Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Ahreb (the edition gives only the name of the pattern)

Ṣāḥib sözünüñ netīcesin idrāk it
Ṣaḥn-ı dilüñi gerd-i riyādan pāk it
Olduñ çü reh-i na‘t-ı resūle sālik
Düzd-i süḫan u sehv ü ḫaṭādan pāk it

In English

1. Sâhib, grasp where your words will lead; cleanse the courtyard of your heart of the dust of hypocrisy.

2. Since you have become a traveller on the road of praising the Prophet, cleanse (your words) of plagiarism, of slips and of errors.

Literary and Historical Commentary

This two-couplet kıt‘a stands near the opening of the divan, on folio 3a of the Ali Emîrî copy, and reads like a preparation for a naat, a poem in praise of the Prophet. The poet addresses himself: whoever sets out on the road of praising the Prophet must first cleanse his heart of hypocrisy and then his words of fault. It is customary for a divan to open with a münâcât (prayer) and a naat; Sâhib's divan too opens with a kaside that is a münâcât. That the kıt‘a stands beside these opening poems suggests it was written as counsel the poet gave himself before speaking a naat, though the thesis does not discuss its exact place in the divan.

The phrase "düzd-i sühan" in the second couplet deserves attention. Word for word it means "thief of words", and in divan poetry it is used of a poet who passes off another's find as his own; what we would call plagiarism today. On the road of the naat the poet ranks this fault with the slip (sehv) and the error (hatâ). One who undertakes to praise a sacred subject must take care that his words are both his own and true.

The kıt‘a is a verse form without an opening rhymed couplet, built of at least two couplets, in which only the second lines of the couplets rhyme. Here both rhyming lines end with the refrain "pâk it" (make clean), and the rhyme is heard not between "idrâk" and "hatâdan" but in the repetition of the refrain. The edition names the metre only as "Ahreb"; this points to the ahreb branch of the hezec metre, also used in rubais.

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. 221, kıt‘a 1 (Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 3a; Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 1b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014

Online sources