Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün

Baña zekāt-ı ḥüsnüñ bir būse ḳıl revāne
Ḫayr it begüm kümeyt sen ben bir nā-tüvāne
Pervāne olmaġ ister dil meclisinde tā kim
Sūz-i derūn diyesin şem‘a yana yana
Cevr ü sitemde da‘vā itdi senüñle ammā
Gördi ki başa çıḳmaz uydı saña zamāne
Yanmış ża‘īf cismüm itlere virin çünkim
Meyl eylemez bilürsin seg yanmış üstüḫāne
Muṭrib terāneyi ḳo kim bezm-i ġamda her dem
Dīvāne hay u hūyı yeter baña terāne
Ta‘līm-ḫāne oldı sīneñ senüñ Basīrī
Üstündeki dögünler cevr oḳına nişāne

In English

1. Send me a kiss as the alms of your beauty; do a good deed, my lord, you are ... and I am a poor feeble one. (The word "kümeyt" in the line makes no sense in this context, and the line is one syllable short of the metre; since alms are given by the rich to the poor, a word meaning "rich" would be expected here. The reading is not certain.)

2. The heart wishes to become a moth in your gathering, so that, burning and burning, you might tell the candle of its inner fire. (The couplet can be read in two ways: "yana yana", burning and burning, may refer to the heart or to the beloved; the sense is that the heart burning like a moth recalls to the beloved the story of the candle.)

3. Time contended with you in cruelty and reproach; but seeing it could not prevail, it fell in with you.

4. Give my burnt and feeble body to the dogs, for, as you know, a dog does not care for burnt bones.

5. Minstrel, leave your melody; in the gathering of grief the madman's cries of "hay" and "hu" are melody enough for me at every moment.

6. O Basîrî, your breast has become a training ground, a range for archery practice; the bruises of beating upon it have become targets for the arrow of cruelty.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of six couplets in the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. This pattern divides every line into two equal halves and gives the poem a rhythm of repetition. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-āne": revāne, nā-tüvāne, yana, zamāne, üstüḫāne, terāne, nişāne. "Yana yana" in the second couplet fits the rhyme only approximately. The second line of the opening couplet is one syllable short of the metre in the edition, and the word "kümeyt" makes no sense; a problem of reading or copying is clearly present here. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XXX in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet carries a religious term into the language of love. Zakat, alms, is the share the rich must give from their wealth to the poor; the lover too asks the beloved for a kiss as the alms of her beauty. This comparison, which presents beauty as wealth and the lover as a poor man expecting a share of it, is known in divan poetry. "Ḫayr it begüm", do a good deed, my lord, carries the sound of everyday speech.

The second couplet works the motif of the candle and the moth. The moth is the insect that burns by throwing itself into the candle's flame, and it is the emblem of the lover. The heart wishes to be a moth in the beloved's gathering; thus the burning within it will be told to the candle. In the third couplet time, that is, the sky, contended with the beloved in cruelty and reproach, but realising it could not surpass her, fell in with her. This couplet, saying that even the sky cannot match the beloved's tyranny, describes her mercilessness through hyperbole.

The fourth couplet carries a bitter humility. In divan poetry the dogs in the beloved's street are counted luckier than the lover, and the lover wishes to give his body to them. But his body has so burned in the fire of love that even dogs will not look at burnt bones. In the fifth couplet the minstrel is addressed. In the gathering of grief there is no need for melody; the madman's cries of "hay" and "hu" are music enough for the lover. The words minstrel, melody and gathering set a scene of pleasure, but this is the gathering of grief.

The closing couplet is taken from the language of archery. "Ta‘līm-ḫāne" is the place where archers practise. Basîrî's breast has turned into such a training ground; the marks left by beating his breast in pain have become the target, "nişān", of the arrows of cruelty. The congruence of images (tenasüp) among breast, arrow, practice and target turns the lover's body into a field where the beloved practises archery.

Bibliography

Online sources