Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün

Bulġur aşını sevmezem Tañrum aña irgürmesün
Dāne birincüñ ḳulıyam şūrbāyı gözüm görmesün
Ben ḳalyenüñ dervīşiyem hem ṣalmanuñ üftādesi
Bumbār iñen ṣalınmasun börek iñen üfürmesün
Deñ kim kesilsün dāneden ol rişteye yoḫsa bu dem
Bir pāre yir iken daḫı ol arada oturmasun
Pālūdeyi miskīn ṣanup didüm aña esrārumı
Bādām dilile dimiş servüm gitsün ṭurmasun
Miskīn Baṣīrī göñlini mantuya me’vā eyledi
Yā Rab kelem şorbasını gösterme k’anı görmesün

In English

1. I do not love bulgur porridge; may my God never bring me to it. I am the slave of the grain of rice; may my eyes never see soup.

2. I am the dervish of kalye and the devotee of salma; let not the bumbar swagger too much, nor the börek puff itself up too much. (Kalye and salma are meat dishes; bumbar is a dish cooked by stuffing intestine. The verbs "swagger" and "puff up" give the dishes human behaviour: let the bumbar not strut, nor the börek swell, to win favour.)

3. Tell that noodle to part from the grain of rice; otherwise, while I am eating a morsel just now, let it not sit down between us as well. (The meaning of the couplet is not entirely clear; the poet seems to want the noodles separated from the rice and not to see his favourite dish mixed with something else.)

4. Thinking the paluze humble, I told it my secrets; my cypress-tall one, it seems, said with an almond tongue, "let him go and not stay". (Paluze is a dessert made with starch and sugar; it seems almonds were placed on it. In the couplet the dessert is likened to a confidant and the almonds to a tongue. The meaning is not certain.)

5. Poor Basîrî has made his heart a dwelling for mantı; O Lord, do not show him cabbage soup, so that he may not see it.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the recez family of aruz (quantitative metre), the pattern "müstef‘ilün" repeated four times; the edition does not state the metre, and the scansion often requires lengthening of Turkish short vowels (imâle). The redif (refrain word) is the negative imperative suffix "-mesün / -masun"; the rhyme rests on the "-r" sound before it: irgür, gör, üfür, otur, ṭur. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. The ghazal is number XLIV in Ahmet Kartal's edition. Kartal notes that a notable feature of Basîrî's Turkish poems is two ghazals that contain the names of dishes of the period and tell which dishes the poet liked and which he disliked; this ghazal is one of them, the other being ghazal XLII. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The ghazal is a playful poem that applies the love language of divan poetry to food. The lover's beloveds are rice, kalye, salma and mantı instead of a beauty; his "rivals", whom he dislikes, are bulgur porridge, soup and cabbage soup. The poet calls himself "birincüñ ḳulı", the slave of rice, "ḳalyenüñ dervîşi", the dervish of kalye, and "ṣalmanuñ üftâdesi", the devotee of salma; these are the words of devotion a lover uses towards his beloved in love poetry. Thus a serious language is carried over to an everyday and even comic subject. In the old literature poems of this kind written in jest and mockery are called hezl. The biographical anthologies too say that Basîrî's poems were "gāh cidd ü gāh hezl", sometimes serious and sometimes in jest.

In the second couplet the dishes behave like people. The bumbar "swaggers", walks coquettishly; the börek "puffs", swells and boasts. Beside his favourite dishes the poet wants these two not to make too much of themselves. The likeness of sound between "ṣalma" (the name of a dish) and "ṣalınmasun" (let it not swagger) adds a play on words (cinas) to the couplet. In the fourth couplet the paluze becomes a confidant: the poet thought it humble and revealed his secrets to it, but the "cypress-tall" beloved (or the dessert itself) asked with an almond tongue that he go. The meaning of this couplet and of the third is not entirely clear; the names of the dishes of the period and the sayings attached to them cannot always be understood today.

In the closing couplet the poet says that he has made his heart a dwelling for mantı and asks God not to show him cabbage soup. The phrase "Miskîn Baṣîrî", poor Basîrî, is a playful echo of the lover calling himself "poor" in divan poetry. The use of the verb "görmesün", let him not see, twice in rhyme position throughout the ghazal conveys that the poet cannot bear even to see the dishes he dislikes.

Historical Context

The biographical anthologies present Basîrî above all as a wit and a teller of jests. Âşık Çelebi writes that he joked with the great men of state, was the salt of every gathering, and that his words blended like milk and sugar; Latîfî too mentions him as "laṭîfe-gûy", a jester, and "nedîm-şîve", one with the manner of a boon companion. Basîrî's Letâif, in which his jests were collected, is counted his best-known work. This food ghazal is a reflection of this side of Basîrî in his poetry. The dishes named in it, kalye, salma, bumbar, börek, noodles, paluze and mantı, also offer a small testimony to the Ottoman cuisine of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Âşık Çelebi, Meşâ'irü'ş-şu'arâ, ed. Filiz Kılıç, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 180-182, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Latîfî, Tezkiretü'ş-şu'arâ ve Tabsıratü'n-nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım, Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018 (e-book), pp. 148-149, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

Books

Online sources