Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilātün / fe‘ilün

Didim aña ne ḳaçarsıñ gel [ey] āhū-yı Ḫıṭā
Didi bizimkisi böyle ḳaçar artıḳ arama
Didim ol dīde-i bīmārlarıñ nergis mi
Çeşm-i nāzın süzerek didi baña ol şeh lā
Bir ẓarāfet ile cāmı ele al taṭyīb it
Reşk-i la‘liñle biraz acısı vardır cānā
Maraż-ı ra‘şe getirmiş ġam-ı ḳaddiñle begim
Geçirir ‘ömrini lerziş ile serv-i bālā
Yine bir ‘aşḳ-ı nigār-ı neve oldum ser düş
Ola kim ḫayr ide encāmını Vāżıḥ Mevlā

In English

1. I said to the beloved: why do you run away, come, O gazelle of Khitai (Hıtâ). The beloved said: ours runs away like this, stop searching.

2. I said: are those languid eyes of yours a narcissus. Narrowing those coquettish eyes, that king said to me "lā" (no). The answer also says that the eyes are "şehlā" (dark grey-blue).

3. Take the cup with grace and make it pleasant; out of envy for the ruby of your lips it has a little bitterness, my dear.

4. My lord, grief for your stature has brought on a trembling sickness; the tall cypress spends its life shaking.

5. Again I have fallen head over heels for a new beauty; may the Lord make Vâzıh's end a good one.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal has five couplets in the remel pattern "fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün". It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme rests on the "ā" of "Ḫıṭā, lā, cānā, bālā, Mevlā". In the opening couplet, whose second line ends in "arama", the rhyme sound is completed only by the ear. The word "[ey]" in the first line was added by the editor in square brackets for the sake of the metre. It is not known for whom the poem was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The first two couplets form a small dialogue built on "I said... the beloved said". The lover asks, and the beloved answers briefly and playfully. This question-and-answer pattern illustrates well what Babaarslan means when he calls Vâzıh a follower of Nedîm, that is, a poet close to Nedîm's playful manner and his use of spoken language. In the first couplet the beloved is compared to a gazelle of Khitai, the land held to be the home of the musk deer, and the gazelle's flight is the beloved's flight from the lover. The reply "ours runs away like this" brings the ease of everyday speech into the poem.

The second couplet is the most skilful passage of the ghazal. The lover asks whether the beloved's languid eyes are like the narcissus; narrowing the eyes, the beloved says "şeh lā". Babaarslan draws attention to the figure of îhâm (double meaning) in this phrase: "lā" is Arabic for "no", but together with "şeh" it reads as "şehlā", the word for a dark eye colour between hazel and blue. The beloved both rejects the comparison and declares the eyes to be şehlā. In the third couplet the bitterness of wine is explained by its envy of the beloved's ruby lips; in the fourth the swaying of the cypress in the wind is presented as a trembling sickness caused by envy of the beloved's stature. Both are examples of hüsn-i ta‘lil, the poetic invention of a fanciful cause in place of the real one. In the last couplet the poet confesses that he has fallen into a new love and prays that its end may be good. We give the phrase "ser düş" in the first line as the edition reads it; it can be understood as "fallen head over heels".

Bibliography

Online sources