Original Ottoman Turkish Text

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

O tāze sūre-i Yūsuf oḳur bir ṭıfl-ı mektebdir
Ḥarīm-i dīde-i ‘āşıḳ aña meydān-ı mel‘abdır
Hemīşe bir meh-i tābān temekkünden degil ḫālī
Derūn-ı şeb-nümūnum gūyiyā bir çāh-ı Naḫşebdir
Ben ol āşüfte-i zülfem n’ola ḫāl-i lebin öpsem
Mizāḥ-ı ṭab‘-ı sevdāya şekerli ḳahve ensebdir
Bu ṣafvetle bu riḳḳatle o ruḫsār ile o kākül
Ḳoyulmuş şīşe-i billūra bir a‘lā mürekkebdir
Ser-i sevdā-yı zülfümle perīşāndır diyü Vāżıḥ
Te’essüf-ḫᵛār olma ḫāṭır-ı ‘āṭır muṭayyebdir

In English

1. He is a fresh schoolchild reciting the sura of Joseph; the sanctum of the lover's eye is his playground.

2. My night-like heart is never empty of a shining moon settling within it; it is as though it were the well of Nakhshab.

3. I am the one distraught by that lock; what if I kissed the mole on his lip; sweetened coffee is most suited to a melancholy temper.

4. With this purity, this delicacy, that cheek and that lock, he is the finest ink poured into a crystal bottle.

5. O Vâzıh, do not grieve, saying "(The heart) is distraught with longing for my lock"; the fragrant mind is perfumed (by the scent of that lock). (The couplet can be read in two ways; the one who says "my lock" may be the beloved or the poet.)

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

This five-couplet ghazal is written in the hezec pattern "mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün mefā‘īlün". The redif (refrain word) is the suffix "-dir"; the rhyme is the "-eb" of "mekteb, mel‘ab, Naḫşeb, enseb, mürekkeb, muṭayyeb". The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet. To whom it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first couplet draws the beloved as a schoolchild reciting the sura of Joseph. Joseph is the model of beauty in the Qur'an and in divan poetry; the sura the beloved recites also points to his own beauty. The image of the school also appears in Vâzıh's ninth and sixteenth ghazals. The second couplet rests on the familiar divan theme of the "well of Nakhshab", in which a moon is said to rise by night from a well at Nakhshab. The poet says that there is always a moon in his darkness, that is, that the image of the beloved never leaves his heart, by likening it to this well.

The third couplet is built in the language of old medicine. "Sevdā" means both love and black bile, one of the four humours. The poet says that sweetened coffee will do good to his melancholy temper: the black mole is the coffee, the lip the sugar. In his fifth ghazal too Vâzıh joins mole and lip as coffee and sweet. The fourth couplet is a comparison from the world of calligraphy: the white cheek is a crystal bottle, and the black lock the ink in that bottle. Whose voice speaks the last couplet is not fully clear; "my lock" may belong to the beloved or may point to the poet's own lock. These images from school, medicine and calligraphy are, as Babaarslan notes, the work of a poet well versed in the themes of divan poetry.

Bibliography

Online sources