Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Düşdi zülfüñde dil ey yār şikenden şikene
Gitse lāyıḳdur o sevdā ile Çīn ü Ḫotana
İtmiş iṡbāt tecrīde(?) leb-i yāri delīl
Āferīn noḳṭa-ı mevhūme dinilür dehene
Ḳīl ü ḳāl ehli kimi hāle didi kimi çemen
Raḳam-ı ṣun‘ dirüz biz ḫaṭṭ-ı ‘anber-şikene
Kāküli dām-ı belā ‘ārıżı mir’at-ı ṣafā
Beñzer ol şām-ı ġarībāne bu ṣubḥ-ı vaṭana
Tār u pūd olsa n’ola penbe-i nūrı mehden
Ṣāḥibā ol büti āġūşa çeken pīrehene

In English

1. O beloved, the heart has fallen into your curls, from twist to twist; it would be fitting if, with that passion, it went off to China and Khotan (the lands of musk).

2. Citing the beloved's lip as evidence, he has proved "tecrîd" (?); bravo, that mouth is called an "imagined point" (a point that exists only in the mind). The word in the first line is doubtful in the edition too, so what is being proved is left uncertain.

3. The people of idle talk called (the down) now a halo, now a meadow; we call that ambergris-shaming down "the writing of creation".

4. Her forelock is a snare of calamity, her cheek a mirror of joy; the one is like the evening of strangers, the other like the morning of the homeland.

5. O Sâhib, what wonder if the cotton of moonlight becomes the warp and weft of the shirt that embraces that idol?

Literary and Historical Commentary

The fourth couplet likens two things on the beloved's face to two different hours. The forelock is dark and binding, a snare of calamity; it resembles the "şâm-ı garîbân", the evening of strangers, of those fallen far from home. The cheek is a bright mirror and is like the "subh-ı vatan", the morning of the homeland. The sorrow of an evening in exile and the ease of one who wakes in his own land carry the contrast of black hair and white cheek. Sâhib's life is known to have included years of banishment; but since it is not known when the ghazal was written, there is no ground for linking the expression to the poet's own exile.

At the start there is a bridge between "şiken" (curl) and the word "Çîn". Çîn is both the name of China and a word for fold or curl; China and Khotan are, for divan poets, the lands of musk. The heart that has fallen into the curls of the hair is already inclined to travel to the homeland of musk-scented hair.

The second couplet speaks in the language of the books of theology and logic. "Nokta-i mevhûme" is the point that exists only in the mind, without dimension; the beloved's mouth is so small that it can only be counted such a point. The thesis could not read the word in the first line for certain either, so it is not clear what is proved by citing the lip as "evidence".

Two likenesses that others have found for the down, the halo round the moon and the meadow grass, are judged inadequate in couplet three; the poet counts the down a writing (rakam-ı sun‘) that has come from God's pen of creation. At the close the old belief about moonlight and linen is turned this time in a gentle direction: moonlight becomes cotton and enters the weave of the shirt that wraps the beloved.

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. 192, ghazal 91 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 31b; Istanbul University Library T. 1710/6, fol. 15a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 20a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources