Original Persian Text

Istanbul 1306 printing, couplets 5 and 7 of ghazal 2; the full ghazal is not given in the source.

Be-taḫt-ı Ḳayṣer u Kāvūs nîst māʾil dil
Çü āsitāne-i dost būdeest müyesser-i mā
Selîm ḫaṣm-ı dilet ez-çi dāned în ḥālet
Ki ez-ẓuhūr-ı İlāhîst fetḥ-i leşker-i mā

In English

5. The heart does not incline to the throne of Caesar and Kāvūs, for the threshold of the beloved has been granted to us.

7. O Selîm, the victory of our army comes from the manifestation of God; how should the enemy of your heart know this state.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

These two couplets are the fifth and seventh couplets of ghazal 2 in the Istanbul 1306 printing of the Dīvān. Seda Aydın quotes this couplet in her article showing how Selîmî combines the identity of the sultan with that of the lover in his Persian ghazals, placing one under the material emblems of sovereignty (the throne) and the other under the vocabulary of war and conquest. The rhyme is formed by "-er" in "müyesser" and "leşker", and the redif (refrain word) by the suffix "-i mā" (our). In the seventh couplet the poet names himself "Selîm" rather than by his pen name (mahlas); since the source does not say how many couplets the ghazal has, we do not know whether this is the last couplet. Selîmî's life, his Persian divan and the debate over his Turkish poems are discussed in detail in Yavuz Sultan Selim (Selîmî) and his poems.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The fifth couplet mentions Caesar (the title of the Byzantine and Roman emperors) and Kāvūs, the legendary shah of Iran in the Shahname; the allusion (telmih) fits the two great traditions of empire into one line. A contrast is set up between the throne and the threshold (āsitāne) of the beloved. In divan poetry the threshold is the lowly place where the lover rubs his face, but here it is valued above the highest throne. In the seventh couplet victory is attributed to a manifestation of God. The "enemy of the heart" (ḫaṣm-ı dil) may be understood as the rival or as one's own lower self. The same ghazal thus contains both the superiority of love's threshold over the throne and the victory of the army. The double identity that Aydın calls the sultan-poet is clearly visible between these two couplets.

Bibliography

Online sources