Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün

Ruḫ u zülfüñden ayru ey şeker-leb
Berāber oldı baña rūzile şeb
Lebi yādına ey sāḳī-i meclis
Baña bir niçe sāġardur lebāleb
Çü münkirsin mey-i ṣāfiye ṣūfī
Bizümle eyleme da‘vā-yı meşreb
Dür-i gūşuñ gören ey meh-cebīn dir
Güneşden yaña ṭoġmışdur bu kevkeb
Devāt-ı çīnīdür çeşm-i Basīrī
Ḫayāli ḫālüñüñ anda mürekkeb

In English

1. O sugar-lipped one, apart from your cheek and your hair, day and night have become the same to me. (The cheek is likened to day and the hair to night; for the lover far from both there is no longer any difference between night and day.)

2. O cupbearer of the gathering, in memory of his lip give me a few cups filled to the brim. ("Lebâleb", brimful, contains within it the word "leb", lip.)

3. O Sufi, since you deny pure wine, do not claim to share our disposition with us. ("Meşreb" means both temperament, nature, and a place where one drinks.)

4. O moon-browed one, whoever sees the pearl in your ear says, "This star has risen beside the sun." (The earring is likened to a star, the face to the sun.)

5. Basîrî's eye is a Chinese inkwell; the ink in it is the image of your mole. (The white porcelain inkwell of Chinese make is likened to the white of the eye, and the black ink to the image of the black mole that lives in the pupil.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the hezec family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün fe‘ūlün"; the edition does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The ghazal has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-eb": şeker-leb, şeb, lebāleb, meşreb, kevkeb, mürekkeb. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the spelling "Basīrī". The ghazal is number XL in Ahmet Kartal's edition. Four of the five couplets are each given to a separate simile, which makes the poem look like a series of independent couplets. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

This short, compact ghazal works a simile or a play on words in each couplet. In the first couplet cheek and hair are used as counterparts of day and night; this is a familiar example of the figure divan poetry calls leff ü neşr (lapping and unlapping, a figure in which terms are paired with their counterparts). The beloved's bright cheek is day, his black hair night; for the lover parted from both, the divisions of time lose their meaning and night and day become "equal". The address "şeker-leb", sugar-lipped, opens the rhyme.

In the second couplet there is a pun between "leb" (lip) and "lebāleb" (brimful). Recalling the beloved's lip, the lover asks the cupbearer for brimming cups; the lip and the rim of the cup are linked. The third couplet takes up the familiar quarrel between the Sufi and the rind. The word "meşreb" denotes both a person's nature, his way, and a place where water is drunk. The Sufi who denies wine cannot claim to be of the same meşreb as those who drink; the word's connection with the root "to drink" lends this double entendre (tevriye) a flavour of its own.

In the fourth couplet the pearl earring in the beloved's ear is likened to a star that has risen beside the sun. The face is the sun, the earring a star; but by day no star is seen beside the sun, so the earring's gleam becomes a marvel that goes beyond the order of nature. The last couplet ends with an image taken from the world of the scribe. A Chinese porcelain inkwell, with its white body and the black ink inside, is likened to the lover's eye; the white of the eye is the inkwell, and the image of the beloved's mole held in the pupil is the ink. The word "mürekkeb" means both ink and "compounded, mixed"; the image of the mole has become one with the eye. Images of the scribe and the ledger are found in other poems of Basîrî as well.

Bibliography

Online sources