Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

Gösterse ḳāmet ‘āşıḳa ol ḳaddi bālā dil-rübā
Ḳopar ḳıyāmet ‘āşıḳa vā-veyletā vā-veyletā
‘Ayn-ı belādır ġamzeler tīr-i ḳażādır ġamzeler
Ḫancer-edādır ġamzeler kārı anıñ sefkü’d-dimā
Bir dil-ber-i ṣāḥib-cemāldir aña yoḳ aṣlā mis̱āl
İtmiş Ḫudā-yı lā-yezāl ḫūbāna anı pādişā
Ebrūları sūre-i Nūn iki gözidür Kāfirūn
Müjgānı tefsīr-i ‘uyūn ruḫsārı mir’ātu’ṣ-ṣafā
Anıñ o rūy-ı mehveşi üzre hemānā rā ḳaşı
Ayıñ o medd-i ser-keşi gibi yazılmış Vāżıḥā

In English

1. Should that heart-stealing beloved of lofty stature show the lover his tall form, doomsday breaks loose upon the lover: alas for me, alas for me.

2. Glances are calamity itself, glances are the arrow of fate; glances have the air of a dagger, and their work is the shedding of blood.

3. He is a beauty full of grace who has no equal at all; the eternal God has made him sovereign over the fair.

4. His eyebrows are the sura Nûn, his two eyes the sura Kâfirûn; his lashes are the commentary on the eyes, his cheek the mirror of purity.

5. O Vâzıh, upon that moon-like face his eyebrow is just like the letter "râ"; it is written like the proud madda stroke drawn over the word "ay" (moon).

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This five-couplet ghazal is written in the recez pattern "müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün müstef‘ilün". According to Babaarslan's table, Vâzıh used this pattern in only two ghazals. The poem has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the long "ā" of "dil-rübā, vā-veyletā, sefkü'd-dimā, pādişā, ṣafā, Vāżıḥā". Taking advantage of the way the pattern divides into two equal halves, the poet also placed internal rhymes in the middle of the lines: "belādır, ḳażādır, edādır", "cemāl, mis̱āl, lā-yezāl", "Nūn, Kāfirūn, ‘uyūn", "mehveşi, ḳaşı, ser-keşi". These internal rhymes give the ghazal the cadence of a musammat poem. To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet is built on the closeness in sound and root between "ḳāmet" (stature) and "ḳıyāmet" (doomsday): when the beloved shows his stature, doomsday breaks loose. In the second couplet the word "ġamzeler" (glances) is repeated three times; the glance becomes first the eye of calamity (the Arabic "‘ayn" means both "eye" and "the thing itself"), then the arrow of fate, then a dagger. Özçakmak cites this couplet as an example of Vâzıh's heavy use of Arabic and Persian compounds; in her reading the second line has "Hançer aradur".

The most striking feature of the ghazal is the imagery of script and Qur'an in its last two couplets. Because of its curve the eyebrow is likened to the letter "ن" and so to the sura Nûn (al-Qalam), which opens with that letter. The comparison of the eyes to the sura Kâfirûn rests on the divan habit of calling the cruel beloved an "infidel". The lashes become the commentary on these eyes. In the last couplet the eyebrow is likened to the letter "ر" and matched with the curved madda sign placed over the alif when the word "ay" (moon) is written in Arabic letters. The eyebrow above the moon-face thus stands like the madda over the word "moon"; this explanation is our own reading. These comparisons with letters and suras, fitting the pen of a madrasa teacher, return in Vâzıh's sixteenth ghazal with the phrases "sūre-i Kāfir" and "tefsīr-i ‘uyūn".

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1922-1984 (text of the poem: pp. 1932-1933; Mustafa Vâzıh, Dîvânçe, Ankara University, Department of Manuscripts, Mustafa Con A 495/III, fol. 59b). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Giyasi Babaarslan, "Amasyalı Vâzıh ve Dîvânçesi", Akademik Dil ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 5(4), 2021, pp. 1924-1930 (life and description of the Dîvânçe). https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/akaded/article/993264
  • Fatma Özçakmak, "Mustafa Vâzıh Efendi ve Dîvânçe'si", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 7(26), 2021, pp. 255-278, p. 270.

Online sources