Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün / mefā‘īlün

Olursa ṭāli‘iñ zīr-i baġalda ger meded-baḫşā
İdersin ṭāḳ-ı kāma pāye pāye i‘tilā cānā
Benimle yıldızı barışmadı aṣlāca bu çarḫıñ
Ne virmiş alamaz baña bu ne ḥikmet bu ne da‘vā
Baḳılsa üstüḫᵛān-ı sīneme mısṭarlı kāġıddır
Nüvişt-i ser-güzeştim-çün müheyyā eyledim maḥżā
Ecel zīb-i külāh itmez diyü ġamdan helāk oldum
Gül-i naḫl-i ḥayātımda ṭarāvet ḳalmadı aṣlā
Şu‘ā‘-ı kevkeb-i baḫtımdır ey Vāżıḥ şeb-i deycūr
Ki böyle ṭoġsa da ẓulmetde ḳor maḫlūḳı ser-tā-pā

In English

1. My dear, if a helping star stands at your side as your fortune, you rise step by step to the arch of your desire.

2. The star of this firmament never made peace with me at all. What has it given me that it could take back; what wisdom is this, what quarrel.

3. Should anyone look at the bones of my chest, they are a sheet of paper ruled with a line-frame; I prepared it purely to write down the story of my life.

4. I perished of grief because death will not pluck me like a rose to adorn its cap; no freshness is left in the rose of the sapling of my life.

5. O Vâzıh, the pitch-dark night is the very ray of the star of my fortune; even when it rises like this, it leaves all creatures in darkness from head to foot.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This five-couplet ghazal opens Vâzıh's Dîvânçe, known from a single copy in the poet's own hand. Because the ghazals in the manuscript are ordered by their final letter, poems ending in alif come first. The metre is the hezec pattern "mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün mefâ‘îlün". The poem has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on the long "ā" of "baḫşā, cānā, da‘vā, maḥżā, aṣlā, ser-tā-pā". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The subject of the ghazal is a complaint against fortune. In the first couplet the poet says how a helping star lifts a person to his desire, and in the following couplets he shows that his own star does exactly the opposite. Throughout the poem the words "ṭāli‘, yıldız, çarḫ, kevkeb, şeb, ṭoġmak" (fortune, star, firmament, planet, night, to rise) form a congruence of images (tenasüp) drawn from astrology. The image in the third couplet is the most striking invention of the poem: the bones of the rib cage are compared to a sheet of paper ruled with the "mıstar", the corded frame used to line paper, and the poet says he has prepared this sheet to write the story of his life. The fourth couplet draws on the custom of wearing a rose on one's cap. A withered rose is worn by no one, and the poet has withered so badly that even death does not find him worth plucking.

The last couplet rests on a contrast. The ray of the poet's star of fortune is not light but deep night. Since the pen name "Vāżıḥ" means "clear, bright", the image of a poet called "bright" living under a dark star sharpens the irony of the couplet; this reading is our own. Babaarslan relates that Vâzıh was dismissed many times while serving as professor and mufti, and that he was sent into exile. The poem could be linked to that life, but complaint against fortune is one of the most common themes of divan poetry, and nothing records that the ghazal was tied to a particular event. For the poet's life and his other poems see Kara Müftîzâde Mustafa Vâzıh.

Bibliography

Online sources