Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Āh itdigüñ o ġonca içün bād işitmesün
Feryāduñ ey gönül ḥaẕer it bād işitmesün
Mānend-i sāye bī-şek olur ḫāk-sār-ı eşk
Vaṣf-ı nihāl-i ḳaddini şimşād işitmesün
Ṣad-sāle ṭā‘atin degişür bir ḳadeḥ meye
Zevḳ-i dü-sāle bādeyi zühhād işitmesün
Elbette yā ḫarāb anı yā vaḳf-ı nāz ider
Zinhār o şūḫ-ı pür-dili ābād işitmesün
Zehr-i ḥad ile ṣıḥḥatini telḫ-kām ider
O ṣāf şehd-i la‘lüñi ḳannād işitmesün
Yārüñ nigāh-ı şefḳatüne mażhar oldıġın
Ṣāḥib saḳın ki ġamze-i cellād işitmesün

In English

1. Let the wind not hear that you sighed for that rosebud; O heart, beware, let the wind not hear your cry.

2. Let the boxwood not hear the praise of the sapling of her stature; it would surely be laid low in the dust of tears like a shadow.

3. Let the ascetics not hear of the pleasure of two-year-old wine; they would trade a hundred years of worship for one cup.

4. Let that daring coquette by no means hear that the heart is thriving; she would surely either lay it waste or endow it to her coquetry.

5. Let the confectioner not hear of the pure honey of your ruby lip; he would make his health bitter with the poison of measureless (envy). (The reading of the word "hadd" in the first line is doubtful, and the sense may change with it.)

6. Sâhib, take care that the executioner glance does not hear you have been granted the beloved's compassionate look.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The refrain "işitmesün" (let it not hear) turns the ghazal into counsel on keeping a secret. In every couplet something must not be heard, for if it is heard a calamity follows: if the wind hears the lover's sigh it carries it to the rosebud, if the boxwood hears the praise of the beloved's stature it falls to the ground in shame, if the ascetic learns the taste of good wine he sells a hundred years of worship. The fear of the "tale-bearer" and the "rival" in divan poetry, the worry that every word about the beloved will reach the wrong ear, gives rise to this language of secrecy.

Boxwood, in couplet two, is one of the trees to which the beloved's stature is likened. Hearing of the sapling whose height is praised, the tree is ashamed of its own and falls to the ground like its shadow; the shadow stretched on the earth becomes the picture of the tree's defeat. The third couplet sets "a hundred years of worship" against "two-year-old wine"; since aged wine is valued by its years, the play of numbers carries the jest of the couplet.

The fourth couplet turns once more to the language of pious endowment that Sâhib liked. If the beloved hears of a thriving heart she will either lay it waste or "endow it to her coquetry"; the heart either becomes a ruin or passes out of its owner's hands to become the beloved's property. Sâhib's closing couplet tells two looks of the beloved apart: one is the compassionate glance, the other the sidelong glance (gamze) that kills like an executioner. The lover fears that the second will hear he has had a share of the first.

The thesis numbers the couplets 1-4 and 6-7; no couplet has dropped out between them, the number 5 has simply been skipped.

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. 182, ghazal 81 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 30a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 13b; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 19b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources