Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Ḫār-ı ġamdan ol ki ṣad-çāk oldı dāmenüm durur
Ol ki çākin kimsene dikmez girībānum durur
Meyl iderse baña n’ola her perī-ruḫsār kim
Dāġ yir yir sīnede mühr-i Süleymānum durur
Pīr-i ‘ışḳam ḫānḳāh-ı derdde āhum ‘aṣā
Ḫūn-ı dilden ḳaṭreler tesbīḥ-i mercānum durur
Ol siyeh-çeşmüñ cefāsıdur baña ‘ayn-ı vefā
Ḳahrı anuñ maḥż-ı luṭf u derd-i dimāġum durur
Ruḫlarında ḫālile zülfüñ perīşān olduġı
Ey Baṣīrī ṣūret-i ḥāl-i perīşānum durur

In English

1. What the thorn of grief has torn into a hundred pieces is my skirt; what no one can sew up again is my collar. (Tearing one's collar is a sign of madness and deep grief in divan poetry.)

2. What wonder if every fairy-faced one inclines to me; the brands here and there on my breast are my seal of Solomon. (Solomon is believed to have ruled the jinn and fairies with his seal ring; the brands burned on the breast for love's wound are likened to this seal.)

3. In the lodge of pain I am the elder of love; my sigh is my staff, and drops from the blood of the heart are my coral rosary.

4. The cruelty of that black-eyed one is to me faithfulness itself; her wrath is pure kindness, and her pain ... (The words "derd-i dimāġum" at the end of the line break the rhyme and leave the sense unclear; the rhyme calls here for a word ending in "-ānum", such as "dermānum". Read as "derd-i dermānum", the sense would be "and her pain is my remedy". The edition's reading has been kept.)

5. O Basîrî, the dishevelment of your locks together with the mole on your cheeks is the picture of my own wretched state.

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 the ending "-um durur"; the rhyme is the sound "-ān": dāmen, girībān, Süleymān, mercān, perīşān. The rhyme between "dāmen" and "girībān" in the opening couplet is not perfect. The word "dimāġum" at the end of the fourth couplet does not fit the rhyme at all; given that Kartal, following Çavuşoğlu, finds Basîrî's poems almost flawless in rhyme, a misreading or copying error is likely here. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XVIII in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet turns the lover's garment into a map of pain. His skirt has caught on the thorn of grief and been torn into a hundred pieces; his collar has been rent in a way no one can mend. The congruence of images (tenasüp) between skirt and collar, thorn and stitching describes from two sides the torn garment that has been the lover's emblem since Majnun.

The second couplet alludes to the seal ring of the prophet Solomon. According to tradition Solomon ruled the jinn and fairies with this seal. On the lover's breast are brands burned for love, that is, burn scars, and these are his seal of Solomon; so one need not wonder that fairy-faced beauties incline to him. The congruence between fairy and Solomon, brand and seal builds the wit of the couplet.

The third couplet is the one Kartal cites as presenting Basîrî as the "elder of love" in the lodge of pain. The lover is likened to the aged sheikh of a dervish lodge. His sigh is like a long, bent staff; the drops that flow from the blood of his heart have turned into red coral rosary beads. The words lodge, elder, staff and rosary form a series of images drawn from Sufi life.

In the fourth couplet contrast comes to the fore: cruelty is seen as faithfulness and wrath as kindness. This attitude of counting the beloved's torments as favours is found in other ghazals of Basîrî as well. In the closing couplet the locks scattered over the beloved's cheek and her mole become a picture of the lover's wretched state. The use of the word "perīşān" both for dishevelled hair and for a wretched condition brings the beloved's beauty and the lover's misery together in one word.

Bibliography

Online sources