Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Çerb-i şīrīn yiyerek la‘l-i şeker-fāmından
Seyr-i kām itdi o meh-rū bizi düşnāmından
Çıḳarup cāmesin ol meh giricek ḫamāme
Rūḥ-ı ‘üşşāḳ-ı ta‘arrī ider ecsāmından
Mess içün ḫāl-i ruḫ-ı dil-beri mānend-i gül-āb
‘Anber āteşlere düşdi ṭamā‘-ı ḫāmından
Zāl olur Rüstem-i devrān ise de ‘āşıḳ-ı zār
Rūz-ı bāḫur-ı firāḳuñ eṡer-i Sāmından
Bundan añla gül-i maḥż olduġın ol şūḫuñ kim
Pür olur güller ile mihr-i eṡer-i nāmından
Sāde-rūluḳla ber-ā-ber dem-i ḫaṭ naḫvet-i yār
Ṣubḥ-ı eyyām-ı ġamuñ farḳı yoḳ aḫşāmından
Ṣāḥib ol kākül-i ḫam-der-ḫam-ı ‘anber-şikenüñ
Murġ-ı dil bāl açamaz vāhime-i dāmından

In English

1. As if eating a sweet, rich morsel from his sugar-coloured ruby lip, that moon-faced one filled us with his curses.

2. When that moon takes off his shirt and enters the bath, the lovers' souls strip themselves of their bodies.

3. Ambergris fell into the fires out of a raw greed to touch, like rosewater, the mole on the beloved's cheek.

4. Though the weeping lover be the Rüstem of his age, he becomes Zâl (white-haired and old) through the effect of the Sâm of separation's dog days.

5. Know from this that that coquette is pure rose: by the effect of his name the sun is filled with roses. This line does not fully settle into sense; in one copy the couplet is different.

6. The beloved's pride is the same when his face is smooth and when his down has come; the morning of the days of grief is no different from their evening. The couplet may be understood this way, but the construction of the first line is obscure.

7. Sâhib, the bird of the heart cannot spread its wings for fear of the snare of that curl upon curl, ambergris-shaming lock of hair.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fourth couplet plays with the family tree of the Shahnama. In the epic Sâm is the father of Zâl, and Zâl the father of Rüstem; Zâl received his name because his hair was snow-white at birth, and in Persian the word means an old, white-haired man. Sâhib runs the line backwards: the lover, a champion who is the Rüstem of his age, turns through the effect of separation's "Sâm" into Zâl, that is, into his own father and a white-haired old man. The "days of bahur" (eyyâm-ı bahur) are the hottest days of summer; "Sâm" may also call that scorching heat to mind here, though the text does not state this second sense openly.

The second couplet takes place in the bathhouse. The moment the beloved takes off his shirt and enters the bath, the lovers' souls too "undress" from their bodies; "ta‘arrî" means to be left naked, to be stripped of something. The act of undressing passes from beloved to lover, and the soul's leaving the body stands in place of death. The bath scene adds to the everyday Istanbul details seen in other poems by Sâhib.

The poem opens by likening the beloved's abuse to a sweet dish: the curse that comes from the sugar-coloured lip fills the lover. That the beloved's bitter words taste sweet because of the lip is a well-known conceit of divan poetry. The fall of ambergris into fire in couplet three is what really happens to ambergris burned in a censer; the poet presents it as the punishment of greed. Like rosewater, the ambergris wished to touch the beloved's cheek, and for this raw desire it was thrown into the fire. Between "raw" (hâm) and "fire" the idea of being cooked can also be sensed.

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. 185, ghazal 84 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 30a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 14a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 19b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources