Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün

Bilürmen çihremüñ rengin çemende za‘ferān görgec
Gözümdin ṣanuram düşmişdürür her yerde ḳan görgec
Ḳararur gözlerüm başuma sevdālar çaḳar her dem
Perīşān kākülüñ zülfüñ kemendin nāgehān görgec
Çenārından çeker el servden ümīd ḳaṭ‘ eyler
Boyuñ reftārın ey serv-i ḫırāmān bāġbān görgec
Senüñ şemşīrüñ üzre cān virürse yoḳ ‘aceb göñlüm
Bilürsin kim n’olur ḥāli susuz āb-ı revān görgec
Basīrī yüzüñe ḳarşu göñül aḥvālini söyler
‘Aceb mi söylese dīvāne māh-ı āsumān görgec

In English

1. When I see saffron in the meadow, I recognise the colour of my face; when I see blood everywhere, I think it has fallen from my eyes. (The yellow of saffron is the lover's pale face, the blood his bloody tears.)

2. When I suddenly see the lasso of your dishevelled forelock and curls, my eyes grow dark and passions strike my head every moment. ("Sevda" means both the passion of love and black bile, which old medicine held to cause madness; hence it follows the black locks.)

3. O swaying cypress, when the gardener sees the gait of your stature, he withdraws his hand from his plane tree and gives up hope of the cypress.

4. If my heart gives up its life upon your sword, it is no wonder; you know what becomes of a thirsty man when he sees running water. (The gleam of a blade is called its "water"; the thirsty lover longs for this water.)

5. Basîrî speaks the state of his heart before your face; is it strange if a madman talks on seeing the moon in the sky? (Madness was believed to be bound to the moon, and the beloved's face is likened to the moon.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The redif (refrain word) is "görgec", that is, "on seeing"; the rhyme is the sound "-ān": za‘ferān, ḳan, nāgehān, bāġbān, revān, āsumān. The form "Gözümdin" in the first couplet is an example of the ablative suffix "-din" that Kartal points to as a feature of Chagatai Turkish in Basîrî's Turkish; from such traces Kartal concludes that the poet was a Turk of Central Asian origin, but the biographical anthologies of poets (tezkire) do not agree on where he came from. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number X in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

In every couplet of the ghazal the lover sees something and ties it to his own condition; the refrain "görgec" carries this gaze from couplet to couplet. In the first couplet the yellow of the saffron in the garden reminds the lover of his own pale face, and the redness he sees everywhere of the bloody tears flowing from his eyes. The contrast drawn between saffron and blood, yellow and red, brings together two familiar signs of the lovesick in divan poetry, the face drained of colour and the bloody tear.

In the second couplet the beloved's black, dishevelled hair is likened to a lasso; when the lover suddenly sees it his eyes grow dark and "sevdālar çaḳar", passions strike his head. Because the word sevda means both the passion of love and black bile, it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the darkening eye and the black hair. In the third couplet the gardener, seeing the beloved's stature and gait, gives up hope of the plane tree and the cypress in his garden, for no tree is a cypress as straight and as gracefully moving as this stature. "Serv-i ḫırāmān", the walking cypress, is among the most frequent comparisons for the beloved's stature in divan poetry.

The fourth couplet rests on the old comparison between the sword and water. Since the sheen on the surface of a bright blade was called its "water", the lover's heart giving up its life upon the sword is likened to a thirsty man running to flowing water. Death is presented here as a wish for union. In the closing couplet Basîrî cannot keep from telling his state before the beloved's face. The old belief linking the moon and madness gives the couplet its wit: the madman talks when he sees the moon, and the lover when he sees the moon-faced beloved. Because the beloved's face is likened to the moon, this talk becomes at once a symptom of madness and a confession of love.

Bibliography

Online sources