Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün

Ol iki sermest gözler ‘ārıż-ı dildārda
İki nergisdür açılmış kūşe-i gülzārda
Çekme zaḥmet ey bizüm vīrānemizde gül diken
Kim bu miḥnet-ḫānda gül daḫı bitmez ḫārde
Buldum ey Türk-i ḫaṭāyī her ḳılında zülfüñüñ
Her ne keyfiyyet ki ḳonmış nāfe-i Tātārda
Baş ḳaldurur gözüñ nāz uyḳusından bir nefes
Gerçi dirler ḫᵛāb olmaz merdüm-i bīmārda
Dilde bitmiş cān bigi ḫaṭṭı ḫayāli dilberüñ
Ey Baṣīrī gerçi hergiz bize bitmez nārda

In English

1. Those two drunken eyes on the beloved's cheek are two narcissi blooming in a corner of the rose garden.

2. O you who would plant roses in our ruin, do not trouble yourself; for in this house of affliction not even the thorn bears a rose. (The rose normally blooms on a thorny stem; in the lover's heart even the thorns yield no rose.)

3. O Turk of Khitai, in every strand of your locks I found every quality found in the musk pod of the Tatar deer. (Musk is a precious scent obtained from the musk deer of Central Asia; the black, fragrant locks are likened to musk.)

4. Your eye raises its head from the sleep of coquetry only for a moment; yet they say sleep does not come to a sick man. ("Merdüm" means both man and the pupil of the eye; in divan poetry the beloved's languid eye is called "sick".)

5. The image of the beloved's down has grown in the heart like the soul; O Basîrî, yet they say nothing ever grows in fire. (The lover's heart is a fire; the down has sprouted there like a green shoot. The place of the word "bize" in the line is not entirely clear in this reading.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a ghazal (gazel) of five couplets in the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), "fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilātün fā‘ilün"; the edition does not state the metre. The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-da / -de", and the rhyme is the sound "-âr": dildār, gülzār, ḫār, Tātār, bīmār, nār. The ghazal is number XLVIII in Ahmet Kartal's edition. Its opening couplet is one of Basîrî's couplets most often cited in the anthologies: Latîfî gives it among Basîrî's sample opening couplets in the form "Ol iki maḫmûr gözler çehre-i dildârda / İki nergisdür açılmış kûşe-i gülzârda". In Kartal's footnote Latîfî's text is quoted as "Şol iki maḫmūr gözler çihre-i dildārda"; Hüseyin Hüsameddin also takes the opening couplet from Latîfî as "Şol iki mahmûr gözler". The words "sermest" (drunken) and "‘ārıż" (cheek) of the divan manuscript become "maḫmûr" (languid, sleepy) and "çehre" (face) in the anthologies. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet rests on one of the best-known comparisons of divan poetry: the beloved's eyes are likened to the narcissus flower. The dark centre of the narcissus is likened to the pupil, and its drooping posture to a languid glance. Basîrî places this comparison in a garden scene: the beloved's cheek is a rose garden, and the eyes are two narcissi blooming in its corner. This congruence of images (tenasüp) between rose and narcissus, cheek and eye gives the couplet a unified picture. The reading "maḫmûr" in the anthologies suits the narcissus's languid look even better.

In the second couplet the garden image turns to the lover's heart. The lover's heart is a ruin; whoever wishes to plant roses there labours in vain, for in this house of affliction not even the thorn bears a rose. The coexistence of rose and thorn is a familiar idea in divan poetry; the poet reverses it to say that his heart is so ruined that even its thorns yield no rose. In the third couplet the beloved is called "Türk-i Ḫaṭâyî", a Turkish beauty of Khitai, of Central Asia. In divan poetry "Turk" means the beloved who is both beautiful and a plunderer of hearts. Every strand of the beloved's locks has all the qualities of the scent in the pod of the Tatar musk deer. The geographical congruence between Khitai and Tatar, Turk and musk expresses that the locks are both black and fragrant.

The fourth couplet plays on the two meanings of the word "merdüm": man and pupil of the eye. They say sleep does not come to a sick man; but the beloved's "sick", that is, languid eye is always in the sleep of coquetry and wakes only for a moment. Thus a general saying is tied to the privilege of the beloved's eye. In the last couplet the heart is thought of as a fire. Nothing grows in fire, yet the image of the beloved's down has grown in the heart like the soul. An antithesis (tezat) is drawn between the greenness of the down and the redness of the fire; the verb "bitmek" too, with its meanings of sprouting and of running out, gives the couplet a double-edged depth.

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
  • Abdizâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi 6-8. Cilt, ed. Songül Keçeci Kurt - Recep Orhan Özel - Metin Hakverdioğlu, Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi, 2022, p. 419. amasya.bel.tr

Books

Online sources