Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mef‘ūlü / fā‘ilātü / mefā‘īlü / fā‘ilün

Pāyıñ tozı diyü telef itdik bu cānımız
Kīmyā diyü hebālara virdik olanımız
Ey dil ġam öldürür bizi cān vir şarāb al
Amān ‘ināyet eyle ṣatun al ḳanımız
Ol bī-amān ġamze-i ḫūn-rīz-i cānsitān
Billāh kesdi dūstum artıḳ emānımız
Eşkim aḳındısı reh-i kūyuñı gösterir
Ka‘be yolını bulmaġa var kehkeşānımız
Al al diyü geldi bugün baña Vāżıḥā
Bir būse virdi lebden o ġonce-dehānımız

In English

1. We wasted our very soul calling it the dust of your feet; taking it for the elixir (the substance that turns copper into gold), we gave all we had to the motes in the air.

2. O heart, grief will kill us; give your soul and buy wine. Please, be gracious and buy our blood (let us trade it for wine).

3. Because of that merciless, blood-shedding, soul-taking glance, by God, my friend, no quarter is left to us any more.

4. The stream of my tears shows the way to your street; to find the road to the Kaaba we too have a Milky Way.

5. O Vâzıh, today that rosebud-mouthed beloved of ours came to me saying "take, take" and gave me a kiss from the lips.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets and is written in the muzari pattern of aruz (quantitative metre), "mef‘ūlü fā‘ilātü mefā‘īlü fā‘ilün". According to Babaarslan's table this pattern is used in seven ghazals of the Dîvânçe. The rhyme is the "-ān" sound of "cān, olan, ḳan, emān, kehkeşān, dehān", and the suffix "-ımız" (our) that follows it in every couplet forms a suffix redif (refrain word). Since the ghazals in the manuscript are ordered by their final letter, this poem, which ends with ze, the last letter of the suffix "-ımız", is the only ghazal listed under ze in Babaarslan's count of letters. The pen name (mahlas) appears in the last couplet in the vocative form "Vāżıḥā". To whom and when it was written is not known.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The central idea of the poem is the lover spending his life and goods for the beloved without a second thought. The first couplet expresses this through two precious kinds of dust: the dust of the beloved's feet and the elixir sought by the alchemists. The word "hebā" means both the mote seen in a sunbeam and "going to waste"; the lover took one dust for the elixir and gave what he had to dust again. In the second couplet the poet addresses his heart and advises it to trade the soul for wine rather than die of grief. The old likeness between blood and wine is drawn here in the language of buying and selling. The couplet can be read in two ways: the one who buys the blood may be the tavern keeper or the beloved; in both readings the lover has nothing left to give but his life and his blood.

In the third couplet the glance is described with the attributes of an executioner who grants no mercy, and the phrase "emān kesmek" (to cut off quarter) fits the image of the glance as a cutting weapon. The image in the fourth couplet is the finest invention of the ghazal: the lover's tears draw a path towards the beloved's street, and this shining trail is compared to the Milky Way in the sky. Because the beloved's door is made equal to the Kaaba, the path of tears becomes a pilgrim road. In the last couplet the words "al al" mean both "take, take" and recall the red (al) colour of the lips; we record this second meaning as our own observation. The playful, Nedîm-like manner that Babaarslan finds in Vâzıh is clearly seen in the easy and cheerful close of this couplet.

Bibliography

Online sources