Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

Şarılup boynuna ol serv-i bülendin tāḳ ol
Sür yüziñ pāyına düş cūy-ṣıfat bī-bāḳ ol
Dil-i sengīnine yārüñ eser itsüñ nālen
Seng-dile o perī sen de dilā hakkāk ol
Şevḳ-i la‘liyle ne başlar yarılur cānānuñ
Nāṭır-ı ḥāl-i şikeste serī-i misvāk ol
Ḳasduñ ol ṭūṭī-i şeker-fem ile ṣoḥbet ise
Şevḳ-i āġūş ile mānend-i ḳafes ṣad-çāk ol
Çirk-i dünyāyı ḳoma ḳīseñe ey ṭālib-i şevḳ
Ṣarf ḳıl döke saça hem-ṣıfat-ı dellāk ol
Bilmesünler seni kimse dir iseñ ol iḥsān
Ġaraẓuñ raġbet-i ye’s ise eger imsāk ol
Düşmen-i devlet-i dünyā olayum dirseñ eger
Sen de bu ‘aṣrda Ṣāḥib hüner ü idrāk ol

In English

1. Wind yourself around the neck of that tall cypress and be a vine (tâk); fall at its foot like a stream, rub your face there, and be fearless.

2. Let your moaning leave its mark on the beloved's stony heart; O heart, to that stone-hearted fairy you too be an engraver of stone (hakkâk).

3. How many heads are split by longing for the beloved's ruby lip; be you too the head of a misvak, keeper of a broken state (split like the frayed end of the tooth-stick, so that it may touch that lip).

4. If your aim is to converse with that sugar-mouthed parrot, be torn in a hundred places like a cage, out of desire for an embrace.

5. O seeker of delight, do not keep the dirt of the world in your purse (your bath mitt); spend it, pouring and scattering, like a bath attendant.

6. If you say "let no one know of you", be that kindness itself (give in secret); if your aim is a liking for despair, then hold back. The second line does not yield a sure meaning; with one copy's reading "nâs" it may also run "if your aim is the people's approval, do not give".

7. Sâhib, if you say "let me be the enemy of worldly fortune", then in this age you too become skill and understanding (for in this age talent and luck do not meet).

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fifth couplet turns the whole equipment of the bathhouse into a piece of advice. "Kîse" is both a purse and the coarse mitt with which dirt is scrubbed off in the bath; the attendant (dellâk) does not keep the dirt he scrubs off, he shakes it away. The poet likens worldly wealth to that dirt: do not hoard it in your purse, spend it, scattering it as the bath attendant does. One copy reads "sîneñe" (in your breast) in place of "kîseñe", and in that copy the couplet was added later in the margin; the bathhouse image is complete only with the reading "kîse".

The refrain "ol" is a command, and each couplet tells the lover to become something else: a vine, a stone engraver, a tooth-stick, a cage, a bath attendant, finally a man of skill. The "tâk" of the first couplet is the vine that winds around the cypress's neck; cypress and vine, stream and cypress are well-known pairs of the divan garden, and the stream flows rubbing its face at the cypress's foot. The thesis spells the word with a qāf; since all the other rhyme words end in kāf, the reading "vine" seems the more likely one, though the choice is ours.

The misvak of couplet three is the twig used to clean the teeth, whose end is beaten until it splits into fibres. It alone touches the beloved's lip, and because its head is split it can stand for the lovers whose heads are split by longing for that lip. The parrot of the next couplet is the beloved; if the wires of the cage are torn, the bird comes down into the embrace.

The pen-name couplet carries a bitter observation from an eighteenth-century judge: in this age, whoever wishes to be the enemy of fortune needs only skill and understanding. That skill and good fortune never go together is a frequent complaint of divan poets; one copy reads "devlet ü ikbâl" (fortune and prosperity) in place of "devlet-i dünyâ".

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. 172, ghazal 71 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 26b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 11b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources