Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Cerr içün şâʿire ḳıṭʿa ya ḳaṣâyid ileden
Beñzer aña ṣata bostancıya terhûn u tere
Eblehi gör iledür Hinde biber Mıṣra şeker
Bir şeyi tuḥfe ider kopduġı bitdügi yire

In English

1. One who brings a kıt‘a or qasidas to a poet in hope of extracting something is like a man who sells tarragon and cress to a market gardener. (Cerr is trying to extract money or favour from someone. The bostancı is a gardener who grows vegetables; tarragon and cress already grow in his own plot.)

2. Look at the fool: he carries pepper to India and sugar to Egypt; he offers a thing as a gift to the very place where it sprang up and grew. (Pepper was the known produce of India and sugar of Egypt; to carry a thing to where it abounds is labour wasted.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The poem is a kıt‘a (fragment) of two couplets; the second lines of the couplets rhyme "tere / yire". The metre is the remel family of aruz (quantitative metre), in the pattern "fā‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün"; the biographical anthology (tezkire) does not state the metre, which emerges from scansion. The kıt‘a is not among the Turkish poems in Basîrî's divan manuscript and is known only from Latîfî's tezkire.

The authorship of the kıt‘a is not certain. Latîfî gives it, headed only "Ḳıṭʿa", immediately after the sentence in which he tells how Basîrî one day presented a qasida to Revânî in hope of extracting something, and how Revânî, because of his stinginess, did not like this. Whether the kıt‘a is Basîrî's or a piece Latîfî inserted to comment on the incident cannot be made out from the text. Of the Revânî kıt‘a that follows immediately, Latîfî says plainly that Basîrî wrote it and sent it back with the steward; for this kıt‘a there is no such statement. Its subject too suits the comment of someone looking at the incident from outside rather than Basîrî's own view: whoever brings verse to a poet has acted foolishly.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The kıt‘a expresses a single thought through two similes: carrying a thing to where it abounds. In the first couplet one who presents verse to a poet is likened to a man who sells tarragon and cress to a market gardener. The gardener grows these greens himself; trying to sell them to him is ridiculous. In the same way, presenting verse to a poet and expecting a reward in return is futile, since the poet already has verse in plenty. The second couplet widens the same thought with two distant countries: carrying pepper to India and sugar to Egypt. Pepper and sugar, as the known produce of these lands, are names that often occur in divan poetry. The last line gathers all these examples into a verdict: the fool offers a thing as a gift to the place where it sprang up and grew.

There is a congruence of images (tenasüp) among the words garden, tarragon, cress, pepper and sugar; all are things that are grown and eaten. The phrase "ḳopduġı bitdügi yire" rests on the Turkish idiom "the place a thing springs from"; the word "bitmek" can also be thought of in both its senses, to grow and to come to an end. The language of the kıt‘a is plain, its examples are from everyday life, and in this respect it reads like a proverb.

Historical Context

According to Latîfî, Basîrî one day went to Revânî and presented a qasida with the intention of extracting something from him. Since stinginess prevailed in Revânî's nature, this did not please him. Then, as if displaying generosity, he sent a few coins with his steward, but unable to decide how much to send, he sometimes turned the steward back on the road. The coins that arrived were ten in number, five of copper and five of lead. Basîrî was deeply offended and satirized Revânî's stinginess in kıt‘as. This kıt‘a, standing at the beginning of the story, states the moral of the incident in advance: Revânî too is a poet, and whoever brings verse to a poet can expect nothing from him. Revânî was a poet from Edirne and died in 930 (1523-24).

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. 149, entry on Basîrî. ekitap.ktb.gov.tr

Academic studies

Books

Online sources