Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Metre: Fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün
Aldıġın maḥbereden levḥa virir ḫāme hemān
Eli kiriyle yüzi ḳarasıdur aña ḳalan
In English
1. Whatever the pen takes from the inkwell it gives at once to the page; what is left to it is the dirt on its hand and the blackness of its face.
Literary and Historical Commentary
In this couplet the reed pen becomes an open-handed but luckless go-between. It takes ink from the inkwell and at once gives it all to the paper, keeping nothing back; all that remains to it is the stain of ink at its tip. The poet names this stain with two Turkish idioms: "the dirt of his hand" and "the blackness of his face". The second means shame and disgrace. In the hands of one who does others' work and gives away what he earns, likewise, only dirt and a blackened face remain.
The couplet may also have a satirical side. In Ottoman administration "kalem" (pen) was also the name of the scribes and of government offices; cases in which clerks who wrote for others and recorded others' property were counted "dirty-handed" may not have escaped the poet's eye. Yet pulling the couplet in this direction would claim more than the text says; what is clear is the contrast between the pen's generosity and its fate. This matla appears in two copies, T. 738 and the Ali Emîrî copy. In Sâhib's divan, as in the first rubai where it is described as a black slave, the pen is often a being that pays the price of its own work.
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. 223, matla 3 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 3b; Millet Library, Ali Emîrî Manzum 243, fol. 37b). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
