Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fa‘lün

Bu muḳarrer ki cihānda her işüñ var ehli
‘Işḳ ehlin ṣorarısañ benüm ey yār ehli
Sīnesin keff-i terāzū gibi ṭaşlarla döge
Görse ey Yūsuf-ı Mıṣrī seni bāzār ehli
Görseler āteş-i āhum şererin maḥşerde
Ṭamunuñ odına ısına ḳamu nār ehli
‘Ārı bir yaña ḳoyup ‘ışḳuña uydum ṣanma
Ya‘ni kim ‘āşıḳ-ı şeydā olımaz ‘ār ehli
Ey Basīrī göricek zülfine ṭolaşduġuñ
Baġlaya ḫidmetüñe bel ḳamu zünnār ehli

In English

1. It is certain that in this world every task has its masters; if you ask after the masters of love, O beloved, it is I.

2. O Joseph of Egypt, if the people of the market saw you, they would beat their breasts with stones like the pan of a scale. (Stones were placed in the pan of a scale as weights; beating one's breast with a stone is a sign of both wonder and mourning.)

3. If at the Resurrection they saw the sparks of the fire of my sigh, all the people of the fire would be content to warm themselves at the fire of hell. (That is, beside my sigh the fire of hell would seem to them only a fire to warm oneself by.)

4. Do not think I put shame aside and followed your love; I mean that the frenzied lover cannot be one of the people of shame.

5. O Basîrî, when they see you entangled in her locks, all the people of the zünnar will gird their waists in your service. (The zünnar is the girdle Christians and fire-worshippers tied around their waists; it is likened to the curled black lock.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fa‘lün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The redif (refrain word) is "ehli"; the rhyme is the sound "-ār": var, yār, bāzār, nār, ‘ār, zünnār. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XV in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain "ehli", the people or masters of something, turns the ghazal into a list of human companies: the masters of a task, the people of love, the people of the market, the people of the fire, the people of shame and the people of the zünnar. Each couplet sets one of these companies before the lover or the beloved. Kartal cites the opening couplet as the one in which Basîrî introduces himself as one of "the people of love". Every task in the world has its masters, and the master of love is the poet himself; the couplet is built like a claim to expertise.

The second couplet rests on the story of Joseph. Joseph was sold in the market of Egypt and left everyone in wonder at his beauty. The poet says that the people of the market who saw the beloved would beat their breasts with stones, and likens this to the pan of a scale. The congruence of images (tenasüp) between market and scale, stone and pan is apt; since stones were placed in the pan of a scale as weights, a man beating his breast with a stone resembles a pan struck by stones at every moment. In the couplet wonder and mourning are joined in one gesture.

In the third couplet the hyperbole is carried to the scene of the Last Judgement. If the sparks from the lover's sigh were seen at the Resurrection, even the damned would find their own fire mild and be content to warm themselves at it. This play between the people of the fire and the fire of hell shows the heat of the sigh as greater than hell's. The fourth couplet takes up "‘ār", shame and the concern for honour. The lover does not want it thought that he set shame aside to follow love; in his view the frenzied lover cannot in any case be one of the people of shame. Reproach is thus accepted as a natural consequence of being a lover.

The closing couplet uses the familiar likeness between the lock of hair and the zünnar. The zünnar is the twisted girdle non-Muslims tied around their waists; the lock too is curled and black. The people of the zünnar, seeing Basîrî entangled in the beloved's locks, will "gird their waists" in his service. The idiom "bel bağlamak" recalls both trusting someone and entering his service and tying a girdle around the waist; this link between zünnar and waist forms a double entendre (tevriye) in the couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources