Original Ottoman Turkish Text
Ḫāme ki maḳām-ı pāya serle gitmiş
Āḫir bu revişle neyl-i kāma yetmiş
Bir ‘abd-i siyehdi māliki şimdi anı
Taḥrīr içün kitābete ḳaṭ‘ itmiş
In English
1. The pen, which went on its head to the place of the foot, at last by this way of walking attained its desire.
2. It was a black slave; now its master has cut it for kitâbet so as to set it free (tahrîr), that is, trimmed its nib for writing and bound it by a contract of manumission.
Literary and Historical Commentary
The first of Sâhib's three rubais describes the reed pen as a slave, and does so in the terms of Ottoman law on slavery. Darkened with ink, the pen is a "black slave". Its master has "cut" (kat‘) it to "kitâbet" for the sake of "tahrîr". In the language of writing these words mean trimming the pen's nib in order to write: tahrîr is writing, kitâbet the scribe's art, kat‘ the cutting of the nib. In the language of jurisprudence the same words tell another story: tahrîr is the freeing of a slave, kitâbet the contract by which a slave earns his freedom by paying an agreed sum, and kat‘ the settling of that sum. A single line thus describes both a scene of writing and a contract of manumission.
The first couplet shows how the pen moves as it writes. Where a man walks with his feet, the pen goes with its head, its nib; this humble walk, head to the ground, has at last brought it to its desire. The cutting of the pen's head is an image found in many of Sâhib's ghazals; here the severed head becomes the start of the road to freedom.
The thesis records no metre for this rubai; the text comes from folio 23a of the Istanbul University manuscript T. 738 and is not seen in any other copy.
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. 222, rubai 1 (Istanbul University Library T. 738, fol. 23a). https://openaccess.firat.edu.tr/handle/11508/16014
Online sources
