Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Kirpigüñ siḥr oḳıdur ebrūlaruñdur yay aña
Bir benüm gibi belā-keş uġrarısa vay aña
Bu ne ruḫsār-ı dil-ārā olur ey sulṭān-ı ḥüsn
Kim felekde reşk ider mihr-i cihān-ārāy aña
Nāle itse ‘āşıḳ-ı dil-ḫaste derdüñden senüñ
Ḥaḳ budur kim bir nefes hem-dem olamaz nāy aña
Ol ḳamer-ruḫ olmadıysa Yūsuf-ı Mıṣr-cemāl
Bes ne yüzden secde eylerler günile ay aña
Ḥāżır olmazsa Baṣīrī ḫāk-i pāk itdükce baḫş
Billāh ey çoḳ sevdügüm andan ḳoyasın hāy aña

In English

1. Your eyelash is the arrow of sorcery and your eyebrows are its bow; woe to it if it meets one who suffers afflictions as I do.

2. O sultan of beauty, what heart-adorning cheek is this, that the world-adorning sun in the sky envies it?

3. If the heart-sick lover moans from the pain of you, the truth is that even the reed-flute cannot keep him company for a single breath. (The ney is known for its moaning; "nefes" means both a moment and the breath blown into the ney.)

4. If that moon-faced one has not the beauty of Joseph of Egypt, then for what reason do the sun and the moon bow down to it? (In Joseph's dream the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowed down to him.)

5. If Basîrî is not there whenever you bestow gifts on that pure dust, by God, my much-beloved, set aside a share of it for him. (The word "hāy" at the end of the line makes no sense in this context; reading it as "pāy", share, which differs only in its dots in the Arabic script, completes the meaning. The edition's reading has been kept; the sense rests on this conjecture.)

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 "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The redif (refrain word) is "aña", to it; the rhyme is the sound "-ay": yay, vay, ārāy, nāy, ay, hāy. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XVII in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

The opening couplet of the ghazal appears in another form in Âşık Çelebi's Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ, among Basîrî's sample poems: "Kirpügüñ siḥr oḳlarıdur ḳaşlaruñdur yay aña / Bir benüm gibi belā-keş uġrar ise vay aña". Here the eyelashes are "arrows of sorcery" and the eyebrows their bow. According to the edition of the biographical anthology (tezkire), this couplet is missing in some manuscripts. Âşık Çelebi's reading sits more smoothly in the metre; the words "siḥr oḳıdur ebrūlaruñdur" in the divan manuscript mean the same.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet sets up one of the commonest weapon comparisons of divan poetry: the eyelash is an arrow, the eyebrow a bow. Basîrî adds to this arrow the attribute "siḥr", sorcery; the beloved's glance both wounds and bewitches. The words "vay aña", woe to it, in the second line give in the voice of everyday speech the outcome of this arrow meeting someone who has suffered afflictions like the poet. In the second couplet the beloved's cheek is so bright that it makes even the world-adorning sun jealous. "Dil-ārā" and "cihān-ārāy", heart-adorning and world-adorning, stand side by side as two attributes from the same root.

In the third couplet the lover's moaning is compared with the moaning of the ney. The ney, an instrument that moans with the pain of separation after being cut from the reed bed, is the lover's companion in divan poetry. But the lover's cry is so great that the ney cannot keep him company for even a single breath. Since the word "nefes" means both a brief moment and the breath blown into the ney, there is a double entendre (tevriye) in the couplet.

The fourth couplet alludes to the story of Joseph in the Qur'an. In his dream Joseph saw the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowing down to him. The poet asks why, if the beloved has not Joseph's beauty, the sun and moon bow down to it. The words "ne yüzden" mean both "for what reason" and "with what face"; in a couplet speaking of the moon-faced beloved, the two meanings work together. In the closing couplet the poet asks that a share of the beloved's gifts be set aside for him too. "Ḫāk-i pāk", pure dust, recalls the lovers at the beloved's door or her threshold; but since the reading of the couplet is not entirely certain, this interpretation is offered with caution.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 182, entry on Basîrî (opening couplet; manuscript variant: note 1912). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Books

Online sources