Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec). The tezkire does not name the metre; the pattern is given by the syllable count of the lines.

Tenimde za‘fdan nâl-ı kalemâsâ ne hâlet var
Ki mûyun kilk ile tasvîr olunmuş resme hâlet var
Sikâl-ı huşkde tefsidde leb-i gülden olup teşne
Hezârâsâ sirişk-efşâni-i sözüm harâret var
Nihâl-ı nâzenîn-kad üzre sanman şâhme ebrû
Livâ-yı hızr-ı sîmin mehcesinde iki âyet var
Cebîni üzre sanman halleri kim bir iki hindû
Şinâverlik ider sîm-âb-ı bahrinde sebâhat var
Meh u mihri müşa‘bid çarhının Sârım yuvarlakdır
Nihân-ı hokka-i leyl u nehâr eyler hayâlet var

In English

1. From weakness my body has become like the reed of a pen; if you only knew my state. I have the look of a picture drawn with a pen made of a single hair.

2. Scorched in a parched place, thirsting for the lip of the rose, my words shed tears like the nightingale, and there is fire in them. (The first word of the line is spelled "Sikâl" in the edition and its meaning is unclear; the translation rests on the rest of the line.)

3. Do not take what you see on that graceful, sapling-tall beloved for eyebrows: they are two verses of scripture written on the silver finial of a green banner. (The reading of the word "şâhme" in the edition is uncertain.)

4. Do not take the moles on her forehead for moles; they are one or two Indians swimming in the sea of that forehead, which shines like quicksilver. There is swimming there.

5. O Sârım, the moon and the sun are the balls of the juggling sky; it hides them in the cups of night and day, and there is sleight of hand in it all.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The Juggling Sky

The ghazal's most memorable image comes in its last couplet. The poet sees the sky as a "müşa‘bid", a juggler who deceives the audience with quick hands. The moon and the sun are its round balls. Just as the juggler makes his balls vanish under the cups, the sky hides them in the "hokka", the cup, of night and of day. That the sun is hidden for one half of the day and the moon for the other is thus turned into a sleight of hand. The hokka is both the juggler's cup and the round dome of night and day. The redif "var" becomes a conclusion in this couplet: "hayâlet var", there is an illusion in all of this. Sârım gives concrete form to the idea of the deceiving sky by likening the coming and going of the moon and the sun to a conjuring trick.

Unusual Comparisons

The other couplets also carry familiar images to unexpected places. That the lover wastes away from weakness is a very common idea in classical Ottoman poetry. Sârım expresses it with two pens: the body has first turned into the reed of a pen, and then it is as thin as a picture drawn with a single hair. In the third couplet the beloved's tall stature is a banner pole, her face the silver finial (mehçe) at the top of the banner, and her eyebrows two verses of scripture inscribed on that finial. Likening the eyebrow to curved writing, even to a Qur'anic verse, is found in the tradition. What is less usual in the couplet is the way the beloved's whole figure, from stature to face, turns into a banner. The "hindû" of the fourth couplet is the established name for a black mole in this poetry. The poet sees the moles as two Indians swimming in the beloved's forehead, white and bright as quicksilver. The word "sebâhat" in the couplet is written in the edition in the sense of "swimming". It may also call to mind "sabâhat", meaning beauty and fairness of face. If such a pun was intended, the couplet ties both the swimming and the whiteness of the forehead to one word; but this is an interpretation.

Fatîn's Verdict

Fatîn Dâvud, who preserved the ghazal, infers Sârım's learning in Arabic and Persian from this poem, but says that he strayed into "a strange valley of his own" and that his poems are not of the kind to be admired. Images such as the juggling sky, the body drawn with a hair pen and the eyebrows written on a banner's finial show what the anthologist meant by "strange". A technical fault also stands out: in the opening couplet the same word "hâlet" is repeated as the rhyme at the end of both lines. Repeating a rhyme word in the same sense is a flaw that the rhyme theory of classical Ottoman poetry calls îtâ; the poet may have meant to soften it by drawing the second "hâlet" toward the sense of "appearance". Since the divan of a poet whom Hüsameddin calls "sâhib-i divân" is lost, it would be wrong to judge all his poetry from these five couplets. The one example we have is less a measured and plain poem than the verse of a teacher looking for novelty in comparison.

Bibliography

Online sources