Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün

Hem-dem kimüñile olurdum ger ney olmasa
Göñlüm neyile eglenüridi mey olmasa
Hicr olmasa viṣāl de olmazdı ġālibā
Olur mıdı bahār cihānda dey olmasa
Kūyına varmasam baña dirlik muḥāldür
Mecnūn olurdı seyr-gehi ger hay olmasa
Baġrı delindi gāh fiġān u daḫı nefīr
Neyidi bu deñlü nāle eger dil-i ney olmasa
Ḥüsnüñ kitābını iderdi Basīrī şerḥ
Ṭūmār-ı ‘ömr bir niçe müddet ṭay olmasa

In English

1. With whom would I share my heart if there were no reed-flute; with what would my heart console itself if there were no wine?

2. Were there no separation, there would probably be no union either; would there be spring in the world if there were no winter? ("Dey" is the name of the first month of winter in the Persian calendar and is used to mean winter.)

3. If I do not go to her street, a peaceful life is impossible for me; what would Majnun's promenade be, were there no encampment of Leyla? (In the edition the line reads "Mecnūn olurdı seyr-gehi ger hay olmasa" without a question particle, and its sense is not entirely clear; "hay" comes from the Arabic "ḥayy" and denotes the place where Leyla's tribe dwelt.)

4. Its breast was pierced, now by cries and now by moaning; what would all this lament be, were it not the heart of a ney? (The holes of the ney are likened to a breast pierced by moaning. In the edition the second line is two syllables too long for the metre; the reading is not certain.)

5. Basîrî would write a commentary on the book of your beauty, were the scroll of life not rolled up within a little time.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the muzâri family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The redif (refrain word) is "olmasa", were there not; the rhyme is the sound "-ey": ney, mey, dey, hay, ney, ṭay. The word "ney" is used twice as a rhyme, in the opening couplet and in the fourth. In the edition the second line of the fourth couplet has more syllables than the metre allows, and the second line of the third couplet seems incomplete in sense. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XXXV in Ahmet Kartal's edition. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The refrain "olmasa" turns the ghazal into a series of suppositions: were there no ney, no wine, no winter, no encampment of Leyla, no heart of the ney, were the scroll of life not rolled up. Each couplet shows the worth of a thing by imagining its absence. In the opening couplet ney and mey, the instrument and the wine, are the lover's two friends. The closeness in sound between the words forms a pun and gives the couplet a musical opening. Ney and wine are the two chief elements of the gathering in divan poetry; the lover consoles his loneliness with them.

The second couplet carries the best known thought of the ghazal. Were there no separation there would be no union, just as were there no winter there would be no spring. The two contrasts, between hicr and visal, parting and union, and between dey and spring, are built in parallel; the thought of the first line is proved in the second by an example drawn from nature. This is a manner of speech close to the figure called irsal-i mesel, supporting a judgement with a truth everyone knows.

In the third couplet the lover says he cannot live without going to the beloved's street and cites Majnun as an example. Majnun is the lover who roamed the desert around the "ḥayy", the encampment of Leyla's tribe; were there no such encampment he would have no place left to wander. In the fourth couplet the holes of the ney are likened to the wounds of a breast. The ney is a lover whose breast has been pierced by cries and moaning; the reason for its moaning so much is that it has a heart. The word "nefīr" means both a cry and the name of a wind instrument; it forms a congruence of images (tenasüp) with the ney.

The closing couplet is taken from the language of books and writing. Basîrî likens the beloved's beauty to a book and wishes to write a commentary on it, to interpret it with explanations. But his life is a "ṭūmār", a long sheet of paper wound into a roll, and within a little time it will be rolled up and closed. The congruence of images among book, commentary, scroll and rolling up conveys the endlessness of beauty against the brevity of life.

Bibliography

Online sources