Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fa‘lün

N’eyleyem kim viṣāle çārem yoḳ
Gün yüzüñ görmege sitārem yoḳ
Ḍa‘f-ı hicrüñ beni zebūn itdi
Şimdi ölmekden özge çārem yoḳ
Dimegil aġlama ki sencileyin
Sīne içinde seng-i ḫārem yoḳ
Ey ki dersin neẓẓāre ḳıl yüzine
Āh kim ṭāḳat-ı neẓẓārem yoḳ
Ma‘nā-yı ḫāṣdur Basīrī sözüm
Hiç dīvāndan isti‘ārem yoḳ

In English

1. What am I to do, for I have no means of union with you; I have no star, that is, no fortune, to see your sunlike face. ("Sitâre" means both star and fortune; since stars are not visible in daylight while the sun shines, the sun-faced beloved and the lover's star cannot come together.)

2. The weakness of separation from you has left me powerless; now I have no remedy but to die.

3. Do not tell me "do not weep"; I have no hard stone in my breast as you do. (The beloved's heart is likened to stone; the lover weeps because his heart is not of stone.)

4. O you who say "gaze upon her face"; alas, I have no strength to gaze. (The beloved's face dazzles; the lover cannot find the strength even to look at it.)

5. Basîrî, my word is a meaning all my own; I have borrowed nothing from any divan. ("İsti‘âre" means both borrowing and the figure of speech called metaphor.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the hafîf family of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün mefā‘ilün fa‘lün"; the edition does not state the metre. The redif (refrain word) is "-em yoḳ", I have no, and the rhyme is the sound "-âr": çāre, sitāre, ḫāre, neẓẓāre, isti‘āre. The phrase "çārem yoḳ" is used twice as a rhyme, in the opening couplet and in the second. This short pattern of the hafîf metre gives the ghazal a quick, clipped manner of speech. The ghazal is number XXIX in Ahmet Kartal's edition. Kartal cites its closing couplet as an example of the couplets in which Basîrî praises himself. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first four couplets of the ghazal express the lover's helplessness. The opening couplet builds an image of the sky: the beloved's face is the sun and the lover's fortune a star. The double meaning of the word "sitâre", star and fortune, gives the couplet a double entendre (tevriye). By day, while the sun shines, the stars cannot be seen; the lover's star, his fortune, cannot meet the sun-faced beloved either. This is the finest invention of the ghazal. In the second couplet the weakness brought by separation has brought the lover to the point of exhaustion; he has no remedy left but death.

The third and fourth couplets are replies to those who give the lover advice. To the beloved who tells him "do not weep", the lover replies that there is no "seng-i ḫârâ", no hard stone, in his breast as in hers. In divan poetry the beloved's heart is hard and like stone; the lover's is soft and weeps. The word "sencileyin" (like you) is an indirect reproach to the beloved's stony heart. In the fourth couplet the lover is told to look at the beloved's face; but before the radiance of that face he cannot find the strength even to look. The repetition of the word "neẓẓâre" in both lines underlines this helplessness.

The closing couplet changes the mood of the ghazal. Here the poet makes a fahriye, a self-praise: his word is a meaning of his own, and he has made no "isti‘âre" from any divan. The word "isti‘âre" is both borrowing and, in rhetoric, the name of the art of using the name of one thing for another, metaphor. The poet thus says that he has borrowed neither words nor motifs from other poets' divans; but by doing so with the name of a figure of speech he also displays his own skill. The pen name "Basîrî" and the phrase "ma‘nâ-yı ḫâṣ", a meaning of one's own, also stand side by side. This couplet is Kartal's example showing that Basîrî, keeping to tradition, praised himself in his poems.

Historical Context

The manuscript that is the source of Basîrî's poems is a miscellany containing the Persian divan the poet arranged in his own hand (Süleymaniye Library, Âşir Efendi no. 292). The Turkish poems are found together at the end of this divan. Basîrî's saying "I have borrowed from no divan" is all the more meaningful coming from a poet who had met Nevâî and Câmî in Herat and was credited with being the first to bring Nevâî's divan to the Ottoman lands. Latîfî says that because Basîrî stayed long in the Ottoman lands, he adopted the manner of the poets of Rûm in his style of poetry.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), p. 148, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

Books

Online sources