Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Aracı birleti (?) mefhūmunı eyler rūşen
Fi’l-meṡel āteş ü ābuñ arasında revġan
Nīk ü bed her kişi elbette bulur eyledügin
Riṣte eyler aña neylerse ḳumāşe sūzen
Maẓhar-ı mā-ṣadaḳ-ı ye’s-i şedīd olmaġla
Ne olursa yine ālāt-ı cefādur āhen
Ḳalmaz ac bāb-ı tevekkülde gülū-yı meftūḥ
Pertev-i mihr olur ol vech ile rızḳ-ı revzen
Çekicek ‘ālemi ḳassām-ı ḳażā taḳsīme
Lālenüñ ḥiṣṣesi dāġ oldı gülüñ pāyı diken
Muḳsem-i ḳısmet-i insān ile ḥayvān oldı
Ḳışr ile lübbü temiz itmek ile pervīzen
Bī-tekellüf ḳaba elfāẓla Ṣāḥib bu ġazel
Beñzer ol şūḫ-ı ḳabā pūşa k’ola nāzik-ten

In English

1. A mediator makes plain the meaning of joining (?); for example, oil between fire and water. The opening words of the couplet remain uncertain in the edition too, and the sense can be given only approximately.

2. Good or bad, everyone surely finds what he has done; whatever the needle does to the cloth, the thread does to the needle.

3. Being the very embodiment of severe despair (or of great might), iron, whatever shape it takes, is still an instrument of cruelty.

4. The open throat does not stay hungry at the door of trust in God; in this way the light of the sun becomes the sustenance of the window.

5. When the divider of fate set about apportioning the world, the tulip's share was a brand mark, the rose's portion a thorn.

6. By cleaning bran from kernel, the sieve became the divider of the portions of man and beast (the kernel to man, the bran to the beast).

7. Sâhib, this ghazal in plain, coarse words resembles that coquette in a robe (kabâ) whose body is delicate.

Literary and Historical Commentary

There is hardly any love in this ghazal; most of its couplets are built like maxims, and each draws a lesson from an everyday object. The needle of couplet two pierces the cloth, and the thread, passing through the needle's eye, pierces the needle in turn: everyone finds what he has done. The window (revzen) of couplet four is like a beggar who opens his mouth at the door of trust in God, and its sustenance comes to it as sunlight. The sieve of couplet six, setting aside the kernel of the wheat for man and the bran for the beast, works like a judge who hands out each one's portion.

The word "kassâm" in the fifth couplet comes from Sâhib's own profession. In Ottoman courts the kassâm was the official who divided a dead man's estate among the heirs. The poet likens fate to such an officer of inheritance: when the world was shared out, a black scar fell to the tulip and a thorn to the rose. The black spot in the middle of the tulip is called in divan poetry its "dâğ" (brand mark).

Where "şedîd" stands beside "âhen" (iron), the Qur'anic verse about iron comes to mind; in the sura of Iron (al-Hadid) iron is said to hold "be’sun şedîd", great might. The edition reads the word as "ye’s" (despair); in Arabic script the two words differ only by their dots, and the link with the verse makes the reading "be’s" seem likely. This is a suggestion; the text has been left as it stands in the edition.

At the close the poet seems to belittle his own ghazal. "Kaba" (coarse) words and "kabâ" (the long robe worn over other clothes) are written alike: the ghazal resembles a beauty with a delicate body inside a thick robe. Its outside is plain, its inside refined. As for the opening couplet, because of the word the thesis gives with a question mark, the couplet as a whole cannot be understood for certain; the example of oil mediating between fire and water, however, is clear.

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. 186, ghazal 85 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 30a; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 14a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 19a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources