Original Arabic Text

ان كان كالجبل فى العبد تهمته
لكان اصلح ممن منّ نعمته

İn kāne ke’l-cebeli fi’l-‘abdi tühmetühū
Le-kāne aṣlaḥa mimmen menne ni‘metehū

In English

1. Even if the charge against the servant were as great as a mountain, he would still be better (more upright) than one who reproaches others with his favours.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This couplet, which closes the "Ebyât" section, is in Arabic. The edition gives it in Arabic script without a reading or a translation; the Latin-script reading above and the English rendering are ours. We read the text from the edition's PDF page as an image, because the Arabic letters in the text extraction were corrupted. Babaarslan states that he could not determine the metre of this couplet. Although the first line seems to fit the basît metre of Arabic prosody, the second line does not sit fully in that pattern; this observation is also ours.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The couplet repeats in Arabic the thought of the Turkish couplet that stands just before it in the Dîvânçe: however great the servant's fault, the master who reproaches him with his favours is more at fault. The words "tuhma" (a charge, an imputed offence) and "ni‘ma" (favour) come close to each other in sound at the end of the two lines. The verb "menn" (to reproach with a favour) is named in the Qur'an as an act that voids alms (al-Baqara 2:264); the language of the couplet recalls this familiar moral counsel.

Compared with the Turkish couplet, what is said in Turkish as "faults as great as mountains" becomes in Arabic "a charge like a mountain", while the Turkish address "ey begim" (my lord) has no place in the Arabic. Babaarslan also notes that Vâzıh knew Arabic well enough to write works in it. Whether the couplet is Vâzıh's own or an Arabic couplet he knew by heart and recorded in his Dîvânçe is unknown. Since the edition places it among the poet's couplets, we too count it as Vâzıh's.

Bibliography

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: p. 1968; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 70a). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1928 (life and description of the Dîvânçe; the "Ebyât" section and the metre of the Arabic couplet: p. 1928). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264

Online sources