Original Persian Text

Istanbul 1306 printing, ghazal 65; the fifth couplet is not given in the source.

Metre: Mefʿūlü fāʿilātü mefāʿīlü fāʿilün

Ger leşker-i ʿadū büved ez-Ḳāf tā be-Ḳāf
B’illāh ki hîç rūy nemî tābem ez-maṣāf
Çün āfitāb ẓulmet-i küfr ez-cihān berem
Gāhî ki ṣubḥ-ı tîġ birūn ārem ez-ġılāf
Ger naʿra ber-keşed zi-ciger şîr-i ner be-ceng
Dūzem dileş be-sūzen-i peykān-ı cān-şikāf
Ger rū-be-rū şeved be-geh-i rezm müddeʿî
Dāned ki nîst daʿvā-i merdān zi-rūy-ı lāf
Der-pîş-i tîġ ü tîr ʿadū pāydār nîst
Kār-ı zirihgerān neküned her-i ḥaṣır-bāf
Dāred ḥasūd kîn Selîmî vü gerne hest
Mā-rā be-mis̱l-i āyine-i tîġ sîne-ṣāf

In English

1. Even if the enemy's army stretched from Qaf to Qaf (from one end of the world to the other), I swear by God that I would not turn my face from battle.

2. When I draw my sword, shining like the dawn, from its scabbard, I lift the darkness of unbelief from the world like the sun.

3. If a male lion roars from his breast in battle, I stitch up his heart with the needle of my life-splitting arrowhead.

4. If a claimant meets us face to face in the hour of battle, he learns that the claim of manliness is not made with boasting.

6. The enemy cannot stand before sword and arrow; not every mat-weaver can do the work of armourers.

7. Though our heart is pure like the mirror of a sword, the envious foe bears a grudge against Selîmî.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of seven couplets; it is number 65 in the Istanbul 1306 printing. Seda Aydın quotes it as an example of the single-themed ghazals describing battle and notes that she omitted only the fifth couplet because it contains no description of war; six couplets therefore appear here. It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is formed by the sound "-āf" in "Ḳāf, maṣāf, ġılāf, şikāf, lāf, bāf, ṣāf". By our scansion it is in the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre). The pen name (mahlas) appears in 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.

The opening couplet also appears in Latîfî's biographical anthology of poets (tezkire). Having described how Selim would not turn away from a thousand foes in the battle line even if the world were filled with enemies from end to end, Latîfî quotes this opening couplet as one of his "eş'âr-ı şecâ'at-şi'âr", poems breathing valour, and calls it "the account of his own state and the witness to the truth of his words". In Latîfî's Arabic-script text the second line is different: با لله سرمپیچم ازو هیچ در مصاف (in our reading "Bi'llâh ser me-pîçem ez-û hîç der maṣāf", by God I never turn my head from him in battle). Rıdvan Canım translated the couplet as "Even if the enemy's army reached from Qaf to Qaf, by God I would not turn my face from that battle."

Meaning and Figures of Speech

Qaf is the legendary mountain that in old belief encircles the world, and the phrase "from Qaf to Qaf" means the whole world. In the second couplet the sword leaving its scabbard is likened to the break of dawn and unbelief to the darkness dispersed by the sun; simile and congruence of images (tenasüp: āfitāb, ẓulmet, ṣubḥ) work together. In the third couplet the arrowhead is likened to a needle, and the expression "stitching up" the lion's heart creates a hyperbolic hunting scene. The saying in the sixth couplet, "not every mat-weaver can do the work of armourers", conveys through a craft image that the enemy is a novice in the art of war. In the last couplet the image of the sword as a mirror unites polished steel and inner purity in one word; since old mirrors were themselves made of polished metal, the image is apt. Aydın counts that in the ghazals of the Istanbul printing the word "tîġ" (sword) occurs 14 times and "tîr" (arrow) 5 times; this ghazal is the densest example of that martial vocabulary.

Bibliography

Online sources