedness.

3. Even if the beauties of the world are set aside, the scale of the beloved's beauty still admits no equal.

4. Even for Farhad the mountain-digger, what befits lovers is helplessness; the field of love does not want the strength of valour.

5. Sâhib, those who do not want down to grow on the beloved's face are grieved at last by the dust of time.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fourth couplet turns one of the strongest lovers of divan poetry, Farhad who pierced mountains, against his usual role. Farhad, who dug through Mount Bîsütun to win Shirin, is the symbol of strength and resolve; Sâhib says instead that in the field of love this strength is of no use and that what befits the lover is helplessness. Even were he Farhad, it is not the lover's pickaxe but his helplessness that has value. This is a view of love that puts forward not a show of strength before the beloved but submission.

The redif (refrain) "-erlik istemez" rejects a quality in each couplet: the duration of beauty, long life, light-headedness, equality, valour and the bringing of down. In the second couplet there is a play of sound between "pây" (foot) and "pâye" (rank); leave to kiss the beloved's foot is a high rank, and such a rank does not suffer the raising of the head, or levity. "Sebük-ser" literally means "light-headed"; so one who raises his head commits levity twice over.

The opening and pen-name couplets express the same thought about time from two sides. A beauty who does not want his beauty to last resembles one who wants to shorten his life; and lovers who do not want the down to appear are grieved by the "gubâr" that time brings. "Gubâr" is both dust and the fine script to which the down is likened; the dust of time will in the end settle on the beloved's face as well.

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. 152, ghazal 54 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 22b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 9b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 14b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources