Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Görince yāri çeşm-i ḫūn-feşānı girye-pāş itdüm
Duyurdum mā-cerā-yı ‘aşḳı bilmezlikle fāş itdüm
O meh dermiş ḫaṭṭumdan ḥüsnüme naḳż oldıġın ṭārī
Tekāsül güne ‘uşşāḳuñ niyāzından tirāş itdüm
Baña raġmen demiş cellād-ı ġamzeñ ey şeh-i ‘işve
Raḳīb-i kīne-cūyı zümre-i ‘uşşāḳa bāş itdüm
Müşābih birbirine iki derd olmaġla ‘ālemde
Süveydā ile ḫālin fülk-i dilde menḳadāş (?) itdüm
O şūḫa ḫayli söz ḥāżırlamışken yine gördükde
Unutdum cümlesin Ṣāḥib velī vaḳf-ı telāş itdüm

In English

1. On seeing the beloved I made my blood-shedding eye scatter tears; I made known the tale of love, and in my inexperience laid it bare.

2. That moon-faced one is said to have said: "When I saw harm coming to my beauty from my down, I shaved it, reluctantly, at the lovers' pleading." The couplet can be understood this way, but the text does not make it certain to whom the word "tekâsül-güne" (lazily, reluctantly) belongs.

3. O king of coquetry, the executioner of your glance is said to have said in spite of me: "I have made the vengeful rival head of the company of lovers."

4. Since there are two troubles in the world that resemble each other, I made the black spot of the heart (süveydâ) and the beloved's mole companions in the ship of the heart. (The word "menkadâş" is read with a question mark in the edition; the sense "hem-kadaş", brother or companion, is our guess.)

5. Sâhib, though I had prepared a great many words for that coquette, when I saw her again I forgot them all, and gave myself over to agitation alone.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The pen-name couplet draws a scene from everyday life of a kind rarely met in divan poetry. The lover has prepared in advance what he will say to the beloved, but when he stands before her it all flies out of his mind and only agitation remains. The phrase "vakf-ı telâş itdüm" uses the language of pious-endowment law: the lover has endowed himself, like a piece of property, to agitation. Legal terms appear often from the pen of Sâhib, who had served as a judge.

A pair of black spots is compared in couplet four. Süveydâ is the black point that old medicine and Sufism placed at the centre of the heart; the mole is the black point on the face. The poet counts the two as troubles that resemble each other and puts them aboard the ship of the heart together. The thesis itself does not settle the reading of the word and sets a question mark beside it; since "kadaş" meant brother in old Turkish the sense may be one of companionship, but this reading rests on a guess.

The second couplet looks at the motif of the down from an unexpected side. Down appearing on the beloved's face is counted as the end of beauty; here the beloved himself speaks and says that he shaved his down at the lovers' request. The lovers' pleading thus becomes a reason that prolongs beauty for a while.

Through two sayings reported from the beloved's side ("demiş", he is said to have said), the ghazal takes on the air of a story; in the second and third couplets the beloved and his glance are made to speak like rumours that reach the lover's ear.

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. 176, ghazal 75 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 27b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 12b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 13b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources