Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: Mefâilün feilâtün mefâilün feilün. Fatîn names no metre; the pattern was identified for this page.

İdince gönlümü dîvâne ârzûy-ı bahâr
Müselsel oldu zebânımda güft-gûy-ı bahâr
Kalırdı elde misâl-i şemâme-i anber
Rübûde olmasa çevgân-ı çarha-gûy-ı bahâr
Fedâ idüp bizi gitmişdi şimdi güller açup
Kızardı hâcalet-avdetle sanki rûy-ı bahâr
O serv-i kâmeti bâğ-ı hayâle aldıkça
Döker sirişkini Sîret-misâl cûy-ı bahâr
Duâ-yı bülbüle âmîn-hân olup mürgân
Açıldı müşteri-i aşka çarsû-yı bahâr

In English

1. When longing for spring drove my heart mad, talk of spring ran on my tongue in an unbroken chain. (It also alludes to the custom of chaining madmen: "müselsel" means both continuous and chained.)

2. Had the polo stick of fate not carried off the ball of spring, it would have stayed in the hand like a ball of ambergris. (The çevgân is the curved stick of polo played on horseback; the "şemâme" is a scented ball carried in the hand.)

3. Spring had abandoned us and gone; now, as the roses open, the face of spring seems to blush with the shame of its return.

4. Whenever that cypress-tall beloved enters the garden of imagination, the stream of spring sheds tears like Sîret.

5. The birds saying "amen" to the nightingale's prayer, the market of spring has opened to the customer of love.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Spring That Leaves and Returns

Sîret makes spring speak like a beloved: first it is longed for, then it slips away, then it returns in shame. The little story is plainest in the second and third couplets. The polo stick of fate has carried off the ball of spring; otherwise spring would have stayed in one's palm like a ball scented with ambergris. In the third couplet spring is a faithless one who abandoned the lover and left, and on its return the redness of the opening roses is taken for its face blushing with shame. This interpretation, which ties the colour of the rose to a blush of shame, is a neat example of what divan poetry calls "hüsn-i ta'lil", the giving of a fanciful cause. What holds the story together is "bahâr" (spring), the redif (refrain word) that returns in every couplet; the rhyme gathers in the "-û" sound before it: ârzû, güft-gû, gûy, rûy, cûy, çarsû. Because an izafet construction is formed before the refrain in almost every couplet, what stays in the ear is the sound sequence "-û-yı bahâr".

Wordplay and the Pen Name

The opening couplet (matla) binds two words together: "dîvâne" and "müselsel". By old custom madmen were put in chains; the words on the tongue of the poet, driven mad by longing for spring, likewise flow "in a chain", that is, without a break. The whole second couplet is built on the terms of polo: "çevgân" the stick, "gûy" the ball, and "çarh" both fate and the turning wheel.

The pen name appears one couplet earlier than its usual place in ghazals, in the fourth couplet. The cypress-tall beloved entering the garden of imagination makes the stream of spring flow like Sîret's tears; the cypress standing by the water prepares the ground for comparing the poet's weeping to a stream. In the last couplet the birds say "amen" to the nightingale's prayer, and the market of spring opens to the customers of love. Fatîn's tezkire does not say whether the ghazal is complete or a selection of couplets; the absence of the pen name at the end also raises the possibility that the text consists of selected couplets.

Source

The ghazal is found only in Fatîn Dâvud's Hâtimetü'l-Eş'âr, immediately before the short record of the poet's life; Fatîn made it his method to give the poets' verses before their lives. The ghazal "Âşık-ı şûrîde-hâliz zârdır eglencemiz", which comes right after the record and also bears the pen name "Sîret", belongs, by the arrangement of the tezkire, to the next poet, Şehbâz Girây Sultân. The poet's judgeships and family are covered on the Saîd Sîret Bey page.

Bibliography

Online sources